Ah! The smell of burning electronics.

Posted on by Steve Chippy Paine

It looks like this test is over now. The TabletKiosk MP3400 blew up on me.

This morning, everything was going well. The MP3400 was charging well from the Sunlinq…

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…but later in the day, when I was charging the Q1 Ultra from the MP3400, it all went wrong. The MP3400 overheated in a big way…

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I had left the Q1 Ultra connected to the MP3400 in the boot/trunk of the car while I went out to pick up some beer and when I came back the unit was incredibly hot. When I took it out of it’s case, it was clear that it had overheated as the plastic on the inside of the case had melted onto the battery. Part of the grille had melted too.

I left it to cool for 20 minutes and it looked like it was working again but it didn’t last long. Its completely dead now. No lights, nothing!

Lesson learned. Don’t try and use the MP3400 in 32 degrees heat inside the protective case, inside the boot of a car.

Fortunately the Q1 Ultra is still working although i’m down to 60 minutes battery now. There’s no way to charge it up until I get home on Saturday evening. Here ends another Solar-UMPC test. Now where’s that beer I bought….

6 thoughts on “Ah! The smell of burning electronics.”

  2. Hey! dude at least you got your priorities right and got the beer first.

    You can at least console yourself in amber necter merriment :-)

    On the other hand think how thing might have turned out if you’d been able to plug the Q1U directly in to the Sunlinq.

  3. So the culpret was the hot day & the extra internal heat of your car? Did your current solar setup work good other wise? Or did your current solar setup contribute to the melt down?

  4. It had nothing to do with the solar component.
    I was simply charging the Q1 Ultra from the MP3400 and it overheated. Nothing else was connected at the time.

    I’m guessing ambient temp in the boot of the car was about 35 centigrade and the MP3400 was in its case so it was simply an overheating problem.

    The second problem is that it seems to have killed the charging circuit on the Q1 Ultra. Batteries don’t appear to be charging at all (although the Q1 Ultra will run driect from mains)

    I’ll be contacting Tekkeon to see if this is a one-off issue.

    Steve.

  5. Sorry to hear about the demise of your MP3400.

    If you decide to continue using the 3400 or a 3450, take a look at the Tekkeon Smart 3-pin Solar adapter (US$12). A Tekkeon technician said that it’s more efficient than using the DC-in port.

    I’ll be testing the adapter with a 3450 and a 20w panel next week. Hope it works.

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