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So this summer my 42in Phillips LCD TV's picture went out but it still had sound. This had happened before about year or 2 ago and the repair shop charged me like $280 to fix it and it took like 2 weeks. That shop had since disappeared so I took it to different shop. I should have known when I took it to the shop that I was taking it to the wrong place. The ENTIRE FLOOR was covered in broken TVs and other electronics. There was barely a path to walk from the front door to the back desk were the shop worker stayed. Duhh. Like an idiot I had them try to fix it anyway.

So last week, like 6 months later I go to the shop to pick up my TV, (because I hadn't heard anything and had already replaced it anyway) and just as I expected, it setting in the same place I left it when I first dropped it off. So I grabbed it, got my $75 deposit back, and took it home.

Knowing what the problem was due to it being the exact same behavior as the first time the TV went out, I looked up on the internet what I could do to fix it my self. I have no background TV repair but am just a natural tinkerer. So as I all ready suspected, all signs pointed to this being an issue with the "Inverter Board".

"What the hell!" I decided to try to take apart my TV and fix it myself. I found that my TV has 2 inverter boards, 1 master and 1 slave, and there was what seemed to be a burnt out pin on one of the little chip pieces on the master board. AHH HAA!!! That must be it right. Hell I dont know... Make sense to me! LOL I sure will give it a try!

After disassembling the TV, I realized how bad I got ripped off the first time I sent the TV in for repair. All I needed was a screwdriver (a smaller phillips head and a couple of smaller torx bits) to remove the back cover and each little component simply unscrews from the frame and disconnects via various easy wire couplings. Simply remove and replace. Plug and play...

I found a place on line that sells the parts (www.shopjimmy.com) to check to see if I can even find the parts to replace them... Shopjimmy has A LOT OF STUFF! They have part on top of parts. They even have a list of part that you can use to substitute if you cant find the one you need! So I ordered my part (a substitute part # BTW) for $84 and I should be getting the part today!

This was my inspiration for starting this forum. A place where we can get to gether and help each other solve problems with out having to pay 3 or 4 times as much as what we would if we just did it ourselves. It was by no means difficult to breakdown my TV to the necessary level to replace the parts the need replacing. In fact, I broke it down probably 2 levels further than I needed. But I learned the anatomy of my TV by breaking it down and cross referencing the actual parts and the pictures of parts on shopjimmy.com

when I do the actual reassembly tonight I will take pictures of the process and post them and let you know how it all turned out!

This stuff is too simple for us to pay full price anymore. So I say lets put our heads together, help each other out, and find a better cheaper way!

Well, congrats on the repair.

I've been fixing computer monitors for a while now. Generally the power boards blow a capacitor, and since they're single layer PCB, you can just desolder it and slap a new one from Radio Shack back in. Total time spent about a hour. Total cost about $2.00

Having that been said, I think there are full-time forums dedicated to electronics repair that would probably be better places for this.

 daedalus wrote:
Well, congrats on the repair.

Having that been said, I think there are full-time forums dedicated to electronics repair that would probably be better places for this.

You are sure correct about that, but this was intended to help out the Dakka Community. There are full time boards for all the threads in the "Off Topic" board. So why should this be any different?

So on to your repair... Nice job! how often do you do this. I'm no wiz with a soldering gun/iron but is that something you can show us how to do?

Unfortunately I was unable to take pictures of the repair process (due the kids, 5 & 3, wanting to help me fix it) but it went swimmingly! no my TV is fully functional again. I will attempt to remove the back cover tonight so I can take the pictures AFTER my kids go to bed! This was way too easy. about as easy as switching out your video card in your computer but without the driver instalation. It kinda makes me want to start looking for broken TVs on ebay to see if I can fix'em and flip'em

I've done about four monitors so far. Generally, I pick them up from ebay or mom-and-pop repair stores for 10-20 bucks a piece, and then keep them or give them out to friends/family. I haven't done any for a while though.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable writing a tutorial on how to solder. It kind of falls into the "don't do this at home" category as you can really hurt yourself doing it. I've burned the hell out of myself being careless, and one time I almost managed to flick solder into my eye.

Plus, I'm not THAT good at it.


At any rate though, the general premise is to look for any capacitors that are bulging outwards, and write down the voltage and amperage written on the side, and then pick up some replacements. When you actually remove the old one, make a note of their orientation (one of the sides of it usually has a line that runs the entire length down the capacitor, the lead on that side is positive or negative as marked). If you install it backwards, it won't work properly, and could potentially damage other things. Then just remove it and solder the new one back in place.

This usually won't work for multilayer PCB like a computer motherboard, or the actual video controller board on the monitor, but for the power control/inverter board that handles the "dirtier" power, it's generally successful.

I was gifted a broken 73" Mitsubishi HDTV. It's a projector, I think the term is DLP, either way I'd seen it when it was working and I knew it was an incredible tv. So my father in law gives it to me because he's moving and it didn't work anyway, sound but crap picture. I looked around and found a lamp for it. 4 screws and $75 later, I now have the biggest HDTV in the nieghborhood!

See! now this is exactly what I'm talking about! Great job!, I had a 52" JVC DLNA (like DPL) TV that need a replacement bulb too. The only difference was that the replacements cost about $120. but its still cheaper than buying a new TV or having someone else fix it.

Same thing with cars.. a while back I needed new brakes on my Honda Element. Dealer wanted around $300 to install them. I said aw hell no, went to autozone and bought the brakes I needed for $40, my cousin came over and helped me plug em in since i'm a noob, took about an hour tops.

Same concept yes! But I would like to keep it in the home theater realm though. Good job anyway!