Anything else I should check?
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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you can sometimes use these as a stud finder, depends on the wall
If you ever do electronics repair and are good at soldering these are a lifesaver for quick diagnosis if the resolution is high enough. Look at the board, apply power, and the part that is shorting out will often quickly get stupid hot. Sometimes it will be a complex repair you can’t easily do like a bga chip but you’d be surprised how often it’s just a random capacitor that went bad in your phone or switch or whatever and swapping it out (or even just getting rid of it if it’s an extra filter) fixes the issue. The hard part is finding out the value bc there are never schematics
A less easy to use alternative to this that I use bc thermal cams are expensive is squirt isopropyl alcohol or flux on the board and apply power. It’ll boil at the point where the part is shorting. Harder to determine but much cheaper. If you already have the camera though
My go to is to upside-down spray canned air at the PCB. once the canned air boils off, it leaves a layer of frost and you can immediately tell what is hot because it melts the frost.
That’s a good one, I will add that to the repertoire
My house is entirely made out of brick, I doubt it'll be very effective here but I'll definitely check
I don’t think a brick house has studs
This was an educational rabbit hole to go down.
It seems not all brick houses have wall studs, but most do.
It makes sense to me to have studs to help run utilities (electrical, air ducts, etc) and for hanging drywall.
Never seen a brick house that has studs around here. Most houses around here are built like this:
Concrete floors/ceilings, bricks in between, utilities get carved into the brickwall and are covered when the inside plaster is applied. The inside plaster is usually made up from two or three layers and is around 3cm thick.
What country is that?
Germany.
Unfortunately I can’t see the image. But I understand what you’re saying.
Oh, right, have some JPEG then:
Studs, in the UK at least, create a gap between the brick wall and the plasterboard this is often filled with insulation and it's where electrical cables and pipework can run.
The insulation is usually applied on the outside of the building so the protected volume is more homogeneous, avoiding cold bridges where walls/ceilings join, cause that's where mould tends to grow
In all the new build houses I've worked on the insulation is on the inside, in the UK at least. Though it's been at least 10 years since I've been on site.
Also usually external insulation is quite visible and I still see lots of domestic properties with bare external brickwork.
That's interesting. In Germany and Belgium many renovations involve putting insulation (PUR blocks often) on outside of the building and also for new buildings it's usually outside insulated and then an outside layer that protects the insulation. Inside insulation happens, but it's considered less good than outside, because of leaks and they say outside insulating helps the bricks/concrete "save" the heat like a battery when they are part of the protected volume instead of outside of it.
https://www.bonner-energie-agentur.de/fileadmin/_processed_/f/2/csm_AdobeStock_132638304_schulzfoto_M_152a598f94.jpg
In newer houses yes. In older ones... Well let's just say I'm getting tired of carving channels into solid red brick whenever I do electrics.