Browning Trail Camera Recon Force Failures
Gideon received several Browning BTC-7-4K-Edge cameras from the field. The cameras were dead on arrival. The objective was to find the cause of failure.
There was no external physical damage to any cameras
The batteries were replaced with new ones. The camera did not turn on; however, when it was disassembled, the full voltage resided at the solder joints of the printed circuit board.
Inside cover with details
The battery connection is in the lower left corner.
This photo shows the PCB markings.
Both the motherboard and this daughter board show significant corrosion.
Corrosion on the daughter board.
Corrosion on the terminal causing a significant leakage path.
The positive battery terminal has corrosion all around it, including the screw.
This is incredibly sloppy soldering using the wrong flux with many IPC-610 violations of acceptability.
There is so much corrosion that even their test points were corroded, as well as a bank of SM resistors from terminal to terminal.
This onboard battery corroded not only the electrical components but also left a residue on the board, which aided in the leakage path and caused the batteries, when the camera did work, to last two weeks.
Corrosion
Conclusions
- Electrical characterization showed many resistors were shorted due to corrosion across the terminals.
- The camera maker did not adequately protect the PCB by applying a conformal coating, nor did they use a proper flux such that no leakage current from component to component would flow during operation. Flux cannot have ionics or aggressive halogens.
- Because the camera maker did not take these steps, the relative humidity, coupled with a lack of standards and methods, caused these cameras to fail.
- We would not advise buying these cameras because of the manufacturer’s lack of understanding, training, or planned obsolescence. Whatever it is, the cameras need to be replaced.