The field complaint of the transmitter's power supply emitting smoke and sparks was not verified as the event could not be reproduced; however, there was burn damage revealed that could have been the initial cause of the smoke.The visual inspection revealed no physical damage to the outer housing of the merlin@home transmitter and no physical damage to the outer casing of the ac power adapter.The prongs were removed from the ac power adapter to inspect for damage, and a strong burnt odor was found emitting from the ac power adapter.Thus the unit was not plugged into a working ac electrical outlet.Upon opening the ac power adapter, inspection revealed that there were burnt components on both sides of the main pcb and on its¿ inner casing.Inspection of the opened transmitter revealed that there was no damage to the main pcb or to its inner housing.The original ac power adapter was replaced to test the transmitter with the ac power adapter tl# (b)(4).The unit was then plugged into a working ac electrical wall outlet and the power on function was performed successfully.The test revealed that the burnt damage to the original ac power adapter was the cause of the no power issue.As a result, we can conclude that the transmitter was hit by a high current flow through the ac wall power outlet into the ac power adapter, thus damaging its main pcb.
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