LCD/PLASMA REPAIR

[norman]

Hi folks, How are you at lcd/plasma repair. I find that at least a third of the repairs I get now are scrapped due to no service info available or expensive parts or no parts being available. I am self employed and am finding it difficult to make a living at this now. How are you doing? Look forward to your replies. Norman

[ex ttg]

Hi Norman
Only just spotted your comments.I only went self employed at the start of january after 20 years of working for first a small business as bench and field then field for just about the biggest before taking redundancy.I suppose i'm lucky in that for the last 3 years i've been repairing pc's as well so i can advertise for both but at the moment i reckon 85% of business is the flat panel repairs.
I'm finding the majority of faults to be secondary smoothing caps and inverters(which are getting fairly cheap now)on lcd's but the plasmas do tend to be more of a problem.I think the trick is forget the workshop and work from home thus cutting overheads massively.If you can't repair the psu in home bring it home with you,any other board but psu forget all about component level and treat it as you would a motherboard in a pc.There are good second hand and breaker parts available with sjstv being just one that provides a great service when your in the trade.Euras is worth every penny of the £20 or so a month for tips and schematics and part numbers etc for chas hyde and anyone in the trade who isn't signed up wants their head examining.
When a customer makes arrangements for a callout do your best to get the model and symptoms before going and i'll bet 90% of the time you'll be well armed by euras before you get there-print off the model tips.
Good luck norman
Nick

[norman]

Hi Nick, Thanks for the reply and comments. I work from home so overheads are minimal. I repair a lot of PSU's,although mainly I bring them home for repair. I find I get a lot of trouble with main boards in LCD, these are very expensive if you can't repair them. It is difficult with little or no service information. Plasma is a bit of a nightmare as diagnosis can be difficult and expensive if you get it wrong. I wonder if anyone goes on manufacturers courses now and if they do could they share the notes. I have been looking for books on repair, particularily with pictures of symptoms so as to give a clue where to start looking. On the subject of EURAS, I have considered it before but have wondered about the benefits as the monthly subscription might be too much during the quiet times (which can be very quiet).
I have been self employed for 6 years now and I too worked for 30 years for a small repair company as workshop manager tackling anything from tv to video, hifi, microwave, camcorders, phones, breadmakers! I used to always be arguing with the managers saying that just because it has a plug on it doesn't mean I can repair it!
 Sorry to rant on, thanks for the input. Norman

[ex ttg]

Hi Norman
I think manufacturers pulled the plug on training years ago.The last time I was sent anywhere by ttg was for a tosh course on rear projection where they advised us to watch out for possible problems with their new text boards(stuck in standby,no channel change etc)but i'm sure we all saw plenty of them(used to take the board out,take to the customers kitchen and use their worksurface as a bench and reflow qt07).
Oh for the good old days of hitachi courses in a nice hotel,slap up meal and trying to stay awake in the afternoon so i could tell the boss how nicam worked the next day.
Euras has definitely given me at least three tips in the last month that i otherwise would have struggled to find without a manual,bench,scope.Also they have a fault photo section to help with plasma/lcd symptoms.You get a free month trial to start with so what have you got to lose,but like a woman,once you've got it you wont want to let it go even though it's a drain on your resources.
Cheers
Nick

[Technomaniac]

Hi from Down Under !...  Having been in my own business 35 years with staff, now alone, and just beginning to get into LCD and Plasma as they fall out of their warranty carried by opposition firms (which have mostly closed down anyway), I find myself not having a high success rate on these sets. I have several problems:  Can't find correct or complete schematics, can't find sources of boards, and can't positively diagnose which board is faulty without sufficient info. So I wouldn't have the confidence to blow a couple of hundred dollars on a board I may not need, as we never see the same model more than once ! That is, if I could source the boards!  One would think that if a power supply is faulty, check or replace all the electros, but when you still have ripple coming out and the thing is massively complicated, no circuit diagram, you wonder whether something might be pulling a bit too much current, but can't be sure. Maybe experience will improve the situation, but I think the gap between the manufacturer and repairer is widening much too quickly!

[norman]

Hi, I agree with you that to make a diagnosis is difficult, and to make it incorrectly is a very expensive mistake. I think a lot of engineers are struggling and try to put customers off a repair by quoting high prices. I am sure we will all get better given time but as we all know customers are not a patient bunch. thanks for the input, Norman

[tv john]

Hi guys, I've been self employed for 28 years now and couldn't survive without my wife's income.
One piece of advice I would give out,is not to hand your UK tax return in too early. The tax inspectors
sit twiddling their thumbs till some mug hands a return in early and off they go,investigating your
life.
One common fault not mentioned a lot is the lvds plugs/sockets with poor connections or the cable being too tight. With any picture fault on a lcd I remove them,scrape the pins and oil with WD40 before scrapping.Remember, most are glued at the screen end where I slice along the joint with a stanley knife
because the plug can fall apart (I've got the tshirt on that blunder from two years ago).
The price of lcd tv's are falling ,just the way it was before with cheaper crt tv's and customers are reluctant to shell out much for repairs as well. I'm thinking of changing my business name to 'Bob A Job
Week' as in the old Boy Scouts charrity,I might get more work.

bfn  tv john.

[FlatLineChip]

I am a retired electronics Engineer and have two friends who have made their livings in their
own service shops. As a challenge I have spent a bit of time repairing some of their boards down to the component level and find the following.
1. Information and schematics are hard to get- especially PSU - purposely.
2. Some components have the ID's ground off.
3. Components are difficult to acquire when identified.
4. Components are of a transitory nature and become obsolete quickly (How many different transistors, FETs do we need?).
5. SMD technology limits repair involvment in the small workshop.
6. Nothing stays the same - new pcb runs etc (any expertise gained is obsolete in 12 months).
7. In developed western countries wages kill any extended or concerted effort at repair.


Basically all the above whether overtly or covertly propagates the throw-away after failure
mentality.
There is no intention of the manufacturer or importing retailer to support his product longer
than that required by warranty. I live in a shire that has roadside junk collections and my
observation 3 yrs ago (in the 'boom' years), saw all the large high quality TVs, Amps and
players that had lasted 10 years or more dumped and replaced with the Plasma's and surround
sound systems. Now I see them there after a couple of years. Earth eaters Eh?

We are all being shafted to a consumer mentality and unfortunately the electronics service
industry is doomed. My commiserations.
Regards, Bill AUS.

[Turnip]

Hi folks,

  Have to observe that being in the trade since the 50's there have been some changes, but to keep viable (and still eating, however poorly) one has to move with it if one wants to stay with it.

  Some years ago, all of my other local repair chums who with VCRs for instance, replaced an idler when just the tyre would do the biz, found customers just wouldn't pay when new VCRs came down to twenty five pounds or so. Well my tyres were just pence, so a profit was still made.

  Currently LCD screens are fragile, and no-one reasonably repairs Plasma due to cost and non-availability of new parts, but local tips have heaps of them, generally thrown not too gently into re-cycling bins for some cool political reasons.

   Recycling folks generally feel that current EU directives, especially the way local 'Council Clipboard Chums' interpret them is mindless twaddle - ask some, they see the waste first-hand.

   Optomistically, in our trade 'till expiry - Chris.