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I've owned a TIR4 for about 1 1/2 to 2 years. Great product! I've also had no problems in the past.

I hadn't used TIR for quite a while and decided to get it set up on my new Vista system. I installed the new software from the website, plugged in the TIR in a USB drive, set it atop my monitor and the blue and red LED turned on. I went into the TIR software to configure and noticed the device wasn't recognized. I looked up and still saw the LEDs on. I exited and restarted the program, but the software still didn't recognize the TIR hardware.

I unplugged the TIR from the USB, and went to take the sensor off the monitor to take a closer look at it, and it almost burned my fingers off! I dropped it and got a pretty good strong wiff of melting plastic.

After it cooled down a few seconds, I took a closer look at it. The back of clear plastic over the chip off the far left was bubbled, bulging, and brown. I had looked at the TIR before I started setting it up, and that sure wasn't there. The entire sensor was still very hot, but the area that was bubbled was the hottest.

I have a picture if you would like to see.

Serial number is 042591.

Any ideas what happened? I shudder to think what could have been if I had plugged it an and left the house. Has this happened to anyone else?

It sounds like something on the PCB, or the IC chip itself, shorted out.

I haven't heard of the case itself ever melting.......

What does that mean? Was the hardware faulty? Did I install software wrong or plug it in wrong? Does this happen from time to time?

Not sure of the exact cause, could have been a faulty chip, that finally failed. Could have been a power surge across the USB port, which caused the current to spike, and short out a chip. Could have been a buildup of dust, within the unit itself, which caused the board to ground itself.