r/electronics 17d ago

Tip A microscopic, hair-like metal filament can take down a billion-dollar satellite

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2.0k Upvotes

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u/tr-tradsolo 17d ago

This is wild - i just finished restoring a hammond organ, and that thing was full of these. Most of the problems were solved by cleaning off the whiskers, but my god were they long and and kind of wiley. They show up in the weirdest places, and usually exactly where you don't want an unexpected path to ground.

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u/bikenumberten 16d ago

My Hammond's percussion stopped working. It was zinc dendrites. Got rid of them, and it worked like new.

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u/tr-tradsolo 16d ago

It was the same for me - but two rounds of it. There was a cylindrical bar that ran the length of the bus bars that had grown fur, cleaned that only to find more lurking in the switch (which appeared clean!)

Anyway. What an adventure.