DIY TV repairs?

[DaveReading]

The conventional wisdom nowadays seems to be that, unless you've paid a lot for a TV or it's still under warranty, when it goes wrong it's probably time for a new one.

Ours is in neither of the above categories, having been passed on to us by no2 son when he moved abroad and obviously wasn't going to take it with him.

So when it started to exhibit vertical shadows on the screen a few weeks ago (one initially, but more recently up to four) my wife's reaction was "well we didn't pay anything for it, we'll buy a new one".

Happily, it wouldn't fit in her car to take to the dump, so I decided there was nothing to lose by trying to fix it. With lots of help from YouTube and various AV forums, the diagnosis was failing backlight LEDs (it's too old to be an OLED, but still a pretty good picture and sound).

New backlights came to £24, with the only other expense being a couple of big suction pads for the somewhat scary task of lifting a 50" LCD panel off the chassis to get at the offending LEDs without cracking it.

Partially reassembled the set, plugged it in (without any signal sources) and the screensaver images came up without any dark shadows. Success (or so I thought!).

Buttoned up all the remaining bits, put the back on, plugged in the sat receiver - sound from every channel, but no picture at all! Lots of swearing ensued, but then the screen came to life doing a pale impression of my clan tartan with horizontal and vertical lines everywhere.

A couple of beers later, and some more googling and asking AI, the conclusion was that the T-Con (timing control) board had expired. The good news was that a new one of those is relatively cheap, and I sourced one for £30 on eBay.

Still waiting for it to arrive, but I thought my experiences might be of interest to anyone who is in a similar situation. The wife is still rather hoping for a new TV.

 

[Dogtrousers]

So you've converted it, at the cost of £24, from a TV with vertical shadows on the screen to a TV with horizontal and vertical lines everywhere.

So far I don't think this qualifies as "repair". It's a transformation, but not necessarily a good one.

Lets hope that things take a turn towards "repair" in the next installment.

My money is on your wife getting a new TV sooner rather than later.

 

[Dadam]

Kudos for trying to do the right thing environmentally, but your total costs are currently £54 + whatever the suction pads cost + your time. Also with no guarantee that the t-con board will fix it.

I wish you well but will be waiting for the next installment before making final judgement. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. Was it a really good quality TV to start with?

 

[DaveReading]

Kudos for trying to do the right thing environmentally, but your total costs are currently £54 + whatever the suction pads cost + your time. Also with no guarantee that the t-con board will fix it.

I wish you well but will be waiting for the next installment before making final judgement. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. Was it a really good quality TV to start with?

Can't argue with any of the above. I knew from the start that I might not be successful, but I'm retired so my time is free-ish and it's been an educational exercise at relatively little cost.

And yes, I believe my son paid about £700 for it, so it's by no means a bargain-basement model and if I can fix it I'll be perfectly happy to watch it for another few years.

My wife wants another LG - she may get her way, but I'm put off by reports about how buggy their current OS is.

 

[Venod]

I repaired my sons LG TV by renewing a couple of LED strips, sourced from China, its still going strong after a couple of years, I didn't bother with the suction pads, but it was a bottom twitching moment lifting the LCD panel.

 

[Profpointy]

Back in the day our rented flat had a dodgy old TV which worked poorly. The picture was on the slant on one rather practically minded visitor fixed it by twisting the magnets round on the back of the tube. The back was open anyway as it needed a wooden spoon shoved in it to force a dry joint to contact a bit better. One of the colours was shot, but I managed
to make this bearable by fiddling with all the internal adjuster pots so the remaining two colours were better balanced for two-colour operation. Some while later we got an arsey letter from a TV rental company addressed to someone we'd never heard of complaining we hadn't paid the rental for several years. We rather hoped they'd come and repossess it but they never did.

Many years later my then new girlfriend's (now wife) large screen TV had some faults on the joints in the scart connectors. To prove my manly practicly skills I resoldered these onto the main board. I only later realised why she was not as impressed with my prowess as I'd hoped as she'd been given this enormous CRT TV as a hand me down by her brother in law and was looking for an excuse to get rid of it and get something smaller that didn't need two people to move.

 

[Webbo2]

Some friends of hours bought television from John Lewis however it kept turning its self on even though they were not in room at the time. So they contacted John Lewis who just delivered a new tv but didn‘t take the dodgy one a way.
So they offered it to my daughter who had it for 3 years and it never turned its self on and it was still working fine until the army removal services dropped it.

 

[CXRAndy]

I used to be a TV repairman when younger. After over a decade in the business self employed, I put a sign in the window on Christmas eve, saying I was closing. My turnover had gradually dwindled due to Asda selling cheaper goods than I was repairing them for.

Upside, repairing TVs allowed my to buy a premises with rental above. A few years later I moved into the property business-never looked back.

Note All my competitors and friends in the trade struggled on for another 5 or so years, eventually all closed down. Only one had the similar situation owning his property. He has made a successful transition to IT....

There are some very talented technicians still around, but are rare as hens teeth

Well done for having a go on repairs

 

[fossyant]

Get a LG OLED and be done with it. Simples. Only changed our Samsung as it developed numerous bright spots. One spot was fine, but not five.

We have one and its great. The OS is fine and fast.

 

[palinurus]

When I was growing up our next door neighbour was this radio ham guy who was also involved in amateur television (this was a thing- still is). He would earn money for this activity by fixing radios and TVs informally- he didn't have a business as such, and neither did he have a telephone* so I'd pick up the phone and it'd be someone after getting their TV looked at and I'd go next door, ring the bell and see if he was around etc.

*he was pretty reachable by radio I suppose but this would not have suited his customer base.

 

[DaveReading]

Get a LG OLED and be done with it. Simples.

I would if I had a spare £800 kicking around.

Actually, no I wouldn't, I'd put it towards a new bike.

 

[Dogtrousers]

In the early 80s when I was a student, there were three lovely female students we knew who shared a flat. In that flat was a gigantic old B&W telly that didn't work. Me and my mate took the back off it, noted that one of the big valvy things didn't glow when you switched it on, while all the others did, removed said valvy thing (probably at extreme risk of electrocution) and hot-footed it to an electrical repair shop run by a grumpy old man in a lab coat. He sold us a replacement for mere pennies, we fitted it and bingo! A working telly!

You would have thought that this heroic bit of TV mending would have somehow bought the favour of the lovely ladies. But sadly no. We did, however, get asked back to the flat when other things needed mending.

 

[fossyant]

I would if I had a spare £800 kicking around.

Actually, no I wouldn't, I'd put it towards a new bike.

The Mrs has other ideas.

 

[Electric_Andy]

funny this should pop up now. I watched a FB vid last night of a guy who got a free 65" OLED off marketplace. He bought a new motherboard (which after some research seem to be between 30 and 80 pounds sterling). I guess with these things there is a trade-off between saving money, and the possibility that it might take 2 weeks and a hundred quid just to end up with a broken tv again. which with my luck would probably be the outcome

 

[stephec]

Some friends of hours bought television from John Lewis however it kept turning its self on even though they were not in room at the time. So they contacted John Lewis who just delivered a new tv but didn‘t take the dodgy one a way.
So they offered it to my daughter who had it for 3 years and it never turned its self on and it was still working fine until the army removal services dropped it.

Poltergeist?