What is it?
This is the description applied when the control board has suffered serious burn damage.
Unfortunately it is not a part of a traditional full English breakfast.
What happens?
Initially, the gate stops working, which may be accompanied with the smell of burning or the throwing of the circuit breaker or trip at the electrical distribution box.
Usually, this is caused when a slug, snail or insect has glided across the control board and shorted it out.
Any gardeners reading this will be pleased to know that it usually kills the slug or snail in question.
Those of you who hate creepy crawlies will be assured that this is also normally fatal for the insect or spider involved.
It can also occur as a consequence of a power surge in the system, where excessively high voltage overloads the connections.
In either case the control panel will suffer terminal electrical damage and have to be replaced.
What can be done?
As the control board is a printed circuit panel, which is almost impossible to repair cost effectively, the only option is to replace the entire assembly.
However, before completing this, it is vital that the system is fully checked for any power surge issues, as the control panel failure may only have been consequential.
Fitting a new control board without testing may result in it being fried too, a very expensive approach to fault diagnosis.
All gate engineers know of other people who have permanently damaged a brand new control board as they did not fix the root cause of the problem.
Be assured that no gate engineer will ever admit to having done this themselves !
Why do it?
When the control board is ‘fried’ in this manner, the gate stops working and subsequently reduces the security of the site.
To get the gates back up and operational, a new control panel has to be fitted.