EEVblog

[@aaroNiGHTS]

I replaced a cap in my TV a while ago! It wouldn't turn on and I got it to work. I was so proud!

[@Tuttomenui]

aaroNiGHTS I fixed my LCD monitor and several other LCD monitors by replacing caps. I just used salvaged caps and bodged where they wouldn't fit. In one of the monitors I had to replace one cap with 2 to get the proper values. =)

[@whitcwa]

Tuttomenui Good work to both of you for keeping them working and out of the trash. At work, they throw away TVs with any problem even though we have a electronic maintenance shop. I have rescued a dozen TVs (all small cheap ones) and given them to friends. All they needed was a few caps. We've also had some big plasmas which had terrible burns and could not be saved. I'm hoping one of the 80 inch plasmas dies so I can rent a truck to haul it home!

[@Tuttomenui]

Chris W Wrap it in a blanket and strap it to your cars roof like a champion =).

[@whitcwa]

I can see it now. Driving down the highway with my hand out the window holding on like a little kid to his candy.

[@leesully1669]

aaroNiGHTS I've done that too on many of different things. Even a motherboard, but that was a fail. :(

[@paparoysworkshop]

Even though the TV was not repaired 100%, it was still a good repair video and every time I learn just a little bit more. And to me, that's what these videos are all about. So thank you for another great episode.

[@michaelledford4751]

I miss the old days of tv & hifi where if your tv went out,or the preamp in your hifi went to shot you just looked in the back,found the tube that wasn't glowing ,ran up to the corner store & bought a new tube,for ' hard ' repairs where a big ole KT88 wasn't burnt out and all tubes were glowing you pulled out 1 tube at a time ,popped it in the variac tube tester & found the bad part that way ,for issues that weren't tube related you called the " tv repairman ' and he'd come to your house in a big white van that had ZENITH in bold capital letters down the side and he would install a new socket or something . Originally when I graduated high school in 1965 I had wanted to become a tv repairman ,then came vietnam ,driving that van full of stuff & working on legendary tv's & hifi like Curtis Mathis tvs,or McIntosh hifi,in people's homes,it all seemed very exciting to me,the week before I was supposed to go to electronic repair school I got a letter from selective service saying and I quote " Your friends and neighbors selected YOU to serve your country " in the armed forces,contrary to urban legend being the Marine Corps only took volunteers during the draft I was drafted into the Marines & spent the next 3 yrs thinking about everything except electronics ,I had a chance to drive a tank just fuming about & became interested in heavy equipment,when I came back to the world I went to work operating a dozen at the town dump lol

[@Danidanivugs]

man...i feel ya...

[@MarkWarbington]

Replacing caps is one of the best and most rewarding skills that an amateur electronics enthusiast can learn. We had a a bunch of mid-2000s Dell USFF Optiplex machines at work and they all died (just outside of warranty, of course) due to the bad caps flooding the market in those days. I bought some nice Hakko gear and watched plenty of KZbin videos to teach myself what to do. Amazingly, I had a 100% success rate. Due to all the bad caps, you can buy these things off eBay by the pallet load for next to nothing and they're great for home theater, point-of-sale, grandparents, or whatever. You're also keeping them out of a landfill which is always a good thing. Maximum configuration is a 64-bit, 3.8 GHz, single-core, hyper-threaded processor with 4GB of ram, so they're little workhorses considering you can typically buy and repair them (better than new) for under $50 USD.

[@THOMMGB]

Here in the United States I found a 50" Samsung plasma 1080p on the side of the road. Built in Sept, 2007, it was totally dead. Turned out one of the four fuses was blown. I replaced it with a slow blow 12 amp ceramic fuse I got on Ebay. It turned on and plays beautifully! Trying to get ahead of a problem, I also replaced 4 electrolytic capacitors that were known to be problematic with this model. The replacement capacitors were quality Panasonic low ESR capacitors with a bit higher voltage. I also got an original remote control on Ebay for my plasma set. So, I've got about $20.00 total money into this TV now. It is a bit of a power hog, but, wow - what a picture! Regards, Tom

[@JimGriffOne]

16:03 - We used to put a sock around the smoke detector when we wanted to smoke at school. You should use Dave 2's socks to cover up the alarm!

[@davidprice2861]

Cigarette smoke doesn't trigger smoke alarms, unless you directly puff into them.

[@deepmystic5850]

@@davidprice2861 Yes they did The newer sensors don't have this issue as they use different methods The older ones would trigger with smoke and aerosol sprays

[@bikutoso]

Do a test with it go and buy two smoke alarms (one Ionization and one Photoelectric) and test blowing a cap in your garage.

[@shaunsautorepairs5410]

i,ve had a 50" plasma for about 8yrs.. used everyday. its been a brilliant tv

[@outanet]

I worked for LG "Lucky Goldstar" in Kumi, S Korea. A company that started out making toothpaste in the 50s. My overall impression is "fantastic up to date design, backed up by poor production and cheap parts and QA teams scared of flagging up issues to a management decended from Atilla the Hun. It is culturally ingrained. I often visited the nearby Samsun factories, "the big rival" and love their products regardless of anyone elses opinion, there is a more productive mentality across the floors of the factory.

[@goclunker]

samsung is just as trash as LG. Poor quality parts, refusal to validate warranties. I ended up fixing a samsung washer and tv myself and selling it on. korean goods are trash

[@JLConawayII]

I opened up my broken LG 47" LCD TV a few years ago expecting to find the same thing. Sadly, nothing. If there were bad caps they showed absolutely no signs. I also didn't have any equipment to test them at the time. The thing is still sitting there broken. Mocking me. I think it's time to take another crack at it.

[@urdnal]

I like this kid, he's all right.

[@ggss1176]

yeah he seems a really nice guy

[@sbreheny]

The aluminum electrolytic caps contain a solution of boric acid in water with a few other secret sauce additives. I think that they DO use a paper separator, although the real dielectric is of course the electrolytic aluminum oxide layer on the aluminum. When they "blow" I think that usually the water in the electrolyte boils and it is steam that comes out, but some of the paper may burn if the current continues for long enough that the paper dries out. The aluminum may burn, too, as long as the current continues to flow.

[@BGBTech]

Sean Breheny in a class, as a demonstration, a teacher had blown some caps (with a clear plastic cover over them). they made a smell vaguely along the lines of fresh popcorn mixed with peanut butter, and one of the guys in the class was compelled by the smell and was breathing it in. the teacher then was like "hey, don't go breathing the smoke!". otherwise, once tried to make some electrolytic caps, without much success (the metal rapidly corrodes). I suspect my small experiments with making both capacitors and batteries fail partly due to a lack of proper materials (pure non-alloyed metals), and using tap water rather than distilled water (for example, baking soda and tap water isn't quite the same as borax and distilled water). putting multimeter probes in a cup of water, they start at around 100 kOhm, then climb to about 500 kOhm.

[@uwezimmermann5427]

Sean Breheny and Dave2 are right about the soaked paper. It's unlikely that the still wet paper will catch fire before a fuse blows or you can pull the plug. The smelly "smoke" is actually vapor and will most likely not trigger your fire alarm, which most likely is a particle detector - but don't take my word for it or hold me responsible for the fire alarm. Last time I smelled a burnt electrolytic was in a course lab here at Uppsala University. Actually I plan for this fall's lecture to set off an electrolytic cap in a glass jar to show to the students what happens.

[@ethanpoole3443]

I was also going to say that to the best of my knowledge (and experience) it is primarily steam from water vapor that escapes from a ruptured aluminum electrolytic capacitor as it mostly the liquid electrolyte boiling off. In fact, I powered on an old power inverter (12VDC to 120VAC) for the first time in several years and 4 large capacitors ruptured almost instantly from age (there was over 20A of shorting current flowing through them when their dielectric broke down). For the several seconds it was powered on before I could disconnect it one could easily have mistaken it for a fog machine there was so much (foul smelling) white steam escaping the inverter's enclosure. However, it did not set off the very nearby ionization smoke detector in the room (nor would I expect it to). But they could possibly set off an optical smoke detector if in very close proximity and, in my experience, water vapor (even as a faint trace) can easily set off gas detectors (those that detect natural gas or propane seem to get fooled by the hydrogen in water vapor).

[@randacnam7321]

Ethan Poole That is why I always first connect inverters through a small incandescent lamp to precharge the DC buss caps before connecting the inverter directly.

[@jfbeam]

+Sean Breheny Very few will be paper these days. All the ones I've taken apart, or had blow, had a peanut oil based dialectic. It makes a neat white cloud of smoke if you intentionally blow one.

[@whitcwa]

I'm surprised it worked at all with all those bad caps. I wonder what the capacitance of the bad ones were. The value is just as important as the ESR. Panasonic is very good about making unambiguous PCB wiring. I have seen a professional video camera board which had 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,and 13 pin connectors. If that wasn't practical, they would use color coded connectors of the same size.

[@joe2mercs]

90% of problems are caps in the power supply. Vertical stripes are poor contacts or bad solder on the edge connectors on the top/bottom of the display. Unplugging/replugging the edge connectors a few times or re-soldering fixes the issue

[@rumbler900]

surely it will flutter a lil bit as its burning new caps. i dumpster dived an aoc 48 inch tv 2 years ago watched this vid and then set to work.Its been 2 years now and it still works flawlessly i did use higher rated and capacitance caps from an old rockfod fosgate car amp.Thanks guys keep up the good as will i in uk

[@mitpatterson]

Re: the cap smoking. Do some testing in the EEVBlog Lab 1 where there isn't a multi thousand dollar bill

[@MobileTechGaming]

if you suspect a cap might blow.. and issues with smoke.. id suggest to turn on a hoover next to it, turn it on and let it suck up any smoke if needed .. just a suggestion

[@EpicLPer]

Just a theory but the vertical lines could actually be burned in because of it maybe being powered up and running in its "fail state" for too long before they threw it away. We (sadly) have plasma TVs as info screens at work too and they have some fixed 24/7 interface stuff on there which burns heavily into them (example time or info lines). Anyways, you could try re-calibrating it, there should be an option for that in the menu.

[@Whatsthegeek]

8:36, YOU'RE CONNECTING IT THE WRONG WAY XD

[@turbojoe2]

Dave, I'm an electrician here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Every time the LED blinks on your commercial smoke detector, it is being polled by the main fire alarm panel. (are you there? are you okay? good. next device) Every device is wired in parallel, only two wires, unless its class A which has an alternate return path. Its called an SLC loop. I think of it as Power over Ethernet in a way. And.. I wouldn't worry about the minute amount of smoke from a cap... Unless it sets your bench on fire!

[@ForViewingOnly]

A couple of grand for a fire brigade callout! Crikey, that's an incentive to disable the smoke detectors during the day... or at least put an airtight cover over them. So long as you remember to uncover them at the end of the day, of course :) Smoke alarms are usually either ionisation or optical... I don't think you'd have carbon monoxide alarms as they're usually around when you have a boiler or burner... but I'm no expert.

[@AttilaThebung]

ForViewingOnly When I was in college studying audio design, before shows we'd get up into the roof space, go along the rafters like a bunch of monkeys and tape cups onto the detectors. We could never get the bastards isolated for our shows.

[@TheBrightPixel]

***** Fun fact - Every venue that's running a hazer/ fogger has the smoke sensors turned off, or isolated. If the system has been isolated there is normally an SOP and note for the building staff to be aware of this and to have security or other staff keeping a visual lookout for fire, if there are no heat sensors installed. Edit: Also part of the SOP is that the Fire Dept is alerted to the times the sensors are to be isolated - which is why often you don't get permission and people resort to taping caps over them :(

[@calebjones2998]

***** The Bright Pixel I work in a Theatre venue where we isolate our fire alarms quite often, our head technician (Lighting operator usually) has a sub fire panel in the bio box where everything is controlled from that feeds information back to the main panel. The alarms are not disabled as such they are still monitoring the smoke and heat levels etc, they give a visual and audible warning when smoke or heat levels arise that would normally trip the alarm. Staff can then either go inspect the area for fire or alert the fire department Venues are still just as safe in my opinion so don't be alarmed :) Pardon the pun ;)

[@TheBrightPixel]

Caleb Jones lol

[@LadyAnuB]

Caleb Jones Nothing like an actual human to check on an automatic fire alert from a device.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

Thumbs up just for mentioning Cornell-Dubilier! I grew up with these caps, but really, it was, "Don't be vague, ask for Sprague!" caps that I remember.

[@16mmDJ]

I was given a 60 inch Pioneer plasma from about 2004/05 and it still works a treat! I'll have to check the inside next time I can to see if it would benefit from a cap replacement.

[@kalleager4839]

+16mmDJ Don't fix it if it ain't broke :)

[@emmanueltrinidad7740]

Next project: office smoke alarm break down!

[@gavincurtis]

Theres a kid somewhere out there that would appreciate it.

[@mparwezk]

It is surprising how many videos explain how to change bulged and bad caps. How to tackle other problems are rarely explained. I am eager to watch your next videos.

[@Eric-qw6ft]

I had my 50" Samsung from 2008 get the "flashing red led of death" in 2011, after taking it down off the wall, and opening her up, yep, 3 caps showed signs of blowout, a quick trip to the local Jaycar and caps replaced, still going strong in 2017...

[@MarkMcDaniel]

That is ridiculous. No TV manufacturer should be using garbage caps that die in three or fewer years.

[@miniskunk]

Had this happen on a Samsung LED TV before. A couple caps went bad on the power supply board. They had a known issue of substandard caps getting into their manufacturing plant. Very cheap and simple fix and it was good as new.

[@electronicsNmore]

Considering Plasma TV's run hotter, and the TV was 7 years old, those caps did OK. You never know, the people that owned the TV could have had it running many hours per day over that 7 year period. Great Video.

[@seansean8008]

Thanks for the video. My 15 year old Pioneer Elite plasma decided not to turn on yesterday and Im guessing its the power board. I was sadly going to toss it but I am going to open it up tonight and check the caps to see if any are obviously in need of repair and give it a shot.

[@screaminlean]

I have a Samsung plasma 42 inch never had an issue with it in 10 years and it is still going strong! Love the post though!

[@techdude3399]

because of this video I was able to revive a old HDTV that my mom had. When you would turn it on all it would do is flash the screen. I was able to identify 2 bad caps thanks to this video and soldered new caps on and it has been working since.

[@xX-Expendable-Xx]

May not have been able to completely fix the TV, but its great for educational purposes to those who would prefer to fix their TVs(if possible), instead of buying brand new. Keep up the fantastic videos!!

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

More Dave2, moooore! Maybe the Dave2 show?? He is so awesomely talented, clever, handsome and funny! You guys are so lucky to have found each other and we viewers are very happy 😊

[@proyectosledar]

Hi Dave. We all told you about thats caps in the teardown video. saludos amigo

[@RoughJustice2k18]

The old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" definitely applies here. That ESR meter is mentioned in Silicon Chip magazine and is a good bit of gear for sure. A must for every tech.

[@EngineeringVignettes]

Good learning experience for Dave the younger... reminds me of my days as a TV/VCR/Stereo repairman...

[@Keepskatin]

Color and image settings is all preference. There are so many calibration settings that it's all preference. What really sets tv technologies apart,is which one has the best black color definition,zero input lag,smoothest refresh rate,and most vibrant colors. Those 3 image qualities is what makes or breaks a tv or pc monitor. It separates the Alphas from the Betas. The videophiles from the tv noobs. As for motion performance,plasma tv is best in video game use,smooth buttery frame rate,and absolutely no input lag. This is very important in fast paced games,such as call of duty,no motion blur with Plasma.

[@FortyTwoAnswerToEverything]

I have a 60" LG (60PA5500) and I love its energy saving feature. On average it uses around 140 watts (rear is warm, not hot) and I only use full power when watching movies on weekends. I love my TV and hope this method prolongs its life.

[@mumbles552]

When I worked at the hospitals, we had little orange plastic covers to snap over the smoke detectors. They worked great as we were making smoke and dust doing construction jobs and we never ever set one off. Can't say the same for some of the other trades. But like you, a false alarm cost a bundle for the fire department to show up unnecessarily so we were always extra careful.

[@frankscarano4708]

That was one amazing plasma tv LG made.. it was so over engineered. I always admired that display at the bottom of the tv and light up touch buttons.. I have repaired many of these sets!

[@liammcfadyen7227]

Hey Frank - are you able to give any advice? I'm starting from this video and learning as I go along...

[@BlackEpyon]

My school used to have a computer lab (they've since switched to "mobile labs"). We had at least two generations of computers for which I've had to take apart almost all the machines, and replace the caps on the MB. Always the same ones too. We just ordered bulk packages so I'd always have on hand.

[@Broadcast1Channel]

I use to work in a service department located in an office block. Every so often customers would a send particular model of equipment that if they had not already let the smoke out from fiddling with the calibration it would end up on the work bench. It was not obvious how much they had fiddled with it so smoke escaping along with bits of capacitor casings, rectifier diodes ect... the first time you plugged in and switched on did occur every so often. Needless to say there was quite a bit of smoke but we never managed to set the fire alarm off. Although we did manage to take the power out on the estate on one occasion.

[@CheckEmGG]

My 2007 LG 50in plasma still works great. No dead pixels, color is accurate, the weight is still a f#uck ton. It's been on the highest power saving mode since day 1 (seventh grade at the time bought and knew that lowering power would increase lifespan and risk of burn in)

[@herroldj]

If yours are like the ones in the data center I work in, they require 2 triggers. They require a significant temp change and vapor. We had the fire dpt show up and had to override the inergen system discharge. Because one of them tripped in the a server room. Basically the compressor in one of the 4 ac units vented and filled the room with coolant to the point that the room was hazy and with 1 ac unit running 1 failed and 2 on standby the temp of the room changed rapidly 2nd trigger. So you need temp and vapor to set them off a popped cap won't do too much.

[@joez.2794]

Replaced a 27" wall-mount plasma TV at a friend's house that was left by the previous owner. Thing had to weigh like 70 lbs - took two of us to carry it out to the garage! Plasma is basically CRT nowadays, afaic.

[@Phunker1]

Have you shecked that it's no plasma burn-in? Have one of the flicker videos (you find them on youtube) run for 15min and see if the lines change. I use a big plasma in the recording studio and get them all the time.

[@glorifiedng]

I was given a 2008 Samsung Plasma, The owner was told by a repair shop that the plasma gas was worn out and aged, causing his problem of turning on, but no picture. Sometimes it would come on. As long as it was on, it worked perfectly. I was actually able to find a repair guide online that was for a tech. Upon tear down and inspection, I did not see any caps leaking, and I have good voltage on power supply when on. Further research on the the net found i could be caps, power supply, or main board failure. The power supply passed all voltage tests, so it was good, i did check the caps for any bulges and leakage, they were ok. So the next in the flow chart was main board, all voltage coming to board was good. so they repair manual says replace main board. so here's where I got dodgey! I baked it in the oven (since it was crap anyway, and the TV was free) as a test. after 10 min in and then out and cooled... a quick reinstall... and the TV began working consistently. (at least for a month) I ordered a used (rev b) board off of Ebay for $45 USD. and replaced it. The TV now works great and even has a bit of a better picture than before. So that was a nice find.

[@nobuyukinyuu]

Dave!! Big fan of your channel. I just wanted to say that watching your videos encouraged me to learn how to solder -- I just swapped out the caps on an LG TV myself (also a dumpster dive) a couple weeks ago, my very first soldering job! (Using a "Yihua" 936 clone of all things; something else I found thanks to EEVBlog). I was very surprised to see this video pop up when it did. During the repair, I was a bit worried at first with getting components out without causing heat damage, and what to do when I accidentally shorted a trace -- I was encouraged by my father to leave a message or post on the EEVBlog forum, but at my age I felt like I'd be wasting other people's time with non-engineering questions from an electronics noob. (I'm more of a software guy..) Seeing this video made me realize that perhaps I shouldn't have been so apprehensive! So, thanks again, and I hope this channel continues to encourage more people to dive into the guts of the hardware.

[@raytru3191]

hi i am a master electrician and dome lots of fire alarm inatalation and repair i will give you a tric we some time use but be carefull if you think you will have smoke you put a small plastic bag over it and tale it around dont forget to take it out after they are very sensitive to smoke dont need mutch to go

[@jfbeam]

+ray tru Shower cap. Just don't forget to remove it.

[@jaykay4836]

Commercial fire systems are routinely tested so they have to be able to contact the control centre to let them know first. If the contact number and code isn't on the building control panel, just ask the building owner for it (either tell him it is to avoid false alarms or just give him a bottle of whiskey if he isn't technically minded). All you do is call the number and give your address and code and they cancel the alarm (you can also call before you try something interesting to put the system on test for a given time, but check it doesn't disable other buildings nearby). On some systems the noise continues until reset with a key locally, but at least you don't have emergency services turn up.

[@pipercolt1963]

we had a sharp 60" plasma, it had cloudy vision. my tv repair roommate had all the boards out, he replaced some caps on the power supply and everything. couldn't find the problem. but now that I think of it Dave, those faulty caps could cause improper voltages on the motherboard and display driver and weaken or damage those critical components and that means you have multiple faults!

[@horiamorariu]

About the smoke alarm: it detects SMOKE. Not gas. And the quantity has to be considerable in order to interrupt a light beam and to trigger the alarm. Depends also on the construction of the detector.

[@killerbeenl83]

I watching this video on the screen I repaired the caps from 8 years ago. As they where bulged just like this one. A little bit of nail polish on the coil that created a buzzing noise because the core was a little loose, and it's been working ever since.

[@nicholaslenzini1759]

I worked as a Sound Tech for a month(Temp position). I believe the one you have actually is photoelectric based. It detects particles in the air by shining a light on the particles in a dark chamber. It could go off with particles from the caps.

[@Nighthawke70]

Cheap *CENSORED!* Sanwa *CENSORED!* Caps! If you got any more busted LCD's or plasma's, do the Aussie50 on them; break out a MOT and hit them with some serious juice. EDIT: Get a hold of some fire alarm test caps to cover those sensors if in doubt. Just make sure you remove them after you are past the risk of making smoke.

[@EEVblog]

Nighthawke70 Samwha

[@Nighthawke70]

EEVblog D'oh.

[@TheBrightPixel]

Nighthawke70 The smoke sensor test caps come in very handy for situations like this. A bit of tape will do the job too. Just remember to remove.

[@atmark666]

Nighthawke70 its samwha not sanwa. samwha is KOREAN manufacture and these are the reason why i never buy Korean TVs no matter how cheap they are.

[@Nukle0n]

Nighthawke70 Old plasmas aren't really worth it anyway, since Plasma TVs get burn in if you have the same image on for 20 seconds.

[@MrPoffersher]

I can only hope that after I get my degree I can work under someone so knowledgeable and generally cool.

[@brianmatthews609]

This video is very informative! I salvaged a 60" 2010 Samsung Plasma and will see what happens.

[@leesully1669]

Blown caps don't necessarily smoke. If there is a sudden surge of pressure, the rubber stopper where the leads come out is made to be the "cork in the bottle" and it will blow the entire lid off. Take a big 4700 high voltage out to the parking lot, and ramp up the voltage and it will blow it's can right off. (take safety precautions if you do.) A kid in my high school did that 30 some odd years ago, and was just covered in paper and foil. I had an NEC 21" CRT that I was trying to repair, and it blew the aluminum to bits. But there was no smoke.

[@gamedeathmatch]

There are two types of fire detectors I know of which are the atmospheric ones and heat detecting ones. Your detector in the video detects smoke because of the open venting it has, heat detecting ones tend to have a smooth surface with no holes. Ionization and photoelectric alarms (both smoke detecting type as you have), react to particles in the air that either interrupt a current flowing by ionization between plates or interrupt a beam of light to trigger the alarm. Ionizing is by far the more sensitive method and would detect small amounts of smoke if thats what you have, photoelectric would be less sensitive it really depends which or a mixture of both you might have.

[@HNickProg]

About the smoke detectors, you don't wire them separately to the control panel, but they will be divided into zones (probably each floor of the building) and in our system each sensor can be given an address and name which will be shown on the control panel. In our case we use optic sensors for normal rooms and thermal sensor for kitchens, garages, etc

[@MikeC19100]

When recycling eWaste material I always enjoyed taking apart the Plasma TV’s because they have so much aluminum components in them. I also liked the fact that most all of them had a very large aluminum back plate for the TV screen, but the glass was actually glued onto the aluminum and the scrapper would only pay for dirty aluminum prices on those items.

[@Nikkivaldheks]

i've never regretted subscribing to this channel

[@ryantoomey611]

Capacitor polarity is VERY important. I learned the hard way. I repaired a device by replacing the caps and when I turned it on there was a loud bang and smoke. Scared the crap out of me. That will never happen again.

[@ChipGuy]

Aww all the effort with the caps and it's actually beyond repair. But I like the style of the video with David2 in there. Somebody moving the camera while somebody else is on it does not happen very often at EEVBlog, I like it.

[@IzludeTingel]

LOVE dumpster TVs!!!! I've picked up a couple myself. Recently patched up a plasma too, an old Samsung EDTV. Beautiful stuff!

[@spacepirateivynova]

from what I've learned, it's a good idea to put some bends (bend in, bend out back to standard width so you get a little < in the wire lead) to provide some strain relief, etc. This will also let you fit whatever into whatever.

[@JaredReabow]

Standard smoke alarms work by using a alpha radiation source and a sensor when smoke fills the chamber between the two the particles block the alpha radiation and set the alarm off. Similarly the cheaper detectors have a LED and a receiver and work with the same procedure

[@martinborman4195]

Dirty ribbon connector on the vertical screen panel.

[@grant2053]

EEVblog Hey Dave! :) The way most fire alarms detect smoke is with a small radioactive decay source (typically americium) and a small sensor. When smoke particles get in between the space of the radioactive source and the sensor it interferes with the measured count of the americium because the electrons hit the smoke particles instead of the sensor, the fire alarm then detects the count drop and triggers the alarm.

[@PantheraTigr]

Dave, its vapour. At least in electrolytic caps, the electrolyte vapourises and the pressure breaks the seal, then the vapour escapes. After that its possible for the insides of the cap to catch fire. And the detectors detects firm particles in air either by changes in ionization or by deflecting light scatterig on them.

[@RGTelesound]

Informative vid. Thanks for taking the time to repair the plasma and make a vid about it. Gotta give the young guys a hard time so they realize they DONT know it all.

[@ipissed]

I have replaced bulging caps on power boards, and just like in this case it was better, but still had some issues. After going back, and replacing every cap on the board I have had success. I always replace every single cap on a power board now.

[@JimTaylor42]

Even though all the faults were not fixed, I learned stuff. Now I know what esr stands for. I loved that solder sucker gun thingy. Thanks

[@MrUnbekannt20]

For your smokeproblem, bye a yeap thing that can detect via infrared and heat, blow up a capacitor under it and try if it gous off! :)

[@TheHunChem]

From what I know the caps' magic smoke *can* set of general fire alarms, since they are particle based (any smoke or fog will trigger it whatever it is) and there are the non-radiation based gas detectors for CO, CO2 and such which won't ever go off to these. And from the capacitor's side: Nope. It's not burning. It's actually boiling up the electrolite and just like in a steam explosion in water boilers, the steam will break through the vent and get out. It's oil vapor, maybe a long alcohol, not sure what's inside, but it doesn't burn at low temp. Side note: Most cap electrolites burn with clean blue flame without any smoke or soth. EDIT:Your fire alarm is as you said an old type and it's probably the firsdt one I mentioned. It would go off by a large chace even for the vapor

[@geoffhorvath3261]

I suspect that the vapor would trigger your fire alarm if there's enough of it. Having a fan blowing might help it by reducing the parts per million coming in contact with the sensor. Also you could probably call the building monitoring firm and have your unit put on test mode for a couple hours to prevent any nuisance alarm. That is what I generally have to do if I'm doing any welding in a building like that.

[@LadyAnuB]

Smoke detectors are not individually wired, they are addressable and use the address and proper labeling to determine which smoke detector went off and head straight to that location. For older systems, the smoke detectors are in a zone and the firefighters have to run around the zone location and determine which detector went off and where the fire is to put it out.

[@tedtw]

Capacitors - usually a polyester film with aluminum foil. What is vented is a form of steam, mixed with the chloride electrolyte.

[@benllben]

They are the same smoke alarms we have in an apartment complex here and are also charged a couple of thousand for false alarms. They are not extremely sensitive, several times someone has burnt food while cooking and filled the room with smoke and they have not gone off. As long as the smoke disperses before hitting the sensor it should be fine.

[@Blakspire]

Most modern detectors are "ionizing" detectors. The use a small amount of radioactive material to ionize atmosphere. This generates a small amount of current which is monitored by the electronics of the detector. When anything other than atmosphere enters the detector, it changes the current and the detector trips. You can buy "dust covers" to protect them from debris during construction, which are also extremely effective for preventing them from going off at all.

[@rinusstrijker9384]

I did buy a samsung plasma 42inch tv for 1 euro. it was defected. It had a lose soldering point. I solder it and it works fine now :)

[@toasty4000000]

Did you say "2008 vintage" in the beginning? hahaha

[@MCKoolperson9]

Kakunapod My mom's mac broke, and the apple store called it vintage. It was only 3 yrs old at the time...

[@toasty4000000]

Ogoun lol

[@RygartARTB]

Kakunapod Vintage doesn't necessarily mean decades old. Vintage is literally the year it was produced which is why he says 2008 Vintage, because the TV was produced in 2008. It's the same as wine. 1950's Vintage literally means that the the grapes were grown and harvested together for that specific year, same applies to TV's built in that year.

[@toasty4000000]

***** I suppose youre right, guess Im not used to hearing it used like that

[@Nukle0n]

Kakunapod Plasma is a dead end tech, to me that's sufficient in calling it dead end. Really hot, loudly aircooled TVs with bad burn-in problems, thank god they went away. Just need OLED manufacturing to get the prices down proper.

[@davidsanderson1788]

As Dave said these old plasma TVs give off a lot of heat. Hardly surprising given they are rated at about 0.5kW. Leave one on for long each day and a typical electricity bill for the year just to run one is £150 in the UK. Pays to ditch plasma for an up to date low power consumption LED TV.

[@apexmike849]

I always take a photo of stuff like this so that I know how it goes back together.

[@TheSparkst3r]

From rough experimentation with 105C caps with their tops chopped off and watching the insides, it would appear that the electrolyte evaporates as vapour. By the time the capacitor has got to a temperature to burn the material all of the electrolyte has dried up and cools off since very little current flows after this point (1000mA limit down to 55mA). Nothing combusts. The particles in the vapour are also quite dense, sticky and would likely set off both an optical and radio-Americium alarm. Could be expensive.

[@GeorgeTsiros]

I know I am not answering the question you asked, but I would simply plug it in and have a really powerful vacuum (or two) over the caps sucking air, just in case

[@auwdioslave]

A small note: Changing elcaps in an SMPS can influence loop stability of the converter if the new types have an extremely low ESR (compared to the original)......

[@awdrifter3394]

I replaced caps on my monitors. I actually did it on my MAG monitor twice (that monitor is 8 years old). Saved me a few hundred dollars.

[@TankR]

older video, i know, but smoke alarms are either particulate detectors, thermal detectors, or ionization detectors. particulate/thermal detectors use an IR LED and detector to sense when smoke size and temp particles enter the detection chamber. That unit, in a commercial building, is most likely IR/thermal. Ionizing is outside of the scope of this comment.

[@nicholasgraber994]

I fixed a tv like this and the problem was when you pressed the power button it would just click and click away and i found out it was 4 10v capacitors so i replaced those with 16v capacitors and it works like a charm.

[@CBRadi0_89]

It's a Notifier brand smoke detector. A blown cap would definetly set it off if enough magic smoke escapes. Love your videos mate

[@BertNielson]

Might not have fixed the TV, but still a great video. Thanks for making them. I pick something up from each one.

[@yehudaavitan5010]

I worked for a fire alarm company for a while. Smoke and vapor can both set off a smoke detector. Smoke detectors do not differentiate between the two at all. The most basic sensor within a smoke detector is an infrared LED and an infrared receiver at a 45 degree angle to one another with a piece of plastic in between them. The receiver and the infrared LED can not see each other therefore the smoke detector is not triggered, however, when smoke, or vapor, or even excess dust particles, fill the gap in between the infrared LED and the Infrared receiver, the infrared light is then dispersed evenly throughout the substance and the light is then carried over to the other side where the receiver picks up the light and triggers the alarm. Dust causes false alarms all the time and in fact the company that I worked for gets called all the time to commercial buildings to clean there smoke detectors. Yes, we got paid to walk around and spray each smoke detector with an air duster. Yes, it was boring.

[@TheNoHatCat]

The usual type of fire alarm (at least here in Sweden) uses a radioactive source to ionize the smoke and then detects the conductivity of the ionized gas, the ionization of the gas is dependent on the composition and is thus triggered by smoke and not ordinary air (probably because of the low ionization of the nitrogen).

[@MikkoRantalainen]

Yeah, fire alarm / smoke alarms come in two basic variants: (1) ionizing detectors that contain small amount of radioactive material called americum and those have the radioactive material symbol, and (2) optical detectors that react to anything visual (those basically have a black box with IR light emitter and photon detector and they sound an alarm if the visibility inside that black box changes rapidly enough). The optical detectors easily react to water vapour so you don't want one of those near anything that outputs visible vapour (e.g. shower head, kitchen stove). Both have uses. The ionizing detectors are said to react gases from open flame whereas optical detectors react to smoke but not to invisible gas generated by open flame. Local fire department recommended using ionizing detectors nearby the fire exit routes and optical detectors in bedrooms. In addition, there does exist carbon monoxide detectors which are totally different kind of detector. Those are usually designed to measure carbon monoxide concentration near the unsafe limit for humans, not if there are any carbon monoxide in the air (because in cities, air pretty much always has some carbon monoxide because of pollution from traffic).

[@Sal112350]

I was watching my plasma when suddenly I heard a loud pop and images went blank. I google about loud pop and people say it must be capacitor. So I open it and I could see there is a bulging capacitor. I replace it and wella, it works and up to now it still works, 14 years old now.

It is sometimes important to use caps with exact ESR values. For example LM2940 (voltage regulator, but i`m sure there are many more) has specific requirements regarding ESR value depending on output current. Caps with values out of required range make this voltage regulator work unstable, which can cause your magic smoke to escape irrevocably.

[@jacobwilkes111]

I recently got given a panasonic 5:1 surround sound system, and when i tried it, it didnt turn on. I opened it up and it had a pre built power supply, which used cheap caps and they had all gone, so i had to swap all of them to get it working again. Used panasonic ones, because i thought it was a good decision, and it's now working again :)

[@jakubatube]

Usually smokedetectors these days are optical... as in detecting a set number of smoke particals through a light sensor.

[@marks47]

Yeah, I worked somewhere that had optical ones, and my idiot co-workers decided to vape in a comm. room.... Good times. (Not for them.)

[@jakubatube]

Hehe...smoke is smoke, wheather it be chemical or otherwise. Btw they test these detectors with pressurised (non lethal) smoke from a spraycan.

[@fableaye14]

yup the ion smoke heads are obsolete now , and they are mostly photo smoke heads , they don't react to vapor . I had a calm from a customer where there water heater blew and filled the building with vapor, and no smoke heads went off . Comerical fire alarm is more intelligent than people think

[@funkathustra]

I love David2 and his sarcasm that seems to fly right over Dave's head (board mounting orientation joke with the arrows).