hey, I’m getting into this kind of repair. I have good soldering skills and am great at taking things apart, but do you have any tips on how to find the fault? even it’s just a blow capacitor, what am I looking for?
Most capacitors you’ll find are cylindrical, with a flat side of the cylinder pointed up. They’ll usually have a big X cut into that top side, allowing it to flex a bit. But if that top side is bulging a lot, that’s a warning sign, if it bulged so much that it opened up and it either looks burned on top, or some kind of paste is actually seeping out, then that thing is way past done.
With capacitors a visual inspection is really all you need. You’d actually need more expensive specialized equipment than a standard multimeter to actually test their capacitance. But if you look at it, and your description might include words like “exploded” or “popped”, or “wtf is this mess?”, then it’s bad.
NGL I usually only do component level repairs on the power boards (or in the case of appliances most of the components are easy to find docs for and are much larger) but I usually find stuff by poking around with my multimeter or looking for obviously blown things. But my experience is more from the realm of appliance repair (and all from experimenting).
Testing capacitors can be done (and if they’re big enough) something I’ll do as well. I ain’t gonna test capacitors that are smaller that a grain of rice.
There are times though that it’s easier to just buy a new board rather than do component level repair.
Good news is that when it comes to TVs those boards are usually really cheap.
hey, I’m getting into this kind of repair. I have good soldering skills and am great at taking things apart, but do you have any tips on how to find the fault? even it’s just a blow capacitor, what am I looking for?
Blown capacitors are nice and obvious.
Most capacitors you’ll find are cylindrical, with a flat side of the cylinder pointed up. They’ll usually have a big X cut into that top side, allowing it to flex a bit. But if that top side is bulging a lot, that’s a warning sign, if it bulged so much that it opened up and it either looks burned on top, or some kind of paste is actually seeping out, then that thing is way past done.
With capacitors a visual inspection is really all you need. You’d actually need more expensive specialized equipment than a standard multimeter to actually test their capacitance. But if you look at it, and your description might include words like “exploded” or “popped”, or “wtf is this mess?”, then it’s bad.
got it, thank you!!
NGL I usually only do component level repairs on the power boards (or in the case of appliances most of the components are easy to find docs for and are much larger) but I usually find stuff by poking around with my multimeter or looking for obviously blown things. But my experience is more from the realm of appliance repair (and all from experimenting).
Testing capacitors can be done (and if they’re big enough) something I’ll do as well. I ain’t gonna test capacitors that are smaller that a grain of rice.
There are times though that it’s easier to just buy a new board rather than do component level repair.
Good news is that when it comes to TVs those boards are usually really cheap.
that makes sense. appreciate it!!