CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Curt Palme]

I thought I'd throw this out there, even though it's a bit off the norm for most of you. I have a deal going with a local recycler where I pay him cash, and can have my pick of whatever I want out of the place.

As an aside, BC was late to the recycling table, and as a result, I think it's a bit more organized than other provinces or states. Nothing (AFAIK) leaves the province, the smeltering and processing of all the electronics is apparently in house.

I've done this for about 10 years now, and get all sorts of crap, from laptops to flat screen TVs. The flat screens went through a dry spell for some reason, but recently I received a couple of late model sets that were smart TVs to boot.

I looked at both today, and got them both up and running. Both were LG. One was dead, although the power light was on in standby mode, the other powered up, but had no video or backlight.

Since there are so many issues with the VLSI chips and their ball solder connections, I figured I'd take a standard heat gun/wallpaper removal tool, and gently heat up the big processing chips. My method was very unscientific.. I'd circle the heat wave around the chip, avoiding other SMT components around the chip itself. Once the chip was too hot to touch (somewhere around 400 degrees F, I'd let it cool down. The first set took 3 tries, but it's now been working fine for 3 hours.

The second one I tried something different, I left the set powered up while heating it up. After about 20 seconds of heat, I saw the backlight fire up, stopped heating it up, and saw that the menus popped up on the screen.

Not sure how long they will last, but I'll flip them on CL cheap for $150-200 each with a new universal remote for $8 on ebay, so for 30 minutes total time, not a bad investment!

[Curt Palme]

I thought I'd throw this out there, even though it's a bit off the norm for most of you. I have a deal going with a local recycler where I pay him cash, and can have my pick of whatever I want out of the place.

As an aside, BC was late to the recycling table, and as a result, I think it's a bit more organized than other provinces or states. Nothing (AFAIK) leaves the province, the smeltering and processing of all the electronics is apparently in house.

I've done this for about 10 years now, and get all sorts of crap, from laptops to flat screen TVs. The flat screens went through a dry spell for some reason, but recently I received a couple of late model sets that were smart TVs to boot.

I looked at both today, and got them both up and running. Both were LG. One was dead, although the power light was on in standby mode, the other powered up, but had no video or backlight.

Since there are so many issues with the VLSI chips and their ball solder connections, I figured I'd take a standard heat gun/wallpaper removal tool, and gently heat up the big processing chips. My method was very unscientific.. I'd circle the heat wave around the chip, avoiding other SMT components around the chip itself. Once the chip was too hot to touch (somewhere around 400 degrees F, I'd let it cool down. The first set took 3 tries, but it's now been working fine for 3 hours.

The second one I tried something different, I left the set powered up while heating it up. After about 20 seconds of heat, I saw the backlight fire up, stopped heating it up, and saw that the menus popped up on the screen.

Not sure how long they will last, but I'll flip them on CL cheap for $150-200 each with a new universal remote for $8 on ebay, so for 30 minutes total time, not a bad investment!

[the big E]

Curt I recently got a couple flat panels tvs I may need some assistance on.(if you don’t mind)
I will likely be posting them on here(both was given to me btw) one is a plasma by lg(1080 model according to the model number when I pull it up) the other is a Emerson brand lcd(works on everything aside from the picture and menus being upside down)

The plasma won’t power up though.

[Curt Palme]

Sorry, I am totally out of flat screen repairs at this point. Most aren't worth doing anything with at this point.

[Curt Palme]

Sorry, I am totally out of flat screen repairs at this point. Most aren't worth doing anything with at this point.

[the big E]

Ah ok.
I know what you mean on that.
I prefer to work on crt based sets but im going to see if I can get these two to work.