Lightning Strikes TV Dead...

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simple

Unless it is ancient and uses valves/tubes and so more able to withstand high dV/dt then little chance of resucitating. Has anyone ever repaired any electronic equipment knocked out by lightning ? I only tried twice and hopeless waste of time.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

I agree. Its act of nature. Power Surge Protectors are bad ass. You can always find a good one even at a thrift store, I recommend getting a new one if possible.

You might want to look into getting web tv and a small set if its broken. If not Iam sure theres a repairman close but It doesnt sound like repair material.

I hope this info helps.

-Wolf

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ple

It's impossible to say how much damage it has suffered. It could be everything from a few blown parts in the PSU to almost every part in the entire set burned out. I'd say give it a chance, you may be lucky that it's just a shorted diode and a blown fuse.

--
Ulrik Smed
Aarhus, Denmark

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Ian

An elderly Mother is worth a nice new Sony TV anytime. I am sure many stores will deliver and setup. Where are you located?

Bob AZ

You never know why you'll find until you pop the back off and look. It could be simple like a MOV/fuse combo or it could be any other degree of severity. I've fixed a couple really odd lightning damaged sets. One with the traces to and from the mains fuse completely vaporized but the fuse intact and after jumpering the missing traces the set worked fine for many years. Another that was off during the storm but after a proximity strike the set turned on and would not shut off (older set with mechanical on/off switch). The on/off switch contacts were fused together.

I will at least look at a set that's been exposed to a proximity strike to see if there is a minimum requirement of things not exposed.

Ian

An elderly Mother is worth a nice new Sony TV anytime. I am sure many stores will deliver and setup. Where are you located?

Bob AZ

Well, I'm in Arizona but she's 2000 miles away in Canada. At first she was thinking something in the 32 or 37 inch range which would mean an LCD. Now she wonders if she might be better with a larger set i.e. something in the

42"+ range which means plasma becomes a good option. Except that it's a bedroom set and she likes to fall asleep with the TV on so it's usually on all night which might suggest an LCD instead. I think I'll have to get my brother involved since he's only an hour away from her.

Ian

To paraphrase in Alan Swann in "My Favorite Year" -- There is "knocked out" and there is "knocked out".

25 years ago I fixed my Record-a-Call Model 80 answering machine. About half the semiconductors (it was 100% discrete) were blown by a lightning strike, so a methodical replacement got it working again, for about $15 worth of Philips replacement devices.

T y n

Ian

I think you will find that some newer TVs will turn off automatically when there are no inputs from remotes etc. Part of the setup.

If your brother will get involved that would be nice but I know your Mother involved you because of a very good reason. She knew you would see things through to a prompt success and have the resources and get up to get it done. Perhaps a visit home with the TV replacement is in order. When did you visit last year? Moms have a method to their ways.

Bob AZ

Saying that the TV no longer works isn't really telling us much, when I made my living fixing TVs late summer brought numerous sets that the customer said weren't working and the fault turned out to be a dead transistor in the tuner caused by near miss lightening, we soon got into the simple routine - if the screen is full of snow replace the RF transistor, if there is a milky white raster replace the LO transistor.

Completely dead is an entirely different matter, the older the set the better as modern sets have fragile microcontrollers and EEPROMs that can stop an otherwise perfectly good set from starting up, with older sets - as others have mentioned, pcb tracks blown away might be the only damage.

I fixed an old CB radio once. The output stage got fried, but the main electronics seemed to be okay. The original owner was apparently using the thing on a hill when lightning struck nearby.

-- JJ

thing

Hello Jason:

What with DTV just 6 months away and many broadcasters going HD, perhaps a new TV is in order. Maybe some consideration should be given to some lightning/surge protection so the new investment is more secure?

If your mother's eyesight is not what it used to be, she will appreciate the sharpness of HDTV. My wife and I certainly do in our old age.

I do wish you and your mother well sir.

--
1PW

@?6A62?FEH9:DE=6o2@=]4@> [r4o7t]

Jason wrote in news:p80qk.14520$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe19.ams:

At Tektronix,I often got lightning-zapped equipment from customers,being in central Florida(the lightning capital of the US)and repaired them. Usually;fuse,MOV,and switcher FET in the PS,sometimes a 3842 IC.

I also repaired a friend's TV;it had some PCB traces vaporized and a fuse blown.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

I just worked on a pretty recent year set . A cheap Sylvainia ( probably Funia ) Lightning went up the cord . It fried some 15 parts . After that test i threw it away .