is my $3,000 lcd tv dead?

[James Sweet]

If you beleive that, you are very stupid. Why on earth would you pay
$3000 for something that is already obsolete?

Well the other option is to just never buy anything and keep holding out for
the next new technology. That said, many of us are perfectly happy with
"obsolete" equipment.

 

[pete.nicks]

Well the other option is to just never buy anything and keep holding out for
the next new technology. That said, many of us are perfectly happy with
"obsolete" equipment.

TO EVERYONE: Great string. All very interesting and informative
comments. I think I'm going to follow up with Sharp and see what their
response is. It does seem "unlucky" of me for the TV to die after only
three years. But sh$t happens as they say. However, the service tech I
took the TV to seemed to be suggesting he sees quite a good number of
these flat panels coming in for major service after only a few years.
The major lesson here is definitely to get an extended warranty, which
for some reason I chose not to do.

However, this is definitely a situation where, as a consumer, I need
to stand up for myself - an in essence every other consumer out there
spending big money on tech items that should last. The cynical side of
my brain says technology is now being manufactured to be "disposable"
since advancements (moore's law et al) are happening so rapidly.

thanks again for all your help and may the discussion continue.

pete

 

[Jamie]

I've noticed this as well. The problem is that a shop can't pay enough to
anymore to keep a really good tech around. I do component level repairs on
everything, never even considered replacing a whole board, but I can make a
much better living in software so I keep the repair work a hobby. It's
amazing how much good easily repairable stuff people toss out, I had to stop
accepting things unless they're significantly better than something I
already have. I've never had to actually buy a TV, these days even big HD
sets are getting tossed.

I know what you're saying, I have a large LCD TV that got toss from a TV
shop because the quoted cost of repair was greater than getting a new set.
I got the unit before it hit the scrapper.. A crack in a solder joint
on the bottom side of a board where a header plug was.. It was obvious
that no one took the time to really take it apart to inspect the obvious
minor things that happen first. I think to many look for the technical
version of the problem before the simplistic one..

I've found that mechanical error plays a higher role in faults
than internal failures of components. when I say mechanical, I refer
to cracked joints, missed soldered joints (no solder at all), bad
basic contacts that some TV's have in their PS units, loose fitting
header plugs, eroded pins etc...

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

UK law requires that any goods sold must be 'fit for purpose', and I would
be surprised that anyone paying $3000 (UK equivalent £1500) for a
television, only to be advised by the manufacturer that it wasn't worth
repairing after three years use would be mightily pissed off, I know I
would be.. Is it perhaps because people in the U.S. are so well off that
$3000 for three years viewing is deemed to be a perfectly acceptable fact
of life? now If it was a £60.00 supermarket telly then I agree, even a
couple of years could be considered to be quite reasonable.

I am not saying that one should not be pissed if a $3000 TV is not worth
repairing after 3 years. What I am saying is that it may not be a problem
that requires legislation.

Leonard

 

[Leonard Caillouet]

Replacing a quad flat pack chip in the field is very difficult. A BGA
cannot be done in the field. This assumes you can figure out which
chip is misbehaving looking at high speed data busses. Field board
repair ended quite a while ago.

GG

For many. Some of us still fix boards when possible and when we can get the
parts and documentation needed.
For many boards this is not possible, but starting with the assumption that
you can't fix it is silly and wasteful. Or perhaps just lazy.

Leonard

 

[Ivan]

Having built and tuned a DIY ECU last summer, I can say there's far more
that goes into it than the hardware design and manufacturing. The hard
part is getting the fuel and ignition maps tuned across the temperature,
RPM, and load range, achieving an acceptable balance between fuel economy,
clean emissions, and drivability, dealing with various climate conditions,
fuel grades, and compensating for wear and tear on mechanical parts. Now I
do agree that ECUs tend to be rather overpriced, but in effect, you're
paying for the software development which can be monumental to get to the
point where the car just works under any imaginable conditions..

Well apparently Indian software designers are now rated among some of the
best in the world, surely they or the Chinese should be doing this kind of
stuff far cheaper than us greedy westerners?

 

[Ken G.]

what ever happen to repairing the boards them self's? Has TV repair gone
the way of car mechanic technicians?

I see many people who repair this stuff all the time not be able to do
anything without a schematic . They cant take an electronic device and
set it in front of them and spend 15 to 30 minutes checking the obvious
They must have a schematic to find a bad fuse .

I got lucky having the chance to work on flat tv sets for a salvage
store for 5 years . I first worked on a plasma set that had bad
connections on one side of a huge several hundred lead SM chip . A
carefull resolder & it was fine .
The last flat set i worked on was last week . It was being sold for 50$
broken , a 32`` VISIO ,,LCD dated Aug of 06 . I gave the 50$ and took
it with me .
The power supply was clear full of solder problems with that crappy new
type solder
After redoing all the P.S. solders it works fine now .. it has a
digital tuner in it .

I worked on dozens of others in that 5 years fixing several . Some of
them i was able to track down problems by cheating . They had another
set just like the bad one so i was able to swap boards to find the bad
board then try to fix the board . Sometimes it was not possible to fix a
board by chance .
I found brand new sets with one plug hanging off inside somewhere or a
simple re-seat of all plugs fixed it .

Some techs are not trained to do that .

 

[Michael Kennedy]

Having built and tuned a DIY ECU last summer, I can say there's far more
that goes into it than the hardware design and manufacturing. The hard
part is getting the fuel and ignition maps tuned across the temperature,
RPM, and load range, achieving an acceptable balance between fuel economy,
clean emissions, and drivability, dealing with various climate conditions,
fuel grades, and compensating for wear and tear on mechanical parts. Now I
do agree that ECUs tend to be rather overpriced, but in effect, you're
paying for the software development which can be monumental to get to the
point where the car just works under any imaginable conditions..

Well, I'd argue that you pay for the software when you buy the car. If I buy
a PC and it dies I still own the copy of windows. Replace the motherboard
and whatever else is bad, toss the cd in and your up and going again. You
allready paid for the software license.

I wonder what kind of car that was. My Chevy had a 10 year warranty on the
ECU.

Mike.

 

[James Sweet]

Well, I'd argue that you pay for the software when you buy the car. If I
buy a PC and it dies I still own the copy of windows. Replace the
motherboard and whatever else is bad, toss the cd in and your up and going
again. You allready paid for the software license.

I wonder what kind of car that was. My Chevy had a 10 year warranty on the
ECU.

That is a good point, I guess they charge as much as they do because they
can.

That said, in 15 years of tinkering with cars, I've seen exactly one ECU
failure, it was an '87 Volkswagen and I tracked the problem to a shorted
electrolytic. I've also seen a number of later model Volvo ABS modules with
cracked solder joints.

Never looked into the warranty, I've never owned a car as new as 10 years
old, or had any particular desire to.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

20+ years ago, GE performed warranty repairs simply by swapping out the
product for a refurbished unit. This let the techs work on a pile of a
single model, which is more-efficient than making repairs on random models.

So I don't understand why these companies don't simply swap boards, and let
the folks at the "factory" perform component-level repairs.

 

[neon]

when you put up $3000 for the set you should have bought their warranty . that is a sucker bet it is only good for 3 years if it last one month it will last at least 3 years. money wasted. also never buy the newest gadgets as they come out costly and troublesome. $1000 right now will get you a substantial down on a new better set. nothing last forever. i could replace the card but would i do it probably not. not cost effective. the days of replacing TV tubes are long gone so are the tecks there is no money in repairs. cheaper to buy a new one even for a repair man

 

[b]

I am not saying that one should not be pissed if a $3000 TV is not worth
repairing after 3 years. What I am saying is that it may not be a problem
that requires legislation.

Leonard

so you think you'd leave it up to the big corporations to defend the
interests of the citizenry? History shows the dangers of that
approach....
-B

 

[Mr. Land]

TO EVERYONE: Great string. All very interesting and informative
comments. I think I'm going to follow up with Sharp and see what their
response is. It does seem "unlucky" of me for the TV to die after only
three years. But sh$t happens as they say. However, the service tech I
took the TV to seemed to be suggesting he sees quite a good number of
these flat panels coming in for major service after only a few years.
The major lesson here is definitely to get an extended warranty, which
for some reason I chose not to do.

However, this is definitely a situation where, as a consumer, I need
to stand up for myself - an in essence every other consumer out there
spending big money on tech items that should last. The cynical side of
my brain says technology is now being manufactured to be "disposable"
since advancements (moore's law et al) are happening so rapidly.

thanks again for all your help and may the discussion continue.

pete

If Sharp won't budge and refuses to give you whatever you ask for,
(e.g. extend the warranty or give you a break on parts and/or labor),
and if you don't want to pursue it legally, I'd consider asking them
to at
least allow you to get a service manual for the set (I'm assuming they
normally don't sell service manuals to just anyone), and the ability
to obtain any non-off-the-shelf component parts it might need.

With the service manual, any competent repair shop would have a
good chance of fixing whatever's wrong at the component level (if
you can find one willing to do so.) You might end up paying quite
a bit of labor (for troubleshooting time, home visit, whatnot), but
it still might be a less expensive solution than replacing an entire
board or the whole set.

Good luck.

 

[Mr. Land]

If you beleive that, you are very stupid. Why on earth would you pay
$3000 for something that is already obsolete?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

I think the point was that these sets are advancing at a rate faster
than their
retail stream can keep up with. My favorite story about this is a
thread I read
on a plasma TV site where a fellow brought his brand new Panasonic
plasma
home, set it up with surround sound, etc., and turned it on for the
first time.

The first show he viewed was a Consumer Electronics Show, and just as
he began to watch they were showcasing the new Panasonic plasma that
was the next year's replacement for his! Ouch!

 

[Jerry]

I am friends with a long time repair shop here and we chat alot .
Although Sharp is still a very good product their service and parts
methods pretty much stink he says .
Some parts they wont even provide .

Have just been through a warranty service experience with a Sharp over-
the-range microwave where the Start button stopped functioning after
only 3 months of use. While searching for a shop to do the repairs
under warranty, a common answer that I got was "We don't do Sharp
warranty work any more, it's too hard to get paid by Sharp."

Jerry

 

[[email protected]]

For many. Some of us still fix boards when possible and when we can get the
parts and documentation needed.
For many boards this is not possible, but starting with the assumption that
you can't fix it is silly and wasteful. Or perhaps just lazy.

Leonard

I do plenty of board repair - right now the demod of a Sony BVW-75
Betacam SP deck. When you get a board with nothing more than a half
dozen 300-400 pin packages, do you really want to tangle with that? If
you replace the wrong device, you just wasted a lot of time and money
and the odds are very high that removal of the chip required its
destruction so as to not damage the board. I have not had our DLP open
but I have the service manual and there are some boards in there I
would demand a replacement rather than a 'repair'.

GG

 

[[email protected]]

: When I plug in the TV I get a solid red light followed by one blink,
: then two quick blinks, then a steady series of blinks (all red).

: I called Sharp and they directed me to a service center. I took the TV
: in and was told something about the circuit boards that I didn't quite
: understand. the service person didn't speak English very well so i
: couldn't pinpoint with him the exact problem. But the gist of it was
: that it wasn't worth it for him or me to fix it. The quote he gave me
: was around $1000.

: The TV is only three years old and I paid $3,000 for the thing, so I'm
: trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with it and whether I can
: get it fixed.

: Any thoughts? Should I take it in to another service center for a
: second opinion?...or does this problem sound like the unit is totaled?
: for me, having to pay $1,000 means it is totaled.

: any thoughts would be appreciated.

Have you looked on ebay to see if anyone is selling off the boards from
your model lcd? Usually a complete set of boards can be had pretty
cheaply.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Well the other option is to just never buy anything and keep holding out for
the next new technology. That said, many of us are perfectly happy with
"obsolete" equipment.

I have a working two year old SONY HD TV that I haven't even bothered
to plug in. What little time my TV is on, is a 13" color set near my
computer, to listen to the local news, and maybe watch a few hours of
the Sci-Fi channel a week.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

what ever happen to repairing the boards them self's? Has TV repair gone
the way of car mechanic technicians?

I see many people who repair this stuff all the time not be able to do
anything without a schematic . They cant take an electronic device and
set it in front of them and spend 15 to 30 minutes checking the obvious
They must have a schematic to find a bad fuse.

yes, Ken. We know that you are the only person in the world who can
show NASA how to launch the next shuttle mission with tin foil and
Wesley's tire bleach, in spite of all the electronic equipment is
missing.

I got lucky having the chance to work on flat tv sets for a salvage
store for 5 years . I first worked on a plasma set that had bad
connections on one side of a huge several hundred lead SM chip . A
carefull resolder & it was fine .
The last flat set i worked on was last week . It was being sold for 50$
broken , a 32`` VISIO ,,LCD dated Aug of 06 . I gave the 50$ and took
it with me .
The power supply was clear full of solder problems with that crappy new
type solder
After redoing all the P.S. solders it works fine now .. it has a
digital tuner in it .

I worked on dozens of others in that 5 years fixing several . Some of
them i was able to track down problems by cheating . They had another
set just like the bad one so i was able to swap boards to find the bad
board then try to fix the board . Sometimes it was not possible to fix a
board by chance .
I found brand new sets with one plug hanging off inside somewhere or a
simple re-seat of all plugs fixed it .

Some techs are not trained to do that .

They don't have to be 'trained', just observant. OTOH, the item
shouldn't have left the factory with loose connectors.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

I do plenty of board repair - right now the demod of a Sony BVW-75
Betacam SP deck. When you get a board with nothing more than a half
dozen 300-400 pin packages, do you really want to tangle with that? If
you replace the wrong device, you just wasted a lot of time and money
and the odds are very high that removal of the chip required its
destruction so as to not damage the board. I have not had our DLP open
but I have the service manual and there are some boards in there I
would demand a replacement rather than a 'repair'.

Why not? It isn't that hard to do with the proper tools, and a
little experience.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida