Westinghouse 32" LCD TV found in Goodwill Salvage Bin
 

Hello everyone today when I was at work I found a Westinghouse 32" LCD TV in the salvage bin so I bought it from there for $5 and when I got it home to try it out and I plugged it in and it didn't show any sort of standby light or anything and it also didn't power on when I tried to power it on. So I took it apart thinking it might of been bad capacitors in the power supply but sure enough none of the power supply capacitors were bulged or showing signs of being bad, but what was weird though is that the way this TV was made is that the Power supply and the inverter board are all on one PC board. I was also thinking maybe a bad fuse but what's weird is that this TV doesn't use a traditional fuse like most TVs use, it uses a small capacitor like fuse assembly, so I'm not sure.
Anyone know anything about these Westinghouse LCD TVs or have dealt with them, and know if they are worth fixing up? I was hoping to fix it up and resell it for some extra money.

Thanks for your help.

-Levi

I left the flatscreen refurb business about 3 years ago, but at that time, Westinghouse was about as cheap as they get. Many of their newer TVs only have one board! I worked on a couple 47" LED tvs that only had one tiny (about 4x6") board, and a big brick external power supply.

No real tips to offer without a model number to go by. Just saying, don't spend much time/money on it. You might be further ahead to just sell the stand and remote on ebay and pitch the rest.

its a set from 2008 and it has the power supply that uses the same kind of cordset as your desktop computers do (it doesn't use a brick) and it has two HDMI ports. it has 2 large boards in it, one that's the power supply/inverter board, and one that's the video processing board which has the video connector ports and tuner attached to it. The model number on the unit is SK-32H240S and like I said its from 2008 which is well before the time frame of the ones you said you worked on that had the brick power supplies and that only had a single board powering things. I hope this helps and I hope to find out more about whether or not this would be worth my time or not. by the way this TV didn't come with its original remote, but it still had its original stand so I think the original stand could be sold if nothing else at least.

Often a cap can be bad and not bulge or leak... Electronic M said it best:

"If you are going to service SS gear an ESR tester is essential. There are ESR testers on ebay for ~$15 that have the additional features of RLC component testing and transistor/diode testing....I have one and consider it one of the best pieces of cheap test equipment I've got."

Can you ohm check the fuses?

jr

Its got one fuse but its an oddball type fuse that looks like a small capacitor or inductor, so I'm not sure how I could test it. I don't have an ESR Tester, and the only problem is that all the ESR Testers I've seen on eBay need to be assembled from a kit and I don't have much experience assembling things from scratch, that's my only hesitation with buying an ESR Tester, plus all of the preassembled ESR testers are over $100 or more at places like Allied.

Are both tinned/soldered ends of the fuse exposed well enough that you can get your ohm meter probes on them? If the fuse is good, you should measure close to 0 ohms from end to end.

jr

I have no idea what the fuse's leads are like because I haven't had a chance to remove the circuit board out of the TV yet. I can get you a picture of the circuit board in question and circle the fuse on it for you so you can see what the fuse looks like. Below is a picture of the whole power supply/inverter board assembly and the second picture is a close-up shot showing the fuse that this TV uses, which like I said is a rather unusal style of fuse.

Yes that might help, if you can get a clear shot.

jr
update: looks like you should be able to get to the terminal on the other side of the board and measure it... or unsolder it if necessary.

Well I measured the fuse and it seems that it might be open possibly because it measures about 2 ohms and not 0 ohms like you said it should if it weren't blown. good news is that the fuses this thing takes are still available over at mouser for like 11 cents a piece. So it shouldn't be too hard to replace the fuse (although they have the fuse glued into place with that nasty white glue that turns to a rubbery consistency when it dries so it will be tricky to try and get it out of the circuit without damaging the circuit board traces.) What's a good way to get rid of that glue without damaging anything?

I stated "close to 0 ohms" ... IMHO 2 ohms is likely close enough, but for a better measurment, you should remove it from the board. I usually use a small exacto knife or scalpel to carefully cut away most of the rubbery glue.

jr

OK, well the closest thing I have to an exacto knife is a box cutter and that's it. Which I'm assuming a box cutter will do the same thing as an exacto knife except not as precise as an exacto knife. anyways if you had to guess as to which capacitors on the power supply board would be bad which ones would you suspect first? The ones closest to the back of the board or the ones in the middle or the large electrolytic capacitor?

Also I've never seen a LCD TV with 6 inverter connections before, I've seen them with 2 or 4 inverter connections but never 6 connections and certainly never on one side of the LCD Panel before, usually the inverter connections are at the top and the bottom of the inverter board but this is the first time I've seen the inverter connections come out on one side of the board. Is there some sort of advantage to doing it on one side of the inverter board as opposed to the traditional way of doing it with the connections coming out of the top and bottom of the inverter board? Could this possibly be an early LED TV?

Many of the older TVs used an inverter board with multiple outputs. Usually one per CCFL tube, or one per pair of tubes, or sometimes the CCFL tubes are U-shaped and there is one per "U". Nothing unusual there.

OK didn't know that. So do you know anything about the older Westinghouse LCD TVs?

OK So here's some pictures of the unit in question fully reassembled (and still not working) so maybe some pictures of the unit in question might trigger a memory or two about the tv and what all went wrong with it that would of caused it not to power on, I'm still thinking its something with the power supply board like a bad capacitor or two or something but seeing as they used Nippon Chemicon capacitors in this TV which are some of the more reliable capacitors out there it seems more likely it might of been something else, but not sure. Would it be possible to find a replacement power supply board for this TV on ebay for cheap do you think? And do you think that might fix this TV's issue?

It seems that there are several inverter/power supply boards for this particular TV for sale on ebay ranging in price between $30-$60 all with free shipping and they all seem to of been pulled from working units that had busted LCD panels so maybe it might be a possibility to try ordering a new inverter/power supply board on ebay and see if that fixes it.

I didn't get a lot of the older westinghouse TVs. I do remember working on one that looked like that, that had a problem with the mainboard overheating. It would run for a few minutes then the screen would scramble and it would lock up. If I pointed a fan at it, it would run flawlessly.

I realize that doesn't help much in your situation.

Where I worked, we got in truckloads of store-return TVs. My boss wouldn't let me spend time on TVs that wouldn't sell for much in our retail store. So Westinghouse, Polaroid, Element, etc, I just looked them over. If I didn't have them fixed in about 30 minutes, they got torn down for parts on the eBay store. Funny, off-brand parts (at that time) sold for more than the big names- so that was further motivation to not spend much time on them.

Interesting. Do you think it might be worth a shot at buying another power supply/inverter board from ebay for this unit and seeing if that fixes the issue?

"I don't have an ESR Tester, and the only problem is that all the ESR Testers I've seen on eBay need to be assembled from a kit and I don't have much experience assembling things from scratch, that's my only hesitation with buying an ESR Tester, plus all of the preassembled ESR testers are over $100 or more at places like Allied."

Check again... there are many esr testers on eBay that are in the $12 to $25 range that are assembled. Many are "bare board" units that you might want to package in a nice enclosure if you so desire, but thes units are fully assembled and just require a 9 Volt battery to operate.

jr

Yeah, that's the problem, I'm not very handy with building things like cases out of wood, and as proof of how bad I am at working with wood, I had to build a simple wooden box for 4-H one year and it got me a red ribbon because I didn't do a very good job at making the joints and the finish wasn't done very well either. If I were to get myself something like that I would rather have something that's already assembled and already cased up, but I don't want to pay over $100 for that kind of thing though either.

I'm a city boy, so haven't had any experience with farming organizations like 4-H (IIRC 4-H is a rural farming thing, about cows and growing stuff that gets converted to food by major corporations to be sold at supermarkets).
I would have thought that your bad work would just be passed over, getting no awards instead of a "bad job" award... :scratch2:

But they don't need to be packaged, many of us just use them naked.

Here is the best selling one on Amazon...not an offshore seller that will have slow delivery.

http://www.amazon.com/Yosoo-Display-...ords=esr+meter

not affiliated,
jr

In 4-H you get different ribbons like a white ribbon (3rd place), Red Ribbon (2nd place), Blue Ribbon (1st place), Reserve Champion, and State Fair Entry. By the way 4-H is more than just Agriculture, they have projects ranging in fashion, art, electrical, food, woodworking and more.

OK. but with my luck I'd break the darn thing if it wasn't cased up in someway, shape or form.

I think I'm just going to try and get another power/inverter board from ebay for the TV and see if that does the trick. I don't think its worth trying to monkey around with trying to figure out which capacitors are responsible with killing the TV set. The TV doesn't have its original remote so I'm going to have to probably search for one on ebay.

Power supply & remote = more than that set is worth.

Really... I kind of doubt that. Of course considering the source here (you are the one who constantly trolls me on here in practically every thread I've posted on here) I think you're just saying that to just be a troll as usual. I know for a fact that I've been able to get used TV remotes on ebay for as little as $5 and free shipping, the power supply and inverter board for this particular TV was selling for as low as $20 and free shipping on ebay, and considering you can sell one of these sets for as much as $100 there's still plenty of room to make money on this TV yet. So keep your negative nelly comments to yourself!

Thanks for the childish name-calling.

My comment on the TV had nothing to do with you. Don't be so paranoid.

My comment was based on it being a 9-year old 720p Westinghouse. That's all.

.

Couple of things to consider here:
1. The power supply board might not fix the problem or other serious problems might be discovered, such as a bad screen.
2. A brand new 32 inch Westinghouse sells for about $130 on Amazon...possibly cheaper in discount stores...Why would anybody spend $100 for an old one with no warranty?

jr

This is why I pass these up when I see them. :thumbsdn:

There was a large-screen Westinghouse flat panel TV last year beside the trash barrels behind my apartment. I have no clue as to why it was being discarded, but I'm glad I left it where it was. I have read about the power supply problems these sets are prone to, and figured I would be better off without it.

I haven't seen another Westinghouse FP since then. Who makes these sets? I very seriously doubt it was any reputable manufacturer, which would explain why the PS boards go bad so often.

If I were to guess, however, I'd say the Westinghouse branded FPs were then and are to this day made offshore, like all other flat screens. The only American TV manufacturer left is Motorola, unless they too left our shores (as I am almost certain they did) and are now turning out short-lived FPs. Motorola was a great brand of television (I had a Motorola 21-23" b&w console, a trash find in my home town, in the '70s that worked very well) when they were making b&w and color NTSC TVs; it is a darn shame their sets' quality went downhill, not unlike Zenith when that company left Chicago. :no:

If anyone here knows if Motorola is still making flat screens (or if they ever did), please let me know. Many Chinese and/or Japanese no-name electronics firms make the chassis for these TVs, which are subsequently rebranded using the names of former American TV giants like Zenith, Magnavox, RCA, et al.

Nice try, but this junk does not deserve to bear the name of any former great TV manufacturer; in fact, I believe it gives these companies, especially Zenith and RCA, a very, very bad name. This is exactly why, when my flat screen finally quits, I will bring out my 19" Zenith Sentry 2 to replace it. I am not that impressed with high definition TV, so going back to a 19" CRT set will not bother me in the least. This is the same thing, IIRC, that VK member Kamakiri has said he will do when his flat screen quits, and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of other folks will do the same when their FPs do the same; that is, unless they made the mistake of throwing away their CRT TV when they got the flat screen. I will have no sympathy whatsoever for these people when (not if) they are left without TV (if they cannot afford a new FP) after the flat set quits. They were asking for it.

Update (5-12-16 8:28 PM EDST): I just looked up Westinghouse TV on Google, and found that they are (at least they say they are) the leading LCD TV manufacturer in the world. Perhaps they have gotten most if not all the bugs out of their flat screens, and the sets now being sold are much more reliable than the early ones. I have no idea how old the Westinghouse FP I mentioned earlier in this post (the one behind my apartment) was, but I would guess it was an earlier model; that or else it was used a lot, failing due to the usual reasons FPs bite the dust (exploded capacitors, et al.). The owner put it out with the trash and didn't look back.

As far as I know Motorola got out of the Consumer electronics business back in the early 1970s selling their consumer electronics arm off to Matsushita Electronics Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan aka the parent company of Panasonic and Quasar (which the Quasar brand name came about because Matsushita bought the Quasar name from Motorola) so I'm sorry to say that Motorola does not make TVs or radios anymore and haven't made them for over 40 years. Mostly Motorola just makes 2-way radios, Pagers and Cell Phones now.

I never said that flat-panels were good TVs I was just saying that basically the only thing you can do now if you want to stay in the TV/consumer electronics repair business is basically just repair failed Flat Panel TVs for people or for yourself, even if the profit margin isn't as big as it was with the CRT TVs. Anyways I agree with you I think that ATSC was the worst thing to happen to Television. I realize that a lot of people love the new dtv but in reality it just doesn't stack up agaisnt a good NTSC signal because unlike NTSC, ATSC leaves you with only 2 options either you have signal or you don't whereas with NTSC you at least had a picture and sound even if you didn't have the greatest signal. Also the audio quality leaves little to be desired ATSC TVs have the worst audio quality in the world I believe because since TVs are no thicker than a wall clock you are stuck with using horrible quality speakers that make the audio sound tinny and malformed.

Thankfully I have was able to get a hold of a few old Analog TVs (CRT units) that were just going to be junked and so I'm set for when my Flat Panels finally die. I have a nice 2000 vintage 27" Sony Trinitron TV, a 2004 vintage 27" Toshiba CRT TV, a 1986 vintage Zenith 9" Portable Color TV that can run off of 12 Volt car adaptor or 120v AC Adaptor (its one of the famous Zenith "Cube" TVs), a 1968 Sony 9" B & W TV, and a 1981 Vintage 9" Montgomery Wards Portable Color TV.

Anyways All I was trying to do was see if I could get this TV going and see if I could sell it to someone who might need a TV, that's all and yes I realize the "Westinghouse" name on this TV is not the same Westinghouse that made TVs 50 years ago here in America, that's not why I bought this TV from the salvage bin at work, I bought it because I figured that it would be something that if it wasn't working right I could see about fixing it up and then reselling it even if I don't make much of a profit off of it.

Yeah, well you're missing out on a great opportunity, because most of these Flat Pamel TVs only have a few capacitors that are bad in the power supplies that is why they quit working and once you replace the crappy poor quality caps with high quality Nichicon caps these TVs will last quite a while.

I didn't call you any names, I said "keep your negative nelly comments to yourself!" key word "negative nelly" which is NOT calling you names, its an old cliche saying that means you're being very pessimistic. Please learn the difference between name calling and cliche usage.

As someone who knows Jim personally. I can say that he is a nice person that will tell you the truth as he sees it, and not a troll. Interpreting his posts as trolling is at best a mistake, and at worst an example of paranoia causing posts with differing opinions to falsely read in a hostile tone.

As a moderator I would like to politely encourage you to remove the negative filter you seem to view his posts through and look at them objectively, not seem to border on an open spat like you are doing here (and in the youtube troubles thread), and/or simply ignore* him. It would make discourse here more pleasant.

* Since a couple months after joining I've tried to read EVERY new post here, and I can say that there are a couple of members here (Jim is NOT one) whose posts I almost never read because I simply feel there is nothing to be gained from it and a lot of time, annoyance and pointless (sometimes repetitive) knee jerk correction posts to be wasted doing so....Perhaps I'm wasting my time now too, but I just wanted to say sometimes the best thing to do in life (on a number of levels) is to simply walk away and ignore something you dislike.

SOMETIMES it is that way...but OTHER times--there is a bad signal board, bad tab bond on the panel, bad ccfl tubes/Led's in the BL, or cracked panel you CANNOT see--till the BL is on..


I should know...I still work on them regularly. I see a WHOLE Lot more serious problems in only a short time--than I EVER did with CRT type sets.

Recently...I had a mitsubishi 40 inch LCD set. It had a MINOR burn on the right side...barely visible.
Pretty sure I could have sold it that way..few people would notice and the "Mitsubishi name" alone would help it to sell. Had it sold for 150...UNTIL the SECOND problem made itself known. It would suddenly go to ALL BARS..one one side of the panel. If you twisted it JUST a bit...it would clear up. Bad tab bond....there was NOTHING I could do to fix it reliably...and I TRIED...believe me I tried !! But I just could not make it stable....so I ended up scrapping it and saved all boards and parts.

Today....I worked on a not real old LG 50" set. No raster--but run volts are ok. There is a quick "flash then nothing". tests proved at least one LED strip is bad. I just repaired a 47" LG set with the same exact problem.

Another set i recently fixed...a 32" 014 model Emerson (Funai) The SMPS was blown up. I was able to fix that...and THEN I had a good BL and menu...but nO signal would pass--nor could I get into the service menu. I had tog et another signal board--by the time i was done...I had over 50 in it..and can only get 100 MAX for it--even with a remote.

Another Proscan set has no BL. not getting any BL supply volts from SMPS.

Yet another 55' VIzio will not boot. Tried reset. No good. Will ned the signal board rebuilt...minimum of near 100 to get that done..

So...not NEARLY all of them are "just something simple like caps or connections. a FEW of them...but a LOT need parts--that often cost between 15 and 100..

I wasn't saying that all of them are an easy repair but most of the ones I've dealt with were just simply a bad set of capacitors in the power supply. but anyways I'm sorry if my comment seemed a little ignorant, that wasn't my intention.

OK, well I do want you to know that its kind of hard for me to take critical comments directed at me, I do have Autism and it makes it hard for me to take criticism and what not so again I appologize if feelings were hurt. I'll try better next time to make sure that I don't say anything upsetting again.

Fair enough. Just try to keep in mind that not all differing/opposing viewpoints are criticism, not all criticism is bad (some is meant to help prevent you and others from making mistakes that you may regret), and that as long as one interacts with other people one will inevitably receive some criticism (so learning how to deal with it constructively is a good thing).

You got a point there.I just looked up a Delta power board for a Vizio and almost died after looking at the price for it.A couple to few hundred bucks more you can buy a new set.

That probably will happen here if theres no cheap fix for them.Now I got two to my name sitting here.The good thing about them is they dont take up room and some are light to carry around.Not like those boat anchor 32 inch CRT sets.

Well when I picked it up, I was taking a chance on it because sometimes they work just fine and sometimes they need a little work and sometimes they may not be worth my time to fix. I just thought that since it was an older unit that it would of more than likely had the bad power supply capacitor issue than a newer one would of (since it has the power supply that uses the 3-prong computer style power cord setup as opposed to a brick like your newer LCD TVs have which aren't as easy to fix or diagnose.) And anyways I haven't given up on this TV yet because you can find a used power supply/inverter board for this TV for around $20 with free shipping on eBay. So I'm going to take a chance with that and see what happens, if that doesn't fix the issue then I might just give up on the TV and just recycle it.