TV repairable?

[Ed Pawlowski]

? wrote

Ditch the entertainment center and get a 47". Bigger is definitely better. I set out to buy a 42" and my wife was the 47" and said I want THAT one! Done deal. Wish I could fit a 55.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, Repair? In our town we get an 18 inch monitor for 79.00 on sale. What is your hourly rate? Mine is 250.00 plus T&L minimum 2 hours. My hobby is fixing tube gears specially guitar amps for poor local musicians. No chaege for them. Just I let them buy necessary parts.

[krw]

The HDTV standard is 16:9 so that's what most TVs are made for. Computer monitor makers are using the cheaper (economy of scale) TV panels, making

16:10 monitors more uncommon (and even more expensive).

There is a bog difference between 16:10 and 16:9 on the desktop, but why a TV?

[Larry Fishel]

I had a CRT that would go red after being on a few minutes. I took the cover off and while it was on, poked around the components with a 2 foot wooden dowel until I found one that resolved the problem when I held pressure on it. Unplugged the TV and checked that board from the other side (staying well away from any big caps) and found a circular crack in the solder around one leg of that component. I remelted the solder and it was fine for several more years.

[mm]

That would be me. Once in college I ended up with an electric percolator, but only the main piece. By the time I bought the pipe in the middle and the basket and its lid, and maybe the pot's lid and glass middle, and the cord, it cost more than a new coffee pot, even in 1967

I wouldn't do exactly that again, but I've never regretted it. And I don't even drink coffee.

[aemeijers]

Sony Wega has a pretty good rep, even now. Put it on CL, somebody may give 50 bucks for it. The one across the room from me is one of those in

27" size, also 2004 dated. I bought it used off CL 18? months ago for 100 bucks (a good price at the time), because I wanted to move my old narrower 27" Trinitron to the other living room, to fill up a hole in the entertainment center. The old one is 1999 or so, purchased new for ~$400. They both work perfectly. By the time these crap out, hopefully flat screens will be down to a price I can tolerate. I'm pretty sure flat screens don't last long enough for any of them to show up on used market in good condition at any significant discount from new prices.

As to computer monitors- my 2 regular-use monitors are Dell-branded 19" Trinitrons that date from 2000, purchased used at a state auction around

2004 for ~$40 each. They also work perfectly, dammit, after years of heavy use. Every time I go to Sam's I drool my way through the aisle of Samsung flat-screens at ever-lower prices, but until these die....

(Life at the trailing edge is one of the downsides of being a cheap SOB.)

[Jeff Thies]

Good for you. But, you wouldn't have many customers fixing consumer electronics at that price.

For a reasonable price, putting a Viewsonic Flat Panel back in service is worth it. Neither is it junk, nor is it worth sinking $500 in.

Myself, I don't have to charge $250/hr to feel like I have self worth. Just how big is your hwang, Tony?

Jeff

[Tony Hwang]

You can adjust display somewhat from full, h-full, zoom or 4:3 and yet you can adjust vertical height or horzontal spread. It's in the menu on your TV set. If your set does not have this feature, must be El Cheapo set. Also when you go into dual diplay mode cloning laptop or your desk top screen you need this feature useful.

[Jeff Thies]

You are a very wise man.

The key to a successful relationship is giving in completely. Eventually she will get her way and you could have just avoided all that suffering along the way.

Jeff

[The Daring Dufas]

I charge $85/hr for electronics, phone systems, network systems, access control, computer repair, alarm systems, etc. Any low voltage is that rate. The more mundane and simpler stuff is $65/hr. But for good customers, the rate is flexible and someone who spends a lot of money with me in a year gets a lot of favors. Besides, if they own a restaurant, I never go hungry. I do a lot of national contract installation and repairs too. Tomorrow, I'll be with some other guys on a scissors lift pulling in 500 feet of MC cable to run two circuits up in a 20 foot ceiling. I hope I can breath OK tomorrow.

TDD

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, I am in large scale comm. system support. Worldwide there are ~100 of them. I am officially retired. Still they bug me when in big trouble.

[The Daring Dufas]

I usually work for peasants and small merchants, I haven't done any work for the royal family. :-)

TDD

[Peter]

This seems extreme. If I remember correctly, your original post indicated that the problem only lasts about 15 min and then spontaneously disappears. Why trash the set when after 15 min it behaves normally?

[aemeijers]

Uh, she wasn't the OP, she was just chiming in.

[Tony Miklos]

By the way, do they still measure them diagonally?

[Tony Miklos]

Sorry, I didn't know I was in your neighborhood. I think I'm the only

49 year old still doing that stuff. ;-)

[Nancy Young]

Same one! Only thing I didn't like about it (except it's the size of an oven) was that it was silver(ish).

Should be interesting. Maybe when the snow disappears, if it ever does, I'll put a free sign on the old tv at the curb. I've had good luck with that in the past.

Are you that one guy still buying film for your camera?? (laugh) I'm the last person to convert to new technology because hey, the old one works fine. The upside is by that time whatever it is has come way down in price and they have worked out a lot of the bugs.

nancy

[Tony Miklos]

I have the same 19" Dell Trinitron. Got lucky at a Salvation Army store about 9 or 10 years ago, I think the price was $17. ... the same as all the 14" ones! I grabbed it fast! I know the feeling of looking at the big flat screens. When will this monitor die? When I get a flat screen I'll be able to move my desk 7" back against the wall. I almost cut a hole in the wall behind this thing a couple times, but then to make it worth it, I'd have to cut a hole in my bedroom wall also.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, I dumped Nikon film outfit after using it for my daughter's wedding. Now every member of my family has own digital camera, and/or camcorder. One thing, CRT based sets has a slight risk of emitting X-ray if HV set up is not properly adjusted. Also they use quite a bit more energy compared to LCD panels.

[aemeijers]

On 1/17/2011 11:10 PM, Nancy Young wrote: (snip)

Haven't bought any film in the last couple of years. Not that you CAN buy it without a hunt anymore. But I still have half a dozen or so Nikon SLRs and a dozen or two lenses for them. I have a couple of grand in them (mostly all bought used), but original retail easily over 10k. I might get 2 or 3 hundred for the whole pile, and they are worth more in sentimental value to me than that. Keep meaning to pull the batteries out of all of them before they start leaking. Maybe in 40 years or so, my heirs can make a few bucks from them as collector items.