Watson A.Name \"Watt Sun - the Dark Remover\" wrote:



The resistor should never have been run at that close to its maximum
dissipation to begin with. That's a lack of what they call a
conservative design.

That's exactly right-and this story about "it worked right during
production testing" points up the fact that the price you pay for
misapplying a component is extended in-house testing designed at a
higher skill level than the usual application engineer possesses.