I have a Kenmore flat-top range that's about 7 years old. The LCD display is diming almost to the point were its unreadable. The clock portion of the display is fine it's just the temperature setting that's almost invisible at the top left of the display it's in a different color as well orange where as the clock part is green.
I was wondering if anyone ever took one apart. Do they have a simple analog POT for contrast adjusting or is it a digital one or fixed value? Is there any other reason this would happen? I have cleaned it so its not dirt or grime.
I was looking at control boards and they are $200 plus so before I go that route I thought I would check here.
LED? Then the driver chip may be dying. LEDs lose brightness but not this quickly. According to Murphy's law it will be either unobtanium or impossible to unsolder.
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Almost certainly a Vacuum Flourescent Display (VFD). I'd guess a power supply electrolyic capacity is dying/dead, but I could be wrong.
Kenmore is pretty good with replacement parts, have you checked out the price of a replacement module?
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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If they do you can increase the filament voltage a bit. At some point you might see the wires glow very faintly but that is still better than shelling out big bucks for a replacement module.
If clock and temp display are inside the same VFD I doubt it's fading though.
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We recently bought a new gas range for our cabin, and I was determined to have one with no electronics. That costs 3x to 10x more than one that has electronics. Only high-end ranges are available with no electronics. They all do have electronic ignitors, but they don't need the ignitor to work.
3x to 10x? Nah. Most have a clock and timer built in but many supposedly work with the power disconnected if you don't need those features. Not
100% sure but I believe this series does:
formatting link
Of course, if you want stainless steel restaurant grade stuff, different thing.
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for $2K, delivered in Truckee. It's assembled in California from Chinese stainless sheet metal and German burners. It's like a Wolf or a Viking at half the price.
Looks a lot less bland than the usual Aunt Bee style ranges. But twice the price of a regular range just for a cabin is still a bit steep. OTOH I guess your wife would like it to look nice.
The real top notch brands hold up pretty good but most of their parts are custom. Then when the series is obsoleted ... poof ... no spare parts. Our kitchen has Thermador gear, restaurant grade, still works after 40 years with just minor repairs. But there are some not so nice details, for example we have to guesstimate the temperature on one of the ovens because the Fahrenheit lettering has rubbed off. Can't get such knobs anywhere and when something major goes that might be the end for the range or the ovens.
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Yeah, it's called age... but not really a whole lot more than that is similar other then that both are glass encapsulated devices.
A CRT may /will exhibit phosphor burn, not just at specific hard spots, but homogenously across the surface over time and use as well.
The little tube is, IIRC, a gas filled device? There are a couple variants (theorange and the blue variety), but certainly no electrons cast against phosphors. Pioneer practically wound the flywheel on that progress engine up back in the 70s and 80s to a pretty fast rate.
They were practically the first... not with yer little HP segmented digit modules... These guys made ALL their own stuff, and they were ALL custom, multi- informational displays. Hell, they probably WERE the first, and everybody said, yeah, let's do that!
I think they were oneof the first to get rid of the VFD era stuff as well. They ushered in high brightness, backlit LCD displays.
Now... they have gone BACK to VFDs! They just do it in a dot matrix so they are very efficient and last longer too.
One would think they would use fiber optic light pipe pixels and a TI chip or such.
Power supplies are an early failure mode culprit suspect, of course, but after only 7 years?
Wow. I should talk. I had to replace the PS in my Viewsonic 32" after only 4yrs.
Capacitors SUCK.
They are not supposed to suck, dangit! They are supposed to GUZZLE, and POUR. :-)
You should have checked at Goodwill, the Salivation[SIC] army, or various large thrift shops and got an old one that somebody donated when Grandma passed away.
You can get gas cooktops fairly cheaply that have no electronics. It's ovens that have the problem.
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Spehro Pefhany wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
That is one of the possibilities I found while googling. I think your right its a VFD. I'll try replaceing the caps either tonight or on the weekend.
I'm going to call sears and see today. I did find similiar ones for kenmores while googling and they were $165 to 200 plus. Over 200 and I might as well buy a new range.
Joerg wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
I thnk Spehro right after looking at some pics its a VFD. Some googling shows its pretty common with even the newer models The recomended fixes or either the caps or replace the whole control board.
I'll try the caps first if a board is over $200 I guess I'll be looking for a new range their are some good sales on now. Like John pointed out I dont think you can even get a range anymore without a similiar type display. I think they call it built-in obsolescence. :-)
My sister got my parents old inglis 20+ years before it finally died no electronics of course.
At first glance I thought you were going blind, that out of the way., Get a logic probe/meter and test the inputs and compare them, if the inputs are similar or test (go), it will be the individual display that needs changing, if the inputs defer then you can try changing the capacitor. Go ahead and throw it out on wallwakcers lawn, then go out & buy a new one, they are trying to act like the economy is getting better everywhere, so you will find nice new units at ridiculously low prices wherever major appliances are sold that are not being sold fast enough! R.
Once you get a part number, try the US discount parts suppliers.. I was able to get a replacement ice maker water valve kit for a refrigerator for a really good price and even a whole ice maker would cost less than a service call to replace some trivial bit.
Spehro Pefhany wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
[snip]
Well I just found out the range was purchased in 98! We got it off my girlfriends parents it looked brand new when they gave it to us about 3 years ago,still does. I just figured about 7 years old.
I found that out after talking with sears. I also found out they dont carry parts for appliances beyond 10 years? The guy couldnt even give me a part number for the display/ control board.
The Oven and everything works fine its just getting next to impossible to read the oven temperature setting makeing it pretty useless. Its a pretty decent flat top unit.
I'll pull the whole board out maybe tonight and have a look at it for anything obvious at least change the caps while its out as well; see if that helps.
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