Shorting out an LED circuit - strange observation

[Astrazoic]

I have four basic circuits for my 1/350 Enterprise Refit. One is for three CCFLs. Another is for 8 steady LEDs. The third is for the colored navigation lights. The last is for four strobe lights.

During construction, I noticed on two occasions that the strobe circuit stopped working. I was pissed, but there was nothing I could do because the model was too far along. On both occasions, the circuit eventually started working again after a period of a few days.

It happened again yesterday while testing the engine lights. This time, the leads of the strobe LED touched the leads of a steady LED, apparently shorting out the strobe circuit. I hope like hell, like the last two times, the circuit resumes operation in a few days.

If it doesn't, I fried the circuit (the LEDs themselves are fine). If it does start working again, it seems that the circuit must have been overloaded, and that time is required for the charge to bleed off. The resister pot is not likely to be the place where this happens; that would be the IC chip. We'll see.

In any case, always keep an eye on the metal contacts in a circuit. I'm pretty ticked off with myself for not being more careful, and pray the damn thing begins working again on its own...

[Mr. Engineer]

Could you post pictures of the circuits or the model you're working on? I just hope its a short and although it pains the heart, you might need to rip it open and get it sorted out.

It happened to me once when I stupidly forgot to include resistors for a parallel red and green LED combination.