On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 00:56:56 -0600, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

On 3/5/2017 11:58 PM, rickman wrote:

Seems to me it would be a *great* tool for finding where the
currents are going. I thought that would be a good thing?

It is. But some people have difficulty accepting anything more
complicated than a light bulb, or more expensive than a pack of
cigarettes.

It's not hard to figure where current is going: just measure voltage
drops. What's sometimes difficult is quantifying it.

Just now we're laying out a 10-layer board with two ground planes and
three power planes. There are 22 power supplies. Most of the power
distribution will be interestingly-shaped interleaved pours, not
traces, on various layers.

That magnetic gadget would be hopelessly confused. Multiple currents
and various return paths would make it useless.

My favorite tool for tracing unusual current flows is my Flir E45
thermal imager. It cost $12,000.

We just demoed a cool new thermal imager, mounted on a nice little
stand, with its own display and also USB interfaced for pics or
movies. They're going to let us keep it.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics