How to find a short on a PCB

When I am troubleshooting new PCB's I have a unique technique for finding shorts on PCB's. I actually have to hand the credit for this technique to a business partner, Dr. Ed Kafrissen. He came up with this idea.  So let me set up a scenario for you, and then show you Ed's solution. Suppose you have a client and you need to deliver 100 PCB's to him/her quickly. You have someone stuff the boards for you, now you have to verify they work.

One of the first tests we would do is to apply power to the new PCB and bring the voltage up slowly. Perhaps without any chips installed. If the power supplies load down, then you got a problem to solve. You got a short on the PCB.

Ed came up with simple and unique solution. He would current limit a power supply to some small current, and at the rated voltage of the pcb. Ed would then hook up the PCB, which immediately loaded down the current limited supply. He would turn up the current on the supply as he felt on the PCB for a hot spot! Invariably some IC would be stuffed in backwards that our visual inspection did not find, or we would get a PCB which was not completely etched.  Alternatively, you can use a handheld IR imaging thermometer to pinpoint the hot-spot.


Anyway, that was Ed's solution to quickly find shorts on a PCB...and it worked well as long as you were careful enough to not burn yourself! Yeow!