>> if some parts were broken, how to identify what was broken (other than, of course, sniffing for burned smell or charred look on the PCB) To be fair, that’s

>> if some parts were broken, how to identify what was broken (other than, of course, sniffing for burned smell or charred look on the PCB) To be fair, that’s probably the correct first step in most cases. You might move on to tracing powers and grounds in the search for basic catastrophic faults, you might wipe IPA over the board and look for the bit that evaporates first (or if you’re fancy then an IR camera looking for suspect hot spots sinking excess current), but the first step on an unknown failure is probably always going to be a look and a sniff.