One of my cherished Happy Nerding 3X-MIA modules stopped working. It wasn’t even patched at the time, but I noticed the LEDs weren’t responding to the knobs. I removed it from the main case and put it into my test rack with the Joranalogue TEST 3, so I could monitor the current and check it out. When I powered up the test rack, smoke issued! One of the chips had burned. Don’t know why it didn’t burn when it was in the main case.

It is rare for an integrated circuit chip to simply blow. Sometimes they degrade over time, possibly due to static electricity exposure.

I reported this to Happy Nerding and then went ahead with a repair. The ICs are marked N5532A, but all I could find online was the NE5532A datasheet. This confirmed it has the same pinout as a TL072. I happened to have some TL082 chips in the same package, so I substituted. I mistakenly damaged the chip next to it while removing, so I had to replace both.

I powered up the module with the two chips removed and verified that the other two sections of the 3X-MIA were working.

The module is fixed!