Low priced TV's

I'm wondering what the group's experience has been with low priced TV sets. You can walk into Costco and see prices from $800 to $3000 on 60" LCD sets.
 
I don't want to talk about the difference in performance ie sound/video quality and number of inputs and what not because I understand that there are large differences in the components used and in how they perform. I want to discuss repair history and the expected life of those components.
 
I bought a low priced Vizio P60 60" TV and it failed early. At about two years old the TV would not come on anymore. I took the back off and poked around with a volt meter and found that the power supply circuit board had failed. I found a replacement online, intalled it and a nine months later it is failing again. When I turn it on it will sometinmes work and other times come on with no audio and sometimes not come on at all.
 
I'm going to go out on a linb here and say that the power supply board is failing again. I might change it one more time becasue it cost $80 and worth a shot.
 
So have you all had similar experiences with inexpensiive TV sets? Has anyone had good luck with them? Any Vizio owners here?
 
Mike.

I'm also thinking that there may be soldering problems on these boards being that the symptoms come and go. I've heard of these symptoms being caused by dry soldering at the factory. I'll take it apart and try some resolderig when it finally fails altogether.
 
Mike.

I usually search online for the part numbers.  With luck someone else tracks down exactly what's crapping out and how to replace it.  Capacitors and such being prime causes.   Sometimes there's even someone motivated enough to analyze a crappy circuit and post improvements.  Or someone else enterprising enough to know how to fix it and offering a repair service.
 

wkearney99 said:

I usually search online for the part numbers.  With luck someone else tracks down exactly what's crapping out and how to replace it.  Capacitors and such being prime causes.   Sometimes there's even someone motivated enough to analyze a crappy circuit and post improvements.  Or someone else enterprising enough to know how to fix it and offering a repair service.
 

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Yes, I haven't gotten there yet. I found a neat trick on youtube that makes short work of finding bad components in a circuit. It was inside an Iphone but will work in any circuit. They were spraying the circuit with a freeze spray that coated the board with frost. Then just power the circuit and look for the spot that melts first. It gives you a jump off point for troubleshooting the circuit.
 
It's not a cure but it is a neat tool to add to your box.
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I'm leery of spraying anything on a live circuit.  If I want heat tracking I'll use a Seek Thermal camera I picked up a few years ago.  Plugs into the phone's USB jack.  Handy for finding problems with heat and cold. 

Spray is certainly cheaper but I'd be wary of accidentally causing problems with it.

Which reminds me, I'm going to have to get a USB-C to microUSB adapter for it now that I've got a new phone...

Good point. I could use my infrared gun too.
 
Mike.

That thermal cam is a neat device. It looks like it would be fun to play with around the house in the winter time.
 
Mike.

Wouldn't you think that you can infer that the spray in the video was non conductive being that there was no problem spraying it on the live circuit? I'm pretty sure that they do sell products that are just for this purpose.
 
Mike.

Yes, there are sprays intended for this.  I've used them myself in the past.  The downside is residue and unintended damage. Or worse by using just any old canned air that might have a conductive propellant.
 

I had some very expensive old digital picture frames - they sold in the ~$1,400 range and had amazing pictures and were framed with really nice custom wood frames - but the PC's bundled with them used a power supply that would fail - so instead of regularly opening them up to replace the power supply, as soon as one failed, I'd add a DC power jack to the frame and move to an external power supply.  That made it MUCH easier to keep them going for a few more years.
 
As for cheap TV's, I have an old 55" Vizio I was given free after it came from a conference room, and I have two Westinghouse TV's from ~2006 and they're all going strong.  The Vizio sometimes has trouble negotiating the video mode and has to be turned off and on again.  The only recent TV I bought was a new LG 65" that was in the ~$900 range from Sam's a couple months ago - it's super thin and nice - It's 4K so I hope it holds out a while. 
 
I'm looking to start replacing the Westinghouse and Vizio ones purely to get into 4K and thinner TV's that look better on the wall - but I've had no failures yet.  I've also put up 2 dozen similar TV's in conference rooms and around offices where they're on 24/7 playing TV and Call Center stats - and never had a single one die - including the Sharp one I accidentally dropped (well, it was leaning on a wall and the bottom slid out and it crashed to the ground quite hard).

I wonder if my 120vac line is not a problem but it is only this one TV that has given  me trouble. I have a Briggs generator that I run in an outage and that is not very clean power but again I haven't had any problems other than this TV. There is a power strip in the same room as the TV that has a low voltage alarm so I know that the supply voltage is not dropping too low.
 
Mike.

I've had all of my TV and AV devices behind UPS devices, for years now.  Not because I want to keep them running during outages, rather for consistent power.  Not "clean" from the standpoint of "power conditioned" just stable voltage.  That's usually "cleaned up" a bit and that's been enough to avoid any sort of power supply problems in the devices connected through them. 
 
I used to keep one of them connected to a PC that logged the power conditions but eventually the volume of complaints I made to the local power company and public service commission (and the 100+ neighbors I got to do likewise) encouraged them to largely solve the poor power conditions we were experiencing.  So I fell out of the habit of tracking every last little bit of fluctuation.
 
This was my go-to, but it's been discontinued:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0019804U8
 
The entry-level current one does NOT have a USB jack for monitoring.  Which is fine if you don't have anything there to connect to it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HDC236Q

You have to step up to their 650 or 850 to regain a USB port for monitoring.  I've also got the 850 and it seems to be working reliably. 

If you're going to use more than one UPS it helps if they're all at least the same or use the same replacement battery.  Then it's just a matter of planning to replace the batteries about every 3 years.  APC's entry-level BE350 and 550 were my go-to units.  Sorta like a chunky-looking power strip.  They're held up remarkably well.

All this screwing around people have done with cheap TVs.  Makes the stupid amount of money I spent on the Pioneer plasma seem worth it.  Nary a hiccup from it, and it's at least 12 years old now.  Picture still kicks ass compared to most modern sets.

wkearney99 said:

All this screwing around people have done with cheap TVs.  Makes the stupid amount of money I spent on the Pioneer plasma seem worth it.  Nary a hiccup from it, and it's at least 12 years old now.  Picture still kicks ass compared to most modern sets.

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I gave my Panasonic w/Pioneer panel plasma TV's to two nephews. I wanted to move up to larger screens and the plasma, as good as the image is, they are heavy, bulky, power hungry, noisy cooling fans and  they run hot. The LCD replacements don't compare to the plasma in dark scenes but otherwise the LCD is very nice and I can hang the 63" on the wall by myself if I can't get a helper. I also saved a couple of grand per TV.
 
Mike.

Pioneer plasmas! Those were (are?) the gold standard.

I haven’t bought real cheap TVs but for my plasmas I bought a square trade warranty that I was able to find at what seemed like a good deal.

I had a Samsung plasma crap out (showed whites as pink - terrible for hockey games). Square trade sent a tech to fix it - took it apart and replaced the entire display panel if I recall correctly. Somehow I found myself on a ladder taking the TV down with the tech. Anyway, it didn’t fix it so they gave me a check for my cost of the TV. They said keep the old TV.

I ultimately found a weird German config software that I ran on a computer connected to TV that fixed it. Other option based on reading was to tweak some potentiometers but I ended up not needing to do that. That was maybe 6 years ago and the fix still works.

So maybe buy extended warranties on the cheap TVs too? I know I came out ahead with it on the expensive TVs.


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