Picked up an APEX converter box
 

Picked up an APEX CECB at the local goodwill. Tried it at the goodwill (plug it in and see if the indicator lights light up). It was flakey, but for $7 not a big risk assuming I can fix whatever. Got it home and popped the lid. Turned out to be a bad solder joint in the power supply, on the power in side. Fixed that, and it came to life. Resoldered many other joints while I had it apart. Also noticed one of the filter caps on the "cold" side was warm, so I replaced ot, and as the old cap says "low ESR" I added a ceramic SMD cap across the new cap (to handle the high frequency ripple, and make the new cap look like low ESR). The new cap also gets warm, but it's physically bigger and the heat would be more spread out, making it cooler. A heavy rectifier diode seemed to get a bit hot, so I added some copper strip to both ends (right next to the diode body) to act as heat sink wings. Copper is a good heat conductor, and solders, not like aluminum.

The box is average performance with respect to reception. It has an S-video jack as well, which encouraged me to get it. For some reason, it came with two identical remotes.

I see many of the thrifts are getting more for DTV converters. I'm glad, I bought them when they first started appearing.
The RCA's and the GE's seem to be the weakest performers, followed by the earlier Magnavox's and the Apex's.
I have all kinds of odd brand units, for comparison sake.
BTW, I had to replace the 1000 mfd@ 16volt 'lytic in my oldest Insignia, the 2nd time in 7 years. I never shut my units off.

The second one this month!
A Zenith converter that I use at home. I use a DTV converter to watch the locals and the subs, even though I have cable.
We had a power outage on of all days, Thanksgiving when all the utilities have just a skeliton crew. It was corrected in about an hour.
The converter worked perfect before the outage and the TV, it was connected to was on. Upon power restore, the converter was totally dead in the water. No indicator lite, no response from the buttons or the remote. It seemed like the power supply was out in this one. Upon examining, it was that same bulging 1000mfd, 16 volt cap.
It's great when the problems are self-diagnosing. :thmbsp:

I just lost a good HD STB, a Homeworks HW-150, which had HDMI and component outputs. Its dead and the PS checks out at a clean and steady 5.05 volts, caps all look good, so its probably a processor issue, the death knell for all this junk. I may just ESR the caps before I give up.

These are discontinued and you can only get a HW-150, standard RF and composite output only. Fortunately the Samsung HD box that was $250 is still going after almost 12 years