Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

[valvashon]

I'm needing some smaller OTA TV's for a monitoring project and this Insignia was $20 through FB Marketplace. It gives 5 blinks of the red LED when plugged in and 6 or 7, depending on how you want to count it, when powering down with the switch.

Initial research points to a power supply issue but the two rails check to 5.06 volts and 12.22 volts. All electrolytics in power supply board checked to within 5% of the rated value. Some were high, some were low as checked with a super cheap off-brand cap checker that seems to be accurate. Can get pics and values tomorrow if anybody wants them.

TV does work and does come on as it's supposed to.

So what's the problem? The TV's in my monitoring wall all need to come on with the flip of the wall switch. This one is one of those energy saver TV's that requires a button push to turn it back on after a power outage. Found a circuit over at Circuit Lab that uses a relay and an R/C circuit to hold the relay closed at power on to fake the button push, then releases. However, this fake button push occurs when the LED is blinking red and doesn't turn the TV on. I could play with the RC values to hold the relay closed for maybe the two seconds that the LED flashes and then the TV would turn on at power up but I thought that it might be easier to fix the TV and eliminate the blinking LED on power up. Blinking LED problem was evident before I added the circuit but I didn't think anything of it.

Any ideas? Should I just shotgun the caps on the power board? I don't think that will solve the issue as the power supply checks out good as far as voltage is concerned.

Will have camera here tomorrow and can take pictures of anything in the TV if that would help.

Thanks,

Val

[R_J]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

Likely bad backlights, can you see an image on the screen if you shine a flashlight on it?

[valvashon]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

It's old enough to be a 16x10(!) display and has cold cathode tubes that light the display. Once it gets past the 5 blinks it's in perfect working order with a good looking picture. I just need it to start right up instead of throwing the error code every time.

There's actually a setting that allows me to display an HD 16x9 picture as 16x9 instead of 16x10. That's the only reason I kept it as it will show an OTA picture in the correct aspect ratio.

Should I try unplugging one and then the other backlight or maybe both to see if the error code goes away? I don't see a warmup of the cold cathode tubes so they appear to be working properly.

Val

[R_J]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

I'm not sure about this display but many TV's/monitors will flash the led while it is turning on and the display is off. This flashing may just be during it's boot up time.

[valvashon]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

I unplugged the top backlight connectors, then the bottom backlight connectors, then both sets. Still the same number of blinks on startup.

Anybody know if R_J is correct- this is just the bootup indicator and not an indicator of trouble?

Val

[nomoresonys]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

did you try a simple reset, unplug tv for 10 minutes, hold power button in on tv for 30 seconds, plug tv back in and try it.

[valvashon]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

Tried that but it did not stop the blinking when plugged in.

I was able to modify the R-C time constant in the 555 timer/relay circuit that I found on Circuit Lab to get the job done. The R-C component values originally gave a relay held closed time of 680 mS which wasn't long enough for this particular device. I used my phone timer and got a rough estimate of 3 seconds for the blinks and then tried a 3.3 meg ohm resistor in the R-C circuit but that was just short of what I needed so I went to the next value I had, 4.7 meg ohm giving a relay held closed time of 4.7 seconds which is long enough to allow the TV to "see" the held closed relay (across the power button) after the blinking stops and turn itself on.

Does anybody see a market for a circuit like this, with custom values of the R-C circuit to produce the necessary relay held shut time?

Surely I can't be the only person who wants their TV or whatever to turn back on after a power outage.

Val

[alfatv]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

hold power button in on tv for 30 seconds

What does this step do?

[nomoresonys]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

drains any let over residual power from the TV’s capacitors, allows the TV to soft reset itself.

[alfatv]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

drains any let over residual power from the TV's capacitors, allows the TV to soft reset itself.

Wow! Do you really believe this?

[nomoresonys]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

it's done all the time, fixed many an issue doing the same, lets ask the other members what they think if you have any doubts.

[valvashon]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

I think it's kind of a load of BS too and it didn't help with this particular set.

I did contact Insignia to ask the simple question- "is the blinking upon being plugged in normal or is it an error message" and of course couldn't just get an answer from customer service. What I did get felt like some sort of automated reply and here is part of it:

To check if this is just a minor glitch or an internal problem with the set, we are going to reset the TV internally by draining the power remaining
in the power supply. This procedure is called a “power cycle”, please follow the troubleshooting steps below:

1. Unplug your TV from the power outlet.
2. Remove all connections from the back of the TV.
3. While everything is unplugged, press and hold the "POWER" button on your TV for 60 seconds.
4. Plug all connections at the back of your TV making sure all of them are properly connected.
5. Plug the set to the power outlet, if possible, try to connect to a different power outlet or a surge protector.
6. Turn it on and test it.

It must work for some TV's as it is a recommended procedure.

Val

[R_J]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

Once the tv is unplugged, the microprocessor will not be running so it will not even scan the power button, or any of the buttons. This is a internet myth.

[nomoresonys]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

well it worked for me on many occasions and not only on tvs, anyone else have an opinion? of course it's specific, it's not going to remedy broken hardware. What do Diah and Lotus think, you guys think it's a load of shit?

[nomoresonys]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

I really don't care what anyone thinks about it, works for me, the end.

[valvashon]

Re: Insignia NS-LCD-19-09: 5 blinks on power up

In the end, I resigned myself to the fact that the blinking upon power up was just the normal operation of this TV. I built a delay circuit that I was able to find on CircuitLab, and set the R-C delay for the 555 timer to hold the relay for approximately 4.5 seconds. The relay is in parallel with the momentary switch on the side panel controls, and the 4.5 second hold in is long enough to turn the set on as the blinking upon power on is approximately 4.2 seconds.

The red and black wires are power; 12 volts from the power board, tapped in where there is another capacitor (right across the 12 v out) in a different configuration of the board. The blue and yellow wires are across the relay output and are run right to the switch on the small circuit board on the side panel.

It's not perfect- if this was a mission critical device I would have had to extend the delay as the circuit won't turn the TV back on if the power is off for less than 10 seconds. In other words, a momentary power bump will take the set down and it will stay down.

For my purposes this will work fine as the TV will be off overnight before it gets turned back on with a wall switch. The circuit was easy to build with parts from DigiKey and a small bread board from SchmaltzTech (though DigiKey marketplace).

If anybody wants the circuit I would be happy to send it to you.