Needless to say, if you have intentions on emulating the stunt below, make sure any and all 240 volt electronics are turned off and de-energised before you advance on them with implements of destruction!
We have a decent size TV, which cost us over $500 (it was a good deal at the time, being a superseded model) and although it was comparatively new it was outside the warranty period (of course) and all of a sudden a few weeks ago, the picture dissolved and all we got were vertical (and occasionally horizontal) lines of colour.
I tried the usual fix-all technique and turned it off and on, it lasted about 5 minutes and the lines were back. I had also had the back of the TV off and with my Son-in-law (who IS and electronics technician), we checked out what we could get at, but were unable to fix the problem. This was serious!
After some comprehensive research time spent with Dr Google (by Linda) we found out it was the T-Con board that was at fault, whatever that is.
Anyway after a considerable amount of stuffing around we were able to obtain said T-Con board (check out the pic above) for about $60 plus postage from an electronics spare part supply company online.
While I admit I have no idea what a T-Con board looked like, the thing they sent us looked nothing like what I thought a T-con board should look like! I checked out the back of the TV and none of the obvious electronic circuit boards looked even slightly like what they had sent us, so I assumed (as you do) that they had sent me the wrong part.
I rang them and was scrupulously polite (although they were in the wrong) and did as they requested and emailed them pics of the back of the TV sans cover. The message came back "the part is correct". So I emailed back that there was nowhere for a part of that size and shape of part to go.
The technician I was emailing was also scrupulously polite and very diplomatic when he suggested I might have no idea what I was doing and should retain the services of a professional. But! He also sent me a semi-useful YouTube clip of my particular TV being disassembled.
I say the clip was semi-useful because (a) during the disassembly, it did not show how some of the parts were removed, they just disappeared as if by magic, leaving me to wonder how on earth I could remove them without rendering the TV unserviceable, and (b) the voiceover was in Thai.
But it did show that the part I had was correct and where it was to go, in general terms.
After several hours of head scratching and general mucking around I was able to pull the TV apart, remove the old T-Con board, and replace it with the new one. Things got a little testy when I had to change over a couple of the tapes which connect the T-con board to the TV and they turned out not to have push-in connectors. Fortunately the new T-con was not yet installed and I noticed the connector in question actually had a click down bit (technical term) to keep tape in place as well as forming the connection. But not until after mounting stress caused record levels of naughty words to be uttered!
Fortunately, in the end I was able to get everything nominally in place and connected to the point where I could reassemble the TV.
I then set the TV up with the power cord in place and turned on and pointed the remote at it. Nobody was less surprised than me when nothing happened. But! It turned out that the batteries in the remote were dead and once they were replaced, caused the TV to function more-or-less normally and It has continued to function as it should ever since.
It would have been a lot easier (and more expensive) to just get another TV, but we are not made of money and I would have been crapped off to have to send that mass of electronics to waste, well, at least to be recycled at our next Council electronics drop off day, but you get what I mean.
So, when things go bust, do your research and see if you can put things back together rather than replacing the item. Dare to Repair!
