My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

[gilly1984]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

I'm lucky, very little competition.

Sometimes you have to find alternate sources like posting ads saying you will buy faulty TVs. Or looking for misspelt/incorrectly listed items.

Thats because I only look within 10 miles of my home here in sunny Oldham

[jamesharris]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

It's no way that I could apply the $1/inch here in LA. People are posting almost every TV for $100. Even if they broken screen. How can I offer $40 for it?
The competition is pretty big.
The TVs are gone within hours, most of the time.
It's more like $1.50-$2/inch.
Yesterday somebody was selling a 58 Panasonic for $40(he said that it was a plasma in his ad, but I think that it was an LCD with tab issue).
I have sent the E-mail and he answered that it's already gone. The TV it was far from the city and it was still sold very fast.
Sometimes I drive 60 miles(one way) to pick up a bigger TV, or maybe two smaller ones at the same time.
Now back to the subject , I'm inquiring only about weird screen issues which I don't know what could be the problem and sometimes I need the answer asap, because of the competition.
The business it's very slow, I can't imagine why?
I thought that the holidays should help, but I was wrong.
I haven't picked up a TV for a couple of months now, except a Vizio GV47L the other day which had the known bad pico fuse(1.5A) on the mainboard problem.

Wow, opposite problem here. Twice yearly we have free council rubbish pickup. Every household can throw out a trailor load of rubbish that's picked up for free to reduce or eliminate the amount of illegal roadside dumping that was (and still is) occurring. The scrap collectors are happy, as are tv collectors. On average in my neighbourhood there is usually half a dozen sets
LCD/Plasma and a dozen or more CRT's. I'll pick some up if I'm familiar with them but leave crap brands Hisense, conia, celestial ect and all crt's. On top of that, I frequent a liquidator's auction for electronic goods where brand new sets with cracked screens (usually Samsung) sell for $40-$50, but new tvs and 2nd hand board prices are fairly cheap here, so not much of a seller's market./rant.

[tom66]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

I kinda live in the middle between the two extremes.

It's very easy for me to buy sets and for very agreeable prices. That 43" Samsung that is currently being worked on only cost £40. And I picked up a 37" Philips plasma too (older Hitachi-Fujitsu based design), for £20. 32" Sanyo LCD at £25. 32" Hyundai LCD at £10. etc.etc. And a very willing student customer base who will buy my stuff , but it has to be competitively priced.

I can sometimes find free TVs on the street, though I've only found one good one. The other one I picked up a few days ago had a completely destroyed screen. So I stripped the salvageable parts out and kept them then took the rest to the tip.

Whilst at the tip had a look at the area... full of LCD/plasma TVs... and I can't touch a single one because I'm not a licenced contractor!

Previously I have bought the odd telly from the local tip (in Basingstoke, back home) but at about the same price I buy them off other people it's not worth it.

[diodo49]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

tom66 have the patience of a saint.

[Techstar]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

I picked some small screen tv's up off a guy a few months ago , he had been making good money from getting tv's from the local skip, he mentioned he could
no longer get them because of cctv recently installed. While i was talking to him
he mentioned that he once picked a LG 42 Inch plasma up from the skip and sold
it to a buyer on e - bay for £100! , he was telling the truth. There must be a fortune in flat tv's going to these skip sites. Some one else i know got one from a skip and sold it to cash converters for about £90 working but with an intermittent fault . Thats why cash converters have engineers who do trade work for them, they don't have there own engineers they use self employed repair men to do the work but they pay peanuts, they offered me a job years back fixing there stuff , the problem is they don't like paying much for the repairs. This was crt era by the way.

I agree diodo49 , tom has amazing patience. Some people are gifted with it , i am not gifted with patience but do try hard to gain some.

[Sevenqi]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

I have two exteme experience.
One was to pickup a tv in $40, the seller sent his tv to the local repair shop but the shop charged me too much ($300 or more I guess), but he didn't agree to repair and sold it to me, when I tested it, the bad caps were replaced and the tv was working fine without any problem.
The other one, the seller in the craiglist mentioned a 50" lg plasma tv had sound but no picture. The tv flashed the light and went to standby mode, I didn't check the screen with flashlight , this was a big mistake. When I got home and tried to repaired it, all the boards looks good but still couldn't power on. Finally I found a small cracked on the screen (The glass looked good), and this was the cause of not powering up. I bought it in $70, big lost. I was sure that seller knew about the crack but he played the word game not telling the truth.

[kevinm34232]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

What is a "skip" is that our "dump"?

[tom66]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

Skip is a small dump found outside people's homes or residences. Goldmine for electronics in many cases.

[smason]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

Brief Brit to Yank translation:

Skip = Dumpster
Boot = Trunk
Petrol = Gas
Pound, Quid = Dollar
Lorry = Truck

[Techstar]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

yes the skip is where tellys are disposed of before they go to land fill or e-bay.
Searching on facebook is another source for non workers .
I tried an ad in the local newspaper a "wanted ad!" Response was rubbish.
I picked 2 tellys up over 2 months.
Years ago i would have got 10 a week in at least crt , most put them on ebay now.
Word gets round just how much faulty tellys can fetch i think,,,
Good money to me made fixing for other people if you can build a highish level of skill i would say with the flat panels worth considering.
One local repair shop charged up to £300 a job. Keep it secret shhh..
This was a couple of years back , prices have dropped now on new tv's
so probably they get more refused estimates these days....

[tom66]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

*cough*
Pound, Quid = 1.6 x Dollar
*cough*

Thank you very much.

[Techstar]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

Brief Brit to Yank translation:

Skip = Dumpster
Boot = Trunk
Petrol = Gas
Pound, Quid = Dollar
Lorry = Truck

yep everything has a different name over that big pond ,,,

[DavidOH]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

Something I came across that I've already found useful.

http://youclickspk.blogspot.com/p/te...omponents.html

I put this in the wrong thread. OH well I'll leave it.

[titodj]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

Nice post, thanks.

[kyij]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

I see the pricing guide says for tv's in general.. do these prices include cracked tvs? I mean, the parts are definitely pricey, just was not sure or if your paying say ¢50 instead.

[attainteddragon]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

i put an ad out in a local paper and i get about 2 sets a week given to me and i just picked up a handshake contract from a company that supplies rental equipment, which im getting sets for $10 for under 32 inch and $20 above. most are fairly abused, but im now thinking about starting to sell parts on ebay, as i picked up 20 sets from him this week and most arnt clean enough to resell. there seems to be very little in the way of boards and ccfl etc out this way. so it might be a good idea.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

full of LCD/plasma TVs... and I can't touch a single one because I'm not a licenced contractor!

Sounds like a law Australia would pass.

You can get prosecuted for changing your own light bulb in Australia!
That's insane! That's totalitarian legislation in progress.

Just shows that their government sucks just like their internet.

[jose6326]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

tom you mentioned that if the panels show lines and/or go black after 2 seconds the panel is probably bad

is this 95% accurate or what would you say is more accurate?

this thread should be a sticky

[tom66]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

tom you mentioned that if the panels show lines and/or go black after 2 seconds the panel is probably bad

is this 95% accurate or what would you say is more accurate?

this thread should be a sticky

If its a plasma, 99% bad panel.
But 2 secs to black is rarely bad panel,

[jose6326]

Re: My guide to buying Non-Working LCD & Plasma TV's

what if there are no lines but it only turns on and blacks out after 2 seconds?