I have a Polaroid tlx-03210b, that a week ago Saturday, decided to go up in smoke. Literally. A poof and some stink later, I had a worthless, or so I thought at a time, 32" paperweight.
After some Googling, I discovered where to look for a fault, and subsequently, to this very forum. I decided that the two blown capacitors (one so much it popped the bottom, spewed the electrolyte, and left the one lead in the board) were cheap enough for me to attempt to fix.
I did own a soldering gun after all, and had become somewhat adept at joining wires together, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I went online, found the caps I needed from Digi-Key. I chose these Panasonics because I figured, at the time (further research, on here, led me to believe I made the right choice) Panasonic was a name brand, and heck, these were the most expensive, 10uF 450v capacitors I could find with my limited knowledge.
I ended up buying 4, figured I might screw one up (never soldered a board remember?), and a small roll of solder wick (this thing is gonna last me forever). My order total? A whopping $13.12 after tax and Priority Mail Shipping. "New" board, about $60 bucks. New TV, $350 plus. It was worth the gamble. Order placed Sunday, arrived Wednesday, Minnesota to Upstate NY, not bad.
Fast forward to Wednesday, my package arrived! By this time I had bought a 30w iron (mine is a 100w gun, with a flat wide tip for wiring, I used it to remove the blown caps, but I knew this wasn't the right tool to get decent results going back in) for 5 bucks from walmart, and a small package of silver infused solder with flux from the big orange (was looking for tips for my old gun, figured while i was there...) another 5 bucks. Now we're up to $25, and of that most was sort of "optional". I proceed to tear into like a package on Christmas the year NES came out (turns out I didn't get one till the following year, dammit). I giddily take out the board, clean up the mess from the blown cap, which by the way took me longer to do than to take the tv apart in the first place, remove, and replace the blown caps, and put it back together, that garbage gets cooked on quick.
Throw the thing back together, and voila! One working TV! One a side note, the slight, almost unnoticeable electronic "hum" it had since new, is now gone. Dead silent if you mute it. Also, I have noticed that the picture, once I dialed it back in, is 1000x better than it was before, this time with a cheaper box (finally put the DVR with my plasma, this one is now hooked to a standard box). Coincidence? Maybe.
Been now running beautifully, for almost a week now, no hiccups at all.
Actual total parts cost, for the two caps I used (not counting the spares), 2.08 plus 5 and change shipping. So, I kept this out of the scrap heap for a whole 8 bucks and a few minutes time.
I'm now greedily hunting craigger's list for some non-working LCD's, PC's, and hopefully a G5 mac attack, just to play with, haven't found any yet locally though, thanks to this forum.
THANK YOU BADCAPS! And to TC for starting this whole thing, hopefully will be buying a few kits from you in the future, those poly's have me intrigued......
After some Googling, I discovered where to look for a fault, and subsequently, to this very forum. I decided that the two blown capacitors (one so much it popped the bottom, spewed the electrolyte, and left the one lead in the board) were cheap enough for me to attempt to fix.
I did own a soldering gun after all, and had become somewhat adept at joining wires together, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I went online, found the caps I needed from Digi-Key. I chose these Panasonics because I figured, at the time (further research, on here, led me to believe I made the right choice) Panasonic was a name brand, and heck, these were the most expensive, 10uF 450v capacitors I could find with my limited knowledge.
I ended up buying 4, figured I might screw one up (never soldered a board remember?), and a small roll of solder wick (this thing is gonna last me forever). My order total? A whopping $13.12 after tax and Priority Mail Shipping. "New" board, about $60 bucks. New TV, $350 plus. It was worth the gamble. Order placed Sunday, arrived Wednesday, Minnesota to Upstate NY, not bad.
Fast forward to Wednesday, my package arrived! By this time I had bought a 30w iron (mine is a 100w gun, with a flat wide tip for wiring, I used it to remove the blown caps, but I knew this wasn't the right tool to get decent results going back in) for 5 bucks from walmart, and a small package of silver infused solder with flux from the big orange (was looking for tips for my old gun, figured while i was there...) another 5 bucks. Now we're up to $25, and of that most was sort of "optional". I proceed to tear into like a package on Christmas the year NES came out (turns out I didn't get one till the following year, dammit). I giddily take out the board, clean up the mess from the blown cap, which by the way took me longer to do than to take the tv apart in the first place, remove, and replace the blown caps, and put it back together, that garbage gets cooked on quick.
Throw the thing back together, and voila! One working TV! One a side note, the slight, almost unnoticeable electronic "hum" it had since new, is now gone. Dead silent if you mute it. Also, I have noticed that the picture, once I dialed it back in, is 1000x better than it was before, this time with a cheaper box (finally put the DVR with my plasma, this one is now hooked to a standard box). Coincidence? Maybe.
Been now running beautifully, for almost a week now, no hiccups at all.
Actual total parts cost, for the two caps I used (not counting the spares), 2.08 plus 5 and change shipping. So, I kept this out of the scrap heap for a whole 8 bucks and a few minutes time.
I'm now greedily hunting craigger's list for some non-working LCD's, PC's, and hopefully a G5 mac attack, just to play with, haven't found any yet locally though, thanks to this forum.
THANK YOU BADCAPS! And to TC for starting this whole thing, hopefully will be buying a few kits from you in the future, those poly's have me intrigued......
