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Unpopular opinion: that 'no smoke no fire' philosophy on Garmin 430s is going to cost someone a plane
Had an intermittent display flicker on a 430W last Tuesday during a run-up, took it apart and found a cold solder joint on the power rail that would have never shown up if I just waited for visible smoke before pulling the unit.
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the_ben17d agoTop Commenter
Found a flickering power supply fan in my home office computer last month that had been running rough for weeks... same kind of thinking, just waited for it to die completely instead of catching it early. That whole "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mindset works great until something fails at the worst possible moment, like on climbout over downtown. We treat electronics like they're magic until the smoke comes out, but by then you've already lost the maintainability game.
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angelac6317d ago
That whole mentality seems to be everywhere now with all kinds of stuff, not just electronics. People wait until their car makes a terrible noise to check the oil, or ignore a weird smell from the fridge until it stops cooling entirely. Catching a small problem before it snowballs into a big expensive one is just smarter, but it takes a lot more active thinking than waiting for the magic smoke to escape.
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