raratt
Well-Known Member
110 hertz, 220 twice as much.My wife half-jokingly, likes to occasionally remind me that I made a whole career out of a single really bad decision when I was 14 to fix my garage sale 1978 Euro-wired television power adapter with two stacks of pennies to sandwich the plug in place. The adapter had so much play that the slightest wire movent would cause the TV to turn off. Thankfully I was *smart enough to insulate the pennies with electrical tape, but yeah it was still a little bit on the 'sus' side as my kid would say. However that damned TV didn't die, I mean at least I don't think so. I RE-SOLD it at a garage sale in 2001 to a vintage electronics enthusiast for $50, electrical tape penny wedge and all. Considering my mom paid $150 at a garage sale for it in 1988, I call it a win.
When I was in IT, there was a period of time I had no less than 25 and as many as 100 screens in my office (now studio.) About half of them would be on my desk for repair, the other half would be slated to go out as replacements. I've had <thinks deeply> 6 personal screens die, all due to the same reason as most the work Dell screens, board failure due to very cheap capacitors. The capacitors that don't short out something else when they go, can sometimes be replaced for less than a quarter. (Price, not wedigng tool.) If they take other parts of the board with them, most boards can be purchased for between $25 - $100. My oldest flat screen was 15 years old before it puffed a bit of smoke out of the power supply, which was no longer being made, but it was beyond time to upgrade to 4k.
I have a 10" rule, unless the newest model TV is 10" bigger and also has upgraded tech for the same price or lower than I paid for my existing TV, it's worth dropping the $75 - $100 for a new board and the 30 minutes or so it takes to replace it. 1080p to 4k was a reason to toss a dead TV. Going from 40" - 55" was a reason to toss a dead TV. The next 'rationalization' reason will be upgrading to something above a 60hz refresh rate for next-gen video game systems. They are really easy to repair with nothing more than 2 screw drivers, usually 1.
Depending on your needs, time, tech skill and patience, about year 3 of your new TV look up how to replace the system boards for your model on youtube and bookmark a link on where to get the OEM boards before it dies. Most screens have 3-6 boards in them, generally a power board, system board, color board, an Input/Output board if it's not on the system board, and maybe a secondary power distribution board, possibly a Wifi network card if it's not a chip on the board. They're usually just screwed into the back of the shell and are crazy simple to find, connected by rarely more than 2-3 wires. The ones I've had fail the most were the power boards, usually the 5v connection that tells the TV if it's on or off. Next up would be the color boards, they crap out too. There are several Youtubers who have instructions as well as links or direct sales of OEM boards. My favorite for years was a kid named TampaTech, not sure if he's still around, if not I'm sure there's another one that's popped up.
When running electrical for the renovation of the living-room, I had my 13 year old daughter come and wire up the TV and entertainment center junctions so she would have at least some experience with electrical wiring, since she's not nearly as crazy experimental as I was with electronics. She doesn't know a time when Dad was repairing electronics all day and only remembers me as a musician, composer, producer. So she was dubious of my knowledge, my wife laughed, "You're dad made a whole career out of potentially burning down just about every residence he had, including your mom's first apartment. All with his first ever TV fix. He's got knowledge based on years of bad decisions."
Mornin.
