Weirdest problem

[Jan Panteltje]

Sunshine, if you worked in the industry I would believe you, but you
dont so you talk crap (or as its now known, "spin") - your reference
points are 20 years out of date.
Well, I can only go by current industry experience - 3 years before a
big failure is about average - and thats looking at 40+ Tvs a week -
not 3 Philips in 15 years. And you are partially correct given limited
experience - I have a 20yo philips here still with a good CRT that
has needed totally minimal work. Also have a 14" JVC with rotary
tuners from the 70's, all thats ever done is pop a mains fuse and need
a shot of CRC in a noisy volume pot.Modern Philips are crap by
comparison - hopelessly overengineered in a bizarre way, loust
mechanical access, with woeful documentation run from a call centre in
Bangladesh.(or wherever it is....) If one comes down the driveway to
the workshop, I pretend to be out, or tell the customer straight out
it will cost them heaps to diagnose and fix... Sony are heading the
same way - they closed down their local support centre here a few
years ago, you can play musical chairs for days as the call centres
people are hopeless if the fault isnt in the existing knowledge base
and they shuffle you round the world on hold.... Sony are no longer
worth the premium price they charge. And Trinitron tubes "Always"
looked fantastic when new (thats how they sold them), and its basic
psychology 101 that if you pay a lot of money for something it "must"
be good . They do not have long life, emission goes down pretty
fast.... Have a critical look at a 5 year old Sony next to a new $400
Asian cheapy and tell me then if the Sony was worth the money you paid
for it. You wont tho, becasue you will have got used to the poor
picture over a period of years and so not "see" it.

de VK3BFA Andrew

Oh I agree with you 100% on Sony, and Sony service, I gave up on that,
so did they it seems.
But also these things (like TV) become a throw away item....
It wil get worse when we get those paper thin (perhaps organic?) displays,
10000 hours... throw away after use.
Better sell cars... at least you can make money on repairs.
These large displays have burn-in, but you can make $$$ selling a new one.
Maybe even electronic repair in general is going the dinosaur way?
Already 20 years ago I stopped accepting some audio stuff for repair.
Because it would only lead to a price more then a new one, and a pissed customer.
JP

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Yes the consumer does get a lot better deal, the price is unbelievable,
being an old git I can remember colour TVs being £350 when a weekly wage was
£20, the price of the TV hasn't changed much but the money is worth a lot
less. Your right, the typical consumer never really cared much for the
quality so I was wrong to say people are satisfied with it, what i meant was
that the quality was much better and still is, if you take a 20 year old TV
that has had a good life and is in top condition then the picture quality
will be better than the same sized new one you buy today. I mended a 100Hz
JVC a few weeks ago, dogs bollocks model and in good order. Sitting on the
bench next to a similar Philips basic 15 year old, same picture on both and
the JVC just did not have the bandwidth of the old Philips. This isn't
exceptional it is an easy comparison to make and is across the range of
"mass market" models.

Nothing like a good old Philips K12 chassis hehe, you wil lhave to re-solder
most connectors though.
JP

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Hi...

I'm an old guy, long retired and stroke damaged, but
maybe I can help to bring a little peace... hey, I'm
a Canadian, that's what we do

Jan, it doesn't detect x-rays. No detectors there, none
at all, never were.

What's happened is that the various and sundry experts
have decided among themselves at what level of HV the
set will emit greater than acceptable radiation...

So, the HV is capped at (or slightly below) that
point. If it rises above the set shuts down.

Hope that helps. Now be nice to each other, and
helpful

Take care.

Ken

OK, thank you!
Peace to you to!
JP

 

[.Bill]

Already 20 years ago I stopped accepting some audio stuff for repair.
Because it would only lead to a price more then a new one, and a pissed customer.
JP

And that really is the bottom line for folks who repair electronics as a
means of putting food on the table.

On the other side, I can putz around here looking for tips and advice
for a problem set the rest of my days and be told only to have it
"serviced" by an authorized factory centre, etc. Well, duh. It said
that in the little 2-page manual in 14 languages.
However, sometimes its MY set and I'm retired with a bit of common
knowledge and I'd just like to figger it out even if it goes to the kit
for lack of reasonably priced parts.
I think some of the posters here consider a guy fixing his own mess is a
threat to their business which often seems to indicate to junk the set
or have it "serviced" by factory reps in lab coats because you're too
stoopid to deal with it without killing yourself. I also figger they
really can't fix things on their own.
And this may well be the reality these days in electronics.

Anyway, back to the Samsung. I had a similar model that went tits up
after about two years. Flyback xfmr (as I would call it). 80-odd bux
to replace it on my own hobby time and a new 13" cheapo color set would
cost $119. Where I live the factory authorized repair centre would have
involved to/fro shipping charges.
What I would have liked to have learned is a bit of info on how to make
an accurate diagnosis beyond my intuitive guesswork before I pitched to
the kit what may have been a perfectly good set ailing from a weird but
common one-punt anomoly that a one-timer wouldn't be savvy to.
Having worked in a regional electronics repair facility at one time,
most of what I received were 5-minute jobs that anyone with a modicum of
talent should have resolved.
I too could be a net-repair guru if I all I had to contribute was
generic safety advice and recommendations to send the problem to a
factory centre for servicing.

-O'poster

 

[Jan Panteltje]

And that really is the bottom line for folks who repair electronics as a
means of putting food on the table.

On the other side, I can putz around here looking for tips and advice
for a problem set the rest of my days and be told only to have it
"serviced" by an authorized factory centre, etc. Well, duh. It said
that in the little 2-page manual in 14 languages.
However, sometimes its MY set and I'm retired with a bit of common
knowledge and I'd just like to figger it out even if it goes to the kit
for lack of reasonably priced parts.
I think some of the posters here consider a guy fixing his own mess is a
threat to their business which often seems to indicate to junk the set
or have it "serviced" by factory reps in lab coats because you're too
stoopid to deal with it without killing yourself. I also figger they
really can't fix things on their own.
And this may well be the reality these days in electronics.

Anyway, back to the Samsung. I had a similar model that went tits up
after about two years. Flyback xfmr (as I would call it). 80-odd bux
to replace it on my own hobby time and a new 13" cheapo color set would
cost $119. Where I live the factory authorized repair centre would have
involved to/fro shipping charges.
What I would have liked to have learned is a bit of info on how to make
an accurate diagnosis beyond my intuitive guesswork before I pitched to
the kit what may have been a perfectly good set ailing from a weird but
common one-punt anomoly that a one-timer wouldn't be savvy to.
Having worked in a regional electronics repair facility at one time,
most of what I received were 5-minute jobs that anyone with a modicum of
talent should have resolved.
I too could be a net-repair guru if I all I had to contribute was
generic safety advice and recommendations to send the problem to a
factory centre for servicing.

Well, I do not understand your rant, but in a real repair shop
like say Philips service center in the old days I think they would see if you
could manage to repair 60 color sets a week with ANY errors (from defective tube
to defective resistor).
You'd have to fill in a form, do the paperwork for each repair, get it from store
and bring it back... and make very very little money indeed.
The one taking in the repair would be just a sales person, or it would come through
the dealer channels.
I have seen customers there freaking out at the counter when having to pay say 25$ for
replacement of a switch in a 30$ coffee machine.
In your own shop, you still need to get the hours filled, and you cannot charge
anyone 100$ for repairing a 50$ Tandy 'hifi' amp.
And that amp may involve getting weard transistors, no diagram (nothing,
you have to work out the circuit from the PCB), never mind the unobtainable chips
with Alien writing.
I have done that, many of those repairs, people do come back, but it does
not really help you a lot financially.
And, you cannot really do these repairs if you do not know your stuff very well.
(Or go are out of business in a week, guaratee will byte you).
So, bottom line... depends.
'net repair guru'? what is that?
You need your workshop too! equipment, documentation, place, electricity,
insurance, car, advertizing.
How can you repair 'on the net'.
All you can do on the net is refer someone to a real service place.
Strange as it may seem, often the service center indicated in the 14
language folder is the best, at least they have the parts.
If you are one of those amateur moonlighters, well I have seen really bad things
REALLY bad.
Fuses bridged with nails... to say the least.
hehe
JP

 

[Activ8]

In other words, it's an overvoltage safety cutout. It limits the
*voltage* by detecting the *voltage*. It doesn't detect X-rays, but
because its original purpose was to prevent the emission of X-rays (in
the days when TV sets included devices that could do this), it is
sometimes loosely spoken of as an X-ray limiter (or detector). Just
another example of how something can be half-understood by the
half-educated, who then jump to the wrong conclusion.

I've seen overvoltage limiters that use a thyristor (or triac) placed
after a fast-acting fuse, with the intention that a fault situation
will cause the thyristor to present a deliberate short-circuit across
the supply and blow the fuse, thus rendering the equipment safe. An
arrangement like this can be called a "crowbar" circuit, or "crowbar
protection", because of the "brute force" nature of the way it works.
It doesn't mean you'll find a crowbar in your TV set (though you may be
tempted to place one there).

Good example. My favorite is the "anti-oscillation detection
routine" in the RS freq counter manual. That's RS's $20 way of
saying that if the frequency changes [much] before the counter gets
the same freq (count) for 10 consequtive gates, it's noise or
whatever - not a signal. Anti-oscillation... like something is
stopping it.

 

[Activ8]

Well, I do not understand your rant, but in a real repair shop
like say Philips service center in the old days I think they would see if you
could manage to repair 60 color sets a week with ANY errors (from defective tube
to defective resistor).
You'd have to fill in a form, do the paperwork for each repair, get it from store
and bring it back... and make very very little money indeed.
The one taking in the repair would be just a sales person, or it would come through
the dealer channels.
I have seen customers there freaking out at the counter when having to pay say 25$ for
replacement of a switch in a 30$ coffee machine.
In your own shop, you still need to get the hours filled, and you cannot charge
anyone 100$ for repairing a 50$ Tandy 'hifi' amp.
And that amp may involve getting weard transistors, no diagram (nothing,
you have to work out the circuit from the PCB), never mind the unobtainable chips
with Alien writing.
I have done that, many of those repairs, people do come back, but it does
not really help you a lot financially.
And, you cannot really do these repairs if you do not know your stuff very well.
(Or go are out of business in a week, guaratee will byte you).
So, bottom line... depends.
'net repair guru'? what is that?
You need your workshop too! equipment, documentation, place, electricity,
insurance, car, advertizing.
How can you repair 'on the net'.
All you can do on the net is refer someone to a real service place.
Strange as it may seem, often the service center indicated in the 14
language folder is the best, at least they have the parts.
If you are one of those amateur moonlighters, well I have seen really bad things
REALLY bad.
Fuses bridged with nails... to say the least.
hehe
JP

My favorite is the fuse with foil from a cigarette pack wrapped
around it.

 

[.Bill]

Jan Panteltje wrote:

cing.

Well, I do not understand your rant, but in a real repair shop
like say Philips service center in the old days I think they would see if you
could manage to repair 60 color sets a week with ANY errors (from defective tube
to defective resistor).

Of course not. You are looking at repair forum questions as how to get
60 color sets a week out of the door.

And, you cannot really do these repairs if you do not know your stuff very well.
(Or go are out of business in a week, guaratee will byte you).
So, bottom line... depends.
'net repair guru'? what is that?
You need your workshop too! equipment, documentation, place, electricity,
insurance, car, advertizing.
How can you repair 'on the net'.\\

ok, I'll buy that.

All you can do on the net is refer someone to a real service place.

So we really shouldn't be here then, should we?

Fuses bridged with nails... to say the least.

Me too, but I don't do that.

hehe

indeed hehe.

-Bill

 

[.Bill]

My favorite is the fuse with foil from a cigarette pack wrapped
around it.

My favorite is an idiot who doesn't know how to snip 80 lines of
excessive verbage on a newsgroup for a 1 line reply.

 

[Activ8]

My favorite is an idiot who doesn't know how to snip 80 lines of
excessive verbage on a newsgroup for a 1 line reply.

Oh. Good. I'll try to be equally careless next time

 

[.Bill]

Oh. Good. I'll try to be equally careless next time

I'm sure.

-BM

 

[Roderick Stewart]

You'd have to fill in a form, do the paperwork for each repair, get it from store
and bring it back... and make very very little money indeed.
The one taking in the repair would be just a sales person, or it would come through
the dealer channels.
I have seen customers there freaking out at the counter when having to pay say 25$ for
replacement of a switch in a 30$ coffee machine.
In your own shop, you still need to get the hours filled, and you cannot charge
anyone 100$ for repairing a 50$ Tandy 'hifi' amp.

That's the economics of mass-production. The more elaborate things we are able to churn
out millions of copies of from factories instead of hand-making them individually, the
worse it'll get. It'll certainly never get any better. The only place where it still
makes economic sense to have people repairing electronic stuff is in large companies
that can accept that the repair department is loss-making in financial terms, but too
specialised for the work to be done anywhere else. I suspect that even the days of
those places are numbered, because it will only be a matter of time before some naive
accountant thinks he has a brilliant idea for a way to save money - close down the
repair department and "outsource" the work, accepting that a certain amount of stuff
won't be repairable. They probably have equations that balance the losses made my
discarding equipment that could still have some useful life if it was repaired, against
the gains made by getting rid of all those expensive people. Soon there will be nobody
left in any industry but accountants.

Rod.

 

[Activ8]

I'm sure.

-BM

Bill, I'm normally real good about snipping. You wouldn't know that
because I don't recognize you as a regular in s.e.d. which brings me
to another favorite.

Lamers that crosspost repair and other non design questions to
s.e.d.

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

same way - they closed down their local support centre here a few
years ago, you can play musical chairs for days as the call centres
people are hopeless if the fault isnt in the existing knowledge base
and they shuffle you round the world on hold....

Heh - I just bought a new DVD player because the cheap, plasticky, zapper
broke!!!!

....the cost of getting a replacement zapper was about the same as a new DVD
player too!

This waste annoys me on some level - probably I will compensate by opening
the thing and see if there is a Linux box inside. But that is the way it
goes.

Sony are no longer
worth the premium price they charge.

Their proprietary Digital Amplifier technology sux too: We went to a shop to
buy one of those small CD/Radio/Tape HiFi systems for daughters birthday.
There was a Sony there, but it sounded like crap - the sound was woolly and
strange, quite unlike the little neat Sony CMT10 the son got, so we got her
a JVC instead ... this was wierd. Sony used to be good stuff.

But understanding struck when we got a new glossy brochure for Sony with the
newspaper, boasting of that crap "HiFi" system containing Sony's new &
Wonderfull Digital Amplifiers .... It's a Beta - obviously Sony did not want
to shell license for the core DDX Patents held by Apogee Technology and
rolled their own.

Which is Ok - but that they actually sold the product, a product anyone
spending 10 minutes using, will think is crap - this tells us that Sony now
believes that the Brand is Everything!

 

[Peter van Merkerk]

A good 1980s set in top condition will blow most run of the mill new TVs
into touch.

I have noticed this too. Many of the newer sets seem to have poor HV
regulation, lousy focus and/or bad convergence. It surprising to see that a
10+ year old set often produces a better picture than a brand new set, in
spite of the wear of the old set. I guess this is the price we pay for dirt
cheap electronics (most people don't seem to notice the difference anyway).

 

[Peter van Merkerk]

Nothing like a good old Philips K12 chassis hehe, you wil lhave to
re-solder

most connectors though.

I used to own one; I remember it did produce a picture very quickly after
power on, and the sound was excellent (thanks to the buildin basreflex
system), much better than the sound produced by those tiny speakers found
in modern sets. But the contacts of the plug-in boards were a never ending
source of trouble.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

I used to own one; I remember it did produce a picture very quickly after
power on, and the sound was excellent (thanks to the buildin basreflex
system), much better than the sound produced by those tiny speakers found
in modern sets. But the contacts of the plug-in boards were a never ending
source of trouble.

Yep, but it had black current stabilization in the RGB tube driver.
Greyscale would stay correct over its lifetime!
Later sets (k40 etc) no longer had this (and the bad modules hehe), the extra
circuitry was too expensive Philips said (I asked Eindhoven)..
Probably sold less replacement tubes too...
JP

 

[Kevin G. Rhoads]

Entire outside of picture tube will be earthed. It's the *inside* that

carries the high voltage.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing".

No, the entire outside is *supposed* to be grounded (or earthed).
and the HV connected to the inside ...

but if there is a problem with the return circuit, the entire outside
WILL BE at high voltage. ANd how do you *know* it isn't?

We were talking about *safety* and a TV set that is known to be
misbehaving. You want to bet someone else's life on your knowledge
that the aquadag *should* be grounded? Without testing it?

"A little learning is a dangerous thing". Duh!

In case you hadn't bumped into it yet, I'll tell you "should"
should be spelled "shud", because it is clearly a four-letter
word.

Yeah, the whole outside of the picture tube *should* be at ground
potential. But all too often they ain't, dagnabit!

 

[Kevin G. Rhoads]

Yes, but it is tricky, I did discharge large CRTs that way, took them out

(for replacement), and then got zapped while holding them (you should be
VERY steady and not drop it in such a case).
This seems to be because the HV connection sort of charges up again,
maybe some late electrons...

If you are into electrical field theory at all, you can model this
effect quite simply using two or more regions, one of which has a very slightly
conductive dielectric. Glass can be an ionic conductor, it is certainly
not a perfect dielectric when exposed to HV.

But fully discharging the charge accessible on the electrodes DOES NOT
necessarily fully discharge any HV capacitor. You cannot be certain
that all the charge is one the electrodes, a considerable amount can
leak into the dielectric volume, and that will leak back to the electrodes
after they have been discharged, recharging them. THat's why one common safety
practice is to keep a shorting wire on unused HV caps at all times.

 

[Kevin G. Rhoads]

Entire outside of picture tube may be, and much of it will be,

It had better not be!

The big red cup and red wire cover up the lead that goes to the
anode. The HV is inside that. The outside of the glass is covered
with a conductive coating that's grounded.

The aquadag on the outside is connected to HV through the
picture tube -- and that is why it is supposed to be grounded.
But if the grounding fails or the return circuit becomes resistive
(e.g., bad connection) then aquadag will still be connected to HV
through the picture tube and the voltage on it will float up,
potentially quite high.

Yes, it is not supposed to be that way. But this is a known
flaky unit and safety we are talking about, so the possibility
must be warned of!