Shrinking TV electronics

Scarely worth diagnosing then. Replace that board. If it still doesn't work, replace the screen. If still no joy, replace the entire TV.

Sylvia.

bit different to the 50s and 60s, when we went out with a box of valves, replaced them, and if it didn't bring life to the unit, then the chassis and possibly the whole unit came back to the workshop.

The days of the Astor 17" sets. :-)

Cheers Don...

In the 70s I used to help look after the computers at the ABS, one of them had 7000 pcbs, now mainframes only have 3 or 4 boards per CPU.

You wouldn't reach third step. The Screen was fixed into font surround and you just remove the back to access the only board.

I suspect a lot are like that, but it will take some time for joe/mary public to accept the only repair is a replacement board at $X cost as he was still going through the "bring it in for quoting routine" to someone else on the mobile.

This guy estimated that he had a few thousand $$$ of old electronic parts that were now useless.

I've seen a few with multiple board CPUs, similar for ram, but 7.000. How many cabinets?

Things are changing at this rate. I have a heap of Olimex Microcontrollers boards (yes thousands of dollars again), that I have big discounts on, as the microcontroller world is changing that fast. Soon I will be giving them away.

With Chinese ebay clones and free postage, it is a game I can no longer be competitive in.

Cheers Don...

When you can buy a 42" set for $300, and it passes the out of warranty period, who would really spend $150 or more on a repair? Game over.

Don...

All this cheapness in everything comes at a terrible price.

I don't remember how many cabinets,but it would have been roughly 5 metres long and 2 metres high. The RAM was 2 x 32Kword 48bit core stacks (we didn't use bytes then a character was 6 bits). If you ever saw "6 million dollar man" on TV, you'd have seen the console, it looked like something out of a 1950s scifi movie.

A picture of it

Yep, Changhong $348 on Chinese New Year special at Bing Lee with 3year on-site warranty.

It was a no brainer to replace the 40" glass that requires a pair of islanders to move whilst we reach agreement on which brand name to buy.

Although, if it is "the best of the Chinese" as claimed by the repair guy,, that might be a while.

Not really. Boards can be repaired, but how many hours of diagnostic work do you get for the cost of just replacing it?

Sylvia.

I'm talking about the throwaway society we have created.

People aren't getting anything repaired when a new TV is $300 it just becomes more electronic waste.

Aldi just had a 55"/4k ultra hd smart tv for $800.00

He left off "...at that price".

I agree - yet few seem to resalise.

At least we can export 'eWaste' to China and India for recycling. :-/ Instead of remaking new things out of the same elements I'd rather have something that lasted longer for each iteration. It's far less energy intense.

Indeed.

Apparently so. How much electronic junk do we generate compared to even just 20 years ago? When I was a kid, most people had the same TV for years, even more than a decade.

Fridge, TV, stereo/radio, toaster, stove (maybe)... those things were pretty much the only electrical devices in the average house...

Agreed. Most of my hifi gear is professionally restored old vintage stuff which was very well built - much better than you will find today unless you spend big money.

Almost zip.

It is a toss up between centralised diagnostic and repair automaton Vs shredding and re-mining of ingredients, which to the new method of dealing with e-waste.