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TechWaTch August 2025
Tips for Troubleshooting Electronic Systems
By Aaron Dahlen, Applications Engineer, DigiKey E
ffective troubleshooting is the technician’s core com- petency. This seemingly
innate superpower to repair com- plex systems is often called “the knack.” However, troubleshoot- ing electronic systems is a skill that can be taught. In fact, it has been taught to generations of military technicians. The mili- tary has a great need for skilled technicians who can quickly re- store equipment to operational status.
Navy Troubleshooting The military has a proce-
dure for everything, including troubleshooting. The six-step procedure is outlined in the Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series (NEETS), Mod- ule 19 — The Technician’s Hand- book, NAVEDTRA 14191.
lSymptom recognition lSympton elaboration
lListing probable faulty functions lLocalizing the faulty function l Localizing trouble to the circuit lFailure analysis
Know the Equipment One must know the equip-
ment to recognize a malfunction. This can be a challenging task, as there is never enough time. Yet, it must be prioritized as ex- tended downtime will cost the company hundreds to thousands of dollars per minute. When responding to a serv-
ice call, it’s important to pause and take a moment to properly identify all the things that are wrong with the equipment. System elaboration is en-
hanced when the Standard Oper- ating Procedures (SOP) is used. For many systems, it is sufficient to run, or attempt to run, the equipment through a complete cycle. Obviously, there is no point operating past the point of
failure. This guards against the all-too-common operator and technician errors. Recall that the operator
checklist contains the site and equipment-specific preliminary setup, operating instruction, nor- mal shutdown and emergency in- structions. A rigorous and closely related example is the aircraft specific preflight checklists used by aviators and ground crew to verify that the aircraft is ready for flight.
Symptoms The components used in in-
dustrial machinery are built with troubleshooting in mind. Rudi- mentary, yet essential, indicator examples include: front panel in- dicators; indicator LEDs on the face of a PLC; indicator LEDs in- corporated in the body of field de- vices; indicator LEDs associated with a control relay; the physical position of a relay’s armature or
position of a flag; the operation of interposing relays; and the physi- cal action of field devices.
Make it a top priority to create a written SOP. The SOP is the foundation for training new personnel and reducing equipment downtime.
Once again, it’s important to
know the operation and cycles associated with a machine. With- out this critical information, you will not know where or when to look.
clude additional
Advanced machines may in- information
such as a time-stamped error log stored in the cloud or local data- base or a human machine inter- face (HMI). The utility of these logs is
directly related to the skill and imagination of the system pro- grammers and their ability to predict everything that can go wrong with a machine. While many faults may be directly de- termined from the data, there is still the need for a skilled techni- cian to properly interpret the da- ta. There is simply no substitute for a technician’s familiarity with the machine as it operates in your facility. Once we have carefully iden-
tified the symptoms, we can move to the next steps and isolate the fault to the system, and finally to the component(s). It does take time to systematically analyze the equipment’s operation. However, this is nothing
when we consider the time lost when we missed that small but critical symptom. Directed atten- tion and a methodical six-step troubleshooting process can save
time today and in the future. Contact: DigiKey, 701
Brooks Avenue, Thief River Falls, MN 56701 % 800-344-4539 E-mail:
nathan.anderson@digikey.com Web:
www.digikey.com r
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