Television repair question

It's a loose connection somewhere, probably. As it heats up a bad solder joint loosens up. I doubt in the CRT as covered by the warranty.
 
Hey Guys..

I've had two Panasonic TV's go on me..One about 5 years old,, the other about two..

I'll never by another Panasonic TV again because of it...

We've got Hitatchis now 4 of them, and they are Great TV's never a problem..

ttyle

Eric...
 
ABTOMAT-47 said:
It's a loose connection somewhere, probably. As it heats up a bad solder joint loosens up. I doubt in the CRT as covered by the warranty.
Click to expand...


Probably correct.

My guess -- and it's just a guess -- is that the thermally-intermitent connection results from lead-free soldering. The European Environmentalist Whackos decided back in 2002 that most electronic products sold in the EU as of July 1st, 2006 had to contain less than 0.1% concentration by weight in homogenous materials of lead. The solder the electronics industry has been using for decades has been about 60% lead. What we've recently found out is that over time the lead-free solder joints get brittle and crack and fail. Thermal-intermitent would be absolutely characteristic of that (though not the only possible cause).

You might say, "But I didn't buy this TV in Europe." Well, it's not practical/economical for most factories to keep both leaded and lead-free soldering processes going at the same time. If the EU insists on lead-free, then they're basically going to force everyone to be lead-free -- which was, of course, their goal.

You might say, "But I bought this set over a year ago." Well, the deadline is July 1st, 2006 (just days away), but many factories started converting over years ago.

The early days were especially a problem because many of the components were not available specifically made for lead-free soldering. So, they often used components that were intended for leaded soldering with lead-free solder which we are now finding only makes the embrittlement problem worse in many cases.

Sony and Panasonic were two of early adopters of lead-free soldering. I know that Sony is currently regretting it; the warranty return rate has been significantly higher than expected.

Anyway, I don't know if that's the problem with your set, but it shouldn't surprise me.

Fixing it is pretty easy. Thermal intermittents are easy to find. A good tech will just let the set warm up until the problem manifests itself and then start selectively cooling components using a cold spray product made for the purpose until the problem goes away. Once you find the general area, you do it again targetting specific components. Then you do it again targetting specific connections. You can usually get it down to within a few connections and then you just resolder those.

But, here's the problem. Most shops charge about $60-75/hour. This operation is likely to take two hours total. So, you're likely to spend $120-$150 on a $200 set. And if it is lead-free solder embrittlement, then you're likely to have more failures in the future. As a result, you might be better off land-filling your set and getting a new one.

The purpose of this lead-free soldering law, by the way, is to keep the lead from eventually getting into the environment when the electronic equipment is ultimately land-filled. Of course, there's all but no studies proving that lead from electronic solder does get into the environment much less cause any harm, but that's thinking scientifically and that's not something environmentalist whackos often do. And don't try to tell them that by eliminating lead in solder you reduce the reliability of the equipment causing it to get into the landfill sooner; they don't want to hear that. And don't explain to them that the lead-free solders are mostly tin and that mining tin is much most environmentally destructive than mining lead; they don't want to hear that either.
 
heh, envrionmental whackos. I surprised at you Gollnick.

Usually "recycled" electronics get shipped to china or other poor countries where it often gets burned in the open to separate out the metals. I think it would be diffcult to judge "least harm" regarding tin vs lead.

http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash.pdf
 
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