I posted yesterday about my TV. Now mind you I'm not an educated electrician but I'm no amatuer either. I have repaired our microwave, dryer, dishwasher to name a few. So I took our not working TV apart yesterday and found a blown fuse. Is there only one fuse to replace by the way? We live in a small town with no stores, so I decided to take a fuse out of one of our other TV's. It said it was a 125/ 4A just like the other one. I got it put in, put the TV back together, plugged it in and POP. There was a big pop, small spark at outlet. What did I do wrong? Shouldn't the fuse have been the same? Any suggestions or idea's. My friend is taking the old fuse to the store to get a new one, should I try this again or will it make more problems? Thanks Everyone for reading.
I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that most people with some knowledge make. Televisions are very complicated and sensitive electronics. If you do not have any training you SHOULD NOT FOR ANY REASON TRY AND REPAIR ONE YOURSELF. Instead of having a dead fuse, you might have just ruined your tv. You might have had a static discharge which in turn might have fried your TV all together. Not to mention the amount of voltage that runs through your tv. It probably couldn't have killed you, but you could have gotten a very bad electric schock. PLEASE do yourself a favor and just take it to a shop next time, might spend more money, but at least you're not putting your health at risk!
This means you've got something seriously wrong with something else in the TV, this one's not going to be as simple as replacing a blown fuse. The line fuses in a TV generally don't blow unless something MAJORLY wrong happens to it. What this is, it's hard to tellbut obviously something is dead shorted if it caused the fuse to pop instantly and cause that much current draw at your electrical outlet. Not knowing your exact level of skills, I'm not sure if you'd be able to fix this. You basically have to find the bad component(s) in the thing and replace them, and the problem could be anywhere, however.TV's suck a lot of juiceand there's all kinds of high-voltage running around (like upwards of 40,000 volts on the anode lead of the flybackit's the big red cable on the suction-cup insulator on the back of the tube)and unless you've messed around with these things before, it's not advisible you try to fix it yourself. I've worked on all kinds of things to.and it was a long time before I had the knowledge and skills to be able to fix TV's So, don't change the fuse again, you're just causing further damage to a lot of things by doing that.
The other posts so far are all essentially correct but if you want a little more detail as to what might be wrong ! First you need to be able to use a multi meter ! if you can well then with The meter set to measure ohms on say 20k range place meter prods across the main filter electro , looks like large can situated not far from mains input and on/off etc it will be labelled maybe 200mfd 400 vdc !! If you get a resistance reading of just a few ohms regardless which way you connect the meter leads then you can be fairly certain that the trouble lies with the bridge rectifier block with an open ballast resister as well ! prob 4.7 ohm 5watt !. Also the fault could also be the power regulator IC or transistor which ever the set uses ! The idea is to test those basic components first then if you find the faulty part then you can replace the fuse again . Do not bother replacing the fuse without testing the other parts . Oh one more thing ! the fuse should be a delay fuse !Well that covers the basics , there are still plenty of other possibilities But digest these first and do an Edit if you have further comments ! Cheers Pete EDIT. The tests that I have outlined are very basic and usually do not require a schematic to find the parts, it's like a motor mechanic does not need a workshop manual to indentify things like a carburetter or the spark plugs or the coil in any car he sees even in a make he has never seen before . Also it requires knowledge to understand a TV schematic or diagram . The solder needed is resin multi core solder and can be bought at any electronic store ! You will also need a de-soldering method , you buy solder wick which soaks up the molten solder or a desolder pump. If you still have missgivings then I think you would be better off to find someone who is more knowledgeable to do the job for you thus saving you time and money in the end ! Cheers Pete
