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A project log for Forth and back again: Repairing a cheap LED-TV

This project is a collection of my experiences in repairing a TV from a hackers perspective. A 40" with no obvious HW problem is not waste!

benjaminaignerbenjaminaigner 10/02/2020 at 19:040 Comments

I think this problem could have been easily avoided by the manufacturer.

The PCB was mounted tightly by 4 screws to the flexible metal backplate of the TV's screen.

In my opinion this led to hairline cracks in the solder joint of this PCB.
Possible solution: use plastic PCB spacers which allows a little movement of the PCB.

Describing this project on HaD is also some kind of self-cleansing ritual. Repairing this TV was not easy and took me a lot of spare time.
It is really pissing me off: there is a 5 year old TV which is perfectly fine for my use-case (I want to remove the tuner anyway), but it broke down because of wear down issues. Still, the lack of information and possibility to modify devices nearly led to another ~5kg of e-waste. If the sources would be available, disabling the tuner could be done in no time.

I find it funny, that you can repair some of your gadget with your kitchen oven. Maybe it was pure luck that this method worked 2 out of 2 times.

In the end, I am enjoying a bigger TV (upgraded from 32"), a friend of mine got the 32" TV. 
I learned a lot, got a free TV and saved some resources by avoiding e-waste.

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