Mar 11
4
To continue yesterday’s post, I was lamenting the fact that being a Technical Writer causes me to feel guilty whenever something around the house breaks and I can’t fix it. As many repair procedures as I’ve written, I should be able to handle anything.
My greatest triumph in the arena of home repairs came about two years ago. We have a nice Samsung 46-inch LCD high-definition television. For a few weeks, whenever you would turn the set on, it would click a couple of times, as if it were trying to power up, before it finally came on. As each day passed, the clicks lasted longer and it took four or five seconds for the TV to come on.
This trend was troubling, and sure enough I came home for lunch one Friday and the clicking had given way to a complete failure. The TV would not power up at all.
The prospect of a weekend without television spurred me to immediate action. I got online and searched for Samsung TV issues. It didn’t take long to discover that there were a LOT of Samsung sets that had this problem. The root cause could be found in four capacitors on the main power board assembly. Apparently Samsung got a load of bad components and they were failing prematurely.
There were three avenues to pursue:
- Call a repairman. Likely course of action would be to replace the entire main power assembly for a cost of $500.00 or more. (pshh… yeah, right!)
- Replace the entire main power assembly. These could be found on eBay for around $200.00 (hmmm… now that may be doable…)
- Remove the main power assembly and replace the defective capacitors. (Now we’re talking!)
As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the keys to being able to repair something (aside from having excellent technical manuals!) is being able to procure suitable replacement parts. This was the first challenge. I needed four capacitors – as I remember it was two 2200 µF caps and two 1000 µF caps. Radio Shack was the first, logical place to look. Well, back in the olden days you would have had no problem finding these components at Radio Shack, but not any more. So I went to the local Fry’s Electronics in Dallas. They had one 2200 µF cap. Drat.
Another internet search revealed an electronics shop in Carrollton. A quick 40-minute drive up there and I had the parts I needed. Total cost: under $8.00. I did have to buy a new soldering iron and some solder too, so I probably spent another $15.00 or so.
Armed with my parts and tools, I got to work. My soldering skills were *ahem* a little rusty, so this part took a lot longer than I expected. But soon enough I had the capacitors wedged into place. The new caps were significantly larger than the previous ones, so the repair job looked a little weird, but the specs on the caps were plenty robust enough that I felt good about my work.
It took a good 30 minutes to reassemble the TV and get ready for the moment of truth. Honestly, I could feel my pulse quicken a little bit as I held the remote in my hand and got ready to click the power button.
Here we go….. *click*
YES!!
Oh, crap.
The TV came on instantly and my emotions soared. Sadly, my victory was short-lived. Within about 3 seconds I heard a muted “pop” sound, the picture disappeared, and a cloud of pure white smoke came pouring out of the TV.
Well, that can’t be good.
The autopsy revealed that I had committed a very rookie mistake. Capacitors have a polarity, like a battery, so you have to install them with the + side and the – side oriented correctly. Another 40 minute drive back to the electronics store, another hour or so to de-solder the bad capacitor, replace it with a PROPERLY oriented new one, and I was back at the starting line again.
I can proudly say that today, two years later we’re still watching the same TV and it works as good as new. I have learned that Samsung is now offering a free repair on models affected by the bad caps. Too late for me, but I now have a very solid “skin on the wall” when it comes to home repair. The Technical Writer has conquered the television.
I continue to be tormented by the icemaker, but that’s another story.
