What are you proud of this year? I don’t wanna hear i ran 3 marathons.
I want to hear the crazy awards stuff like…I drove the same road 438 times and exclusively listened to Fleetwood Mac.
Common share your special skill or unique achievement this year.
I have a monitor that recently died. I ought to give it a go to see if I can fix it.
Go for it. It’s already broke, even if you make the problem worse, it won’t functionally change what you are planning to do with it (throw it away). Do be careful around any capacitors, @Nollij@sopuli.xyz made a very good point about discharging them carefully. I took a hit off a capacitor for the flash in a disposable camera some years ago and was certainly shocking.
A couple years ago I grabbed a 55" LG tv from a curb dump. Owner said the screen would flash briefly, then turn off. Found out that’s typical when one of the backlight LEDs dies (resistance is screwed up). Got all new LED backlight strips for the price of a decent dinner and spent an afternoon switching them out. It’s been our primary TV since and I’m stupid proud about keeping it from the landfill. 100% recommend repairing stuff like this.
This sort of thing is just awesome. I really wish there was more information on repairing these sorts of electronics out there and accessible to non-electricians. I do get that sometimes it really does take someone with a lot of specialized knowledge and training to troubleshoot and fix things like this. But, even basic, “look for X and try Y” type stuff for us plebes to make the attempt. Sure, we’ll fail as often as we succeed, but even that would save a lot of electronics from the scrapheap.
Absolutely! I’ve had luck with the iFixIt step by step tutorials, but for this specific TV there was a YouTube video where the person walks you through troubleshooting and teardown. I kinda lucked out finding that!
I highly recommend learning how to solder as well as the basic techniques of using a voltmeter to test power and continuity. There are YouTube videos for these and other skills that help demystify troubleshooting and repair.
It also helps to have the mindset of “It’s already broken, so what’s the harm in trying to fix it?”