TV Repair

[Mark]

[Kellerman]

When TV sets or videos cost a months wages but could be repaired for less than a days wage then repair was economic. Now that smaller TVs cost the equivalent a weeks wage (£500 or less) and repairs (parts/labour/call out) cost 1 or 2 days wages (£100 to £200) repair is not economic.

I stopped fixing videos when Sky started "giving" away recorders and Tesco started selling a video recorder for £39.99 - which would last 18 months and then stop rewinding. Parts to fix it cost about £20 + labour, repair not economic. :-)

[John Rumm]

On the other hand if a replacement 65" OLED was going to cost you 2K, you might feel the £250 repair was a better option.

At the lower end certainly.

[Andy Burns]

Yeah, I'd expect it's limited to duff power supplies, duff backlights or duff backlight power supplies ...

[Andrew]

But some of your 'neighbours' took to motoring down to Billingshurst to dump hardcore, soil, builders waste (*) so now West Sussex residents have to prove who they are by showing a utility bill or similar.

(*) Charged by Surrey CC, but not West Sussex CC.

[Andrew]

There already is a 20% tax on most new goods though.

[Fredxx]

Even someone experienced in electronics and the inner workings of modern TVs would still struggle to find any circuit diagrams.

Most repairs were of the "stock" variety where each model would have it's Achilles heel(s), where repairers would make a series of component replacements without knowing the unit in details.

[John Rumm]

Main I/O boards and TCon boards can also be cost effective to DIY.

[Theo]

Board swap, or component level fix?

Reminds me of a series of Samsung 30" 2560x1600 monitors we had at work - they all failed with coloured stripes down the screen. Turns out the TCon chip, which was a HardCopy ASIC version of an Altera FPGA, overheated and desoldered itself. The fix was to bake the board to reflow the TCon, and to drill holes in the plastic casing to increase the airflow and cool it while in use.

It was about 50% successful, but it extened the lifetime of those (quite pricey for their time) monitors for a good few years. For that sort of thing, and given we had a tame service engineer on the staff, it made sense to repair.

Theo

[John Rumm]

Normally just board swap, but sometimes it can be worth doing component level (at least as far down as passives and voltage regulators etc).

Going much beyond that normally requires schematics, and decent test gear etc so is not usually cost effective unless you happen to have a decent mixed signal scope or logic analyser to hand. Even if you can identify a failed part - if its custom silicon, then you move on to the next problem of where to get one.

Yup, and sometimes from a DIY PoV it might be worth doing for the satisfaction and "because you can" even if its not cost effective were you to put a price on your time.

[JoeJoe]

Of course not. A top of the range 50" Samsung is just over £300. How much can a repairman charge for fixing it + parts to make it worthwhile? Next to nothing.

[Andy Burns]

If we give you +/- an inch, ao.com says you're between £100 and £1000 out ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes. a 42" is around that figure I believe

is a 50" at £349

[RJH]

Top of the range?

[Dave Plowman (News]

Top of his range?

[John Rumm]

You do talk daft. Yes you can get a 50" TV for close to that money, but "top of the range" it won't be.

e.g.

So with a £300 TV it's beyond economic repair. With the top of the range set linked above, they could easily charge £300.

[alan_m]

They may be more than adequate for most people but its not the technology they are pushing as top of the range at treble those prices.