The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Abe Froman on May 12, 2017, 01:20:38 PM
-
This happened a couple years ago... so after a lot of years on the first generation Samsung 55" flatscreen (perhaps it should be called thickscreen) it would randomly start turning off and on. Not a lot. But every once in a while.
Then.... it started getting more frequent.
So I fully expected to get a new one - and was ready to pull the trigger (even though prices have come waaaay down), when DW says hold on - let me see if I can fix it.
OK.
So I get home from work one day the following week and she has got the tv down - 2 motherboards out of the back and she is replacing a metric crapton of capacitors while wielding a soldering iron. I swear to this day she had the crazed look on her face, like Ralphie's dad going into the holiday Turkey season . While wisps of soldering smoke encircle her head I ask her - 'what if it doesn't work?' Shoulder Shrug.
Figure if it doesn't work it doesn't work. Worth a shot right?
Wouldn't you know - its been going fine since. Now its kind of fun thinking about how much that prospective $1000 TV is now doing in my VTSAX account.
Anyone reach success on some of these technical hail mary's?
-
First, well done! A wife that's up for dismantling a TV and replacing capacitors is a keeper! (for the record, I'd say the same about a husband).
Though please, don't spend $1000 on a future TV... I bought a 60" TV this past Black Friday (online... no way I'm doing that in person) For $300+tax.
Is it the best 60" TV? Probably not. Still pretty awesome and incredibly hard to beat at that price.
As for fixing things... I can't count how many times I opened my laptops/computers and replaced parts in them.
Most recent was my laptop's cooling fan which decided to die on me. My brother told me I should splurge for a new laptop (current one was ~5 years old at the time),
but instead I bought a new fan ($20 or so), installed it, modded the bios to accept the non-original fan, and been using the laptop just fine ever since! (over 6 months now)
-
I have fixed a couple TVs. Once you know what you are looking at it can be pretty easy. Unless it is obvious, I usually just replace the whole board that is giving me issues. Pretty fun troubleshooting the circuits with a multimeter and figuring out what has gone bad. A lot of YouTube videos on how to do the troubleshooting too. Plus, since the TV is already not working, there really is no harm in trying.
-
Your wife is the badass.
She not only fixed the TV (WOW), she also got YOU to post about it.
-
Badass!
-
Not as technically badass, but a vertical line or two of pixels went out (would stay purple all the time when the TV was on) from the bottom of our TV and up about a third of the way.
It was an expensive TV and I didn't welcome the idea of replacing it, so I waited. And, waited. We probably lived with it for more than a year, then one day I realized that our problem had just disappeared. Hooray for laziness--I mean patience! It is still going strong.
-
Nicely done. In 1993 I had a CRT TV go out and I took it apart to generally inspect it and see if it had any test points on it. I found that it had a blown fuse for the power board. Spent about ~$1.50 at Radio Shack and that fixed it. Since then I've replace a power board or 2 and soldered in a new capacitor or 2. It definitely pays to at least take a look and if it's beyond your capability at least you tried.
-
That's very impressive! I'd love to learn some soldering skills.
I've had somewhat similar repairs on computer monitors, not nearly so badass though. I've always spent generously on monitors - getting great deals and a lot of value out of them, so no regrets. Around six years ago, a nice Dell monitor died, googling suggested the symptoms were a capacitor failure. Ebay had replacement boards for under $50 (my wife's badassity is in other areas!). Still work that many wouldn't try I think, but simple and safe enough if you can unplug everything, work a screwdriver, and google-fu some easy instructions. Other cases were even simpler - getting replacement power bricks for my current monitors. They were a great open-box deal, but have bricks with proprietary connectors that tend to burn out after a few years. Again, research revealed a common problem and much cheaper solution than replacement or professional repair.
-
Figured out what I needed from the internet. Picked up a soldering set + capacitator from eBay. Fixed my DVD player. I probably had the same look as your wife while fixing it.
And that's awesome your wife took it upon her hands to figure out what it was and fixed it. Nothing to lose. Not like the TV is going to continue working otherwise. Your wife is a badass.
-
My wife picked up a 32" flat panel TV one of our neighbors threw out.
Because she thinks I can fix anything:-/
I let it set for a month, gotta be slow or I'll be fixing more things than I want to!
When I finally decided to test it,
it came on, I hooked up the cable, hmm, it works.
I let it run for two days, convinced it worked, I ordered
a remote for $13 from Ebay. It's been working 7 days
a week at our small business for the last 9 months.
About three months ago she brought home another TV,
Again I let it set, 2 months this time, When I turned it on, it worked, But,
the screen had been cracked, The LCD screen was all messed up with odd lines.
I checked Ebay to see if any of the PCBs in the TV were being sold, they were!
I posted three PCBs for sale on Ebay, two for $65 and one for $45. Three days later I got
an offer of $50 and $45 on two different PCBs. Rather than try to negotiate the price
and possibly lose a sale I sold them both. Shipping was $25 so I made $70 on the TV.
The third PCB is still for sale, I'll throw it out in about two more weeks.
Edit: the third PCB sold, for $39 minus $9 shipping.
I made $100 on a discarded TV, and, I had the experience of disassembling and seeing how the backlights work.
-
What's a TV?
-
if you really want to be Badass, throw the TV in the garbage....That's pretty much all that's on TV anyway.
-
Nice work!
To the question of "What's a TV?". It's a lot like a computer, except it can operated in the background so you can multi-task without giving it your full attention. It also offers local news and weather, again in a form that allows you to carry on with cooking, doing laundry, soldering, etc. Oh, and it's absolutely free- no monthly fees or contracts. I can't think of a more mustachian form of news/entertainment.
-
I can't think of a more mustachian form of news/entertainment.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low-information-diet/
Books.
-
Books are great! Love books!
But they won't tell me about the new park opening in town, or the streets starting construction next week that I should avoid. There's no 30 second summary of last night's city council meeting, nor any other local news. My alternatives are to subscribe to a newspaper at considerable expense, manage the inflow/reading time/outflow of the already obsolete news, along with the flyers and unrelated news (sports) I don't care about. No thanks.
I could also devote screen time to reading all these stories online, but then only select stories are available, I'd have to deal with paywalls, comb the news sites and the newspaper sites (and the horrible pop-ups, advertising and other junk) and I still wouldn't be able to multi-task.
No, I'll stick with the verbal 15 minute free update to learn what's going on around me while I do more productive things.
-
To the OP, nice work. Those old projection TVs are notorious for blowing capacitors. I've replaced a couple myself for fractions of the cost of a new TV. Usually blown capacitors are pretty obvious. They quite literally blow open and ooze some nasty stuff.
-
A couple weeks ago my 7.5 year old Gaggia Classic espresso machine stopped working. Sad day, I must have made 3000+ lattes with that thing over the years. Lights turned on, but it didn't make a sound and wouldn't do a thing. I searched around and people mentioned similar issues when the water pump died. Found a youtube video on how to replace it. Within 5 days, I received a replacement part and successfully swapped out the pieces and BOOM, works good as new!
-
I once limped a cuisinart 4-slicer toaster along for about 3 years. About once a year one side would not stay down when pushed, though the heating elements would turn on.
So a 2-minute inspection after getting it apart showed that this model basically had a limit switch at the bottom of the travel of the bread holder bit that, when closed, powers an electromagnet, holding it in place. At some point some mechanism turned that magnet off and the toast popped up.
The inspection showed a frayed wire in that electromagnet switch circuit, so I cut it and crimped it back in, and it was good for another year.
I don't remember what finally killed that toaster, but it was something I couldn't fix, so I bought a pop-tarts brand toaster at savers for like 3 bucks. But that cuisinart one was nice, and would have been expensive to replace.
-
I don't remember what finally killed that toaster,
Coulda been a bad bagel!