A trick from a repair meet in Austin saved me a ton of time on a tricky TV board

I was at a small repair meetup in Austin about six months ago, just hanging out and talking shop. This older guy, Mike, was working on a cracked LED TV panel driver board. He pulled out a cheap USB microscope, the kind that costs maybe forty bucks, and hooked it to his laptop. Instead of just looking for burns, he started checking the tiny ceramic capacitors right next to the main chip. He said, 'Half the time the heat from that chip cooks the cap next to it, and you can't see the bulge without zooming in.' I tried it on a stubborn Samsung board last week that had power but no backlight. Sure enough, one of those little brown caps right by the processor had a hairline crack on top you'd never spot with your eye. Swapped it, and the TV lit right up. Has anyone else found a specific spot on certain boards that always seems to fail first?

2 comments

2 Comments

gonzalez.phoenix12d ago

Ever check the voltage regulators on those LG power boards? I had three in a row fail on the same tiny regulator near the main filter cap, it gets way too hot. A quick reflow with some fresh solder usually fixes it for good.

thomas_johnson3511d ago

Which regulator model number is it? Might be a design flaw if it's always the same one.