HDTV Action

My flat screen TV has been acting up. It’s been taking longer and longer to turn on, during which time the green power LED just blinks on, off … on, off ... on, off. It’s only about four years old. Am I the only one who thinks a thousand dollar TV should last longer than four years?

	It has a good picture when it’s working but it takes 10 to 15 minutes to turn on. I began just leaving it on 24 - 7. After a few weeks of doing that, I decided to take action: fix it or replace it. I knew the most likely cause of this malfunction was a bad electrolytic capacitor in the power supply.
	Step 1 – Pull the TV away from the corner of the room and disconnect the cables. Remove two screws and slide the TV up and off its stand.
	Step 2 – Place the TV screen-side down on a table and remove the speaker bar attached at the bottom edge of the case. Then remove a crap-load of little screws and the back cover comes off. It takes 15 minutes to get all that done.
	Step 3 – after removing still more screws, disconnecting cables, and peeling back metal foil tape, I’m able to flip the center box over. The power supply board is on the left.
	This is a closer view of the solder-side (bottom) of the power supply board.
	This is the component side of the power supply board. It’s difficult to see in this image, but there is an electrolytic capacitor near the top right corner of the board, just above the transformer on the right, that has swelled and vented.
	This is a closeup view of the bad capacitor. It’s in the center of the image, and the electrolyte being vented is black. The usual cause of this kind of failure is over-voltage. This cap is rated 2200µF/25VDC. I went to Radio Shack and bought a replacement. I wanted a 2200µF and I wanted to bump up the working voltage. The Shack didn’t have a radial lead cap in the value I needed, but I was able get an axial lead cap rated 2200µF/35VDC.
	Fortunately, there was room to install the axial lead capacitor where the radial lead cap had been located. I soldered it in place. I put everything back together and turned on the TV. It works great. When I push the power button on the remote, I have picture and sound in about eight seconds. The repair job took 90 minutes, not counting the trip to the store to buy the replacement part, and cost less than five dollars.