What fails in CCFL inverters?

So I just kept cycling power and... it has been powered on for over 2 hours now with no problems.

I'm beginning to suspect the electrolytic caps. Being el-cheepo (no-name) brand, they probably went intermittent short or low ESR and blew the fuse. After replacing the fuse (remember it's been over a year since this thing has been powered on for more than a few seconds at a time) the caps needed a little time to reform.

Or maybe a power surge popped the fuse (and the cap re-form thing still applies).

I think I'll replace the caps -- for peace of mind -- and see if it continues to work.

High ESR !

Doh!!

Yes, of course.

(Homer answer: "Oh, so maybe I shouldn't have replaced all those good caps?" ;-)

Just to follow up...

Replaced all the caps (using Panasonic FM series) in this monitor and it works like new. And should last quite a bit longer.

Thanks for passing on your results, John. It's always nice to know how these things turn out.

I concur. It's all-too-common to follow such a thread that is years old only to find no-one cared to post the results. I like to think about the guy or gal who is Googling a few years from now and comes across this thread. (Hi!) ;-)

Speaking of that, what ever happened to the self-tuning piano? Was that guy ever going to post a .WAV file or something, of the piano tuning itself?

Thanks, Rich

I believe it turned out that the only existing documentation of the self-tuning piano in action was in the form of miniature photographs stored as multiple images on a common sheet of film, and these proved impossible to correctly adjust for conversion into any electronic media. For as we all know, while you CAN tune a piano, you can't tune a fiche.

Bob M.

Well played, sir!

Ngung, ngung, ngung!!

Not *alone*, certainly, but perhaps if you had a tuner helper...

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany