Recapping Acer AL1916 LCD Monitor

[pradeep1]

This is my first post on this forum.

My trusty Acer AL1916 LCD monitor started developing the "blinking green power light and then coming on after 20 minutes" syndrome last week and the other day, it stopped working completely.

I've been reading these two threads:

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthr...ghlight=al1916

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthr...ghlight=al1916

I've got bulged caps on the power supply board. I have ordered the full set of replacement caps, but one thing does concern me. There is a big fat capacitor in the middle of this board:

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachm...achmentid=9984

It is turned away on my board (so I can't read the voltage and capacitance) and it is quite big and scary looking. Do I need to discharge it somehow, since I don't want to kill myself if I accidentally touch it during recapping.

Please keep in mind that I am total n00b and I have never used a soldering iron before, so please explain everything regarding this in terms that a small child can understand. Haha.

[Bobdee]

That big cap voltage is probably 400V and under normal circumstances discharges itself, but depending on the fault in your monitor occasionally it cannot discharge itself
To check if it is discharged set your M/Meter to 1000 DC setting and put black lead on Negative terminal of cap and red lead on Positive and if discharged then there will be no reading
Then to double check it, to ease your fears just cross the cap terminals with a screwdriver with insulated handle
With your fault (bad caps) then I would guess there is no chance of it being still charged up (that is so long as you give it a couple of minutes to discharge itself)
As for replacing that big cap, it is usually left alone due to it rarely failing
Also for more help if needed Google (how to Discharge a Capacitor)

[pradeep1]

Thanks Bobdee for your input. Yeah, the board has been out of the monitor and sitting on my shelf for over a week now. I'll have to find my multimeter and check it out before fooling with it further.

Thanks.