> In any case, I'd love to hear people's experiences with finding shorts/de=
fective
> components and suggestions about tools to isolate
> (usually) a defective component.

Many years ago I built an 8086 SDK kit, and applied 5V before plugging the =
'expensive' chips in, only to find the power supply went into shut down bec=
ause one of the 100nF bypass capacitors was a short circuit out of the box.=
=20

I guessed it was a cap gone short, so with the power applied (I seem to rem=
ember reducing the current limit to a 'safe' value) I measured the voltage =
across each cap in turn, and clipped out the one with lowest voltage, at wh=
ich point there was no more short circuit.

You don't say if your regulator will continue to supply current, or fold ba=
ck, but a 5 or 6 digit DVM should give enough of an indication of the lowes=
t voltage point to make a pretty good guess as to the component or cause of=
 the short.
--=20
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--=20
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