Hitachi Model LE55A6R9A bad backlight
 

Hello everyone, topday a friend of mine had given me a Hitachi 55" flat panel TV Model LE55A6R9A from 2016 that apparently the backlight has died on it, and I'm wondering how easy that would be to repair?

The TV actually works otherwise and I think its an LED TV and its a smart TV that uses a Roku stick for its smart TV circuitry.

Are the LED TV backlights easier to repair than the traditional CCFL backlights?

Thanks for your help.

Disregard this post, I found some youtube videos online about this, and figured out that its just a bad LED bulb on one of the LED backlight strips on the back of the screen.

Looks to be a pretty simple repair.

It is until you crack the screen or suffer a debonding issue at the COF flex circuits... Be careful. Treat it like a bottle of nitro.

If you don't replace *all* the LEDs, you must be sure to run the backlight adjustment down about half way, or you'll be back inside within 6 months.

If there's no back light adjustment on this model, the current feedback resistors on the Source pin of the low side MosFet(s) can be raised in value to reduce the current supply to the LEDs.

John

Well unfortunately I did end up breaking the LCD Panel on this TV, which I'm guessing that means this TV is toast? Because I tried seeing if there were any replacement LCD Panels for this TV on feebay and they had nothing listed.
Is there maybe a source for replacement LCD Panels that I'm not seeing?

Nope. Bad screen either by breakage, tab debonding, or bad COF chip means the end of the road.

Shipping a screen or the whole TV is expensive, and you won't know if the person who removed it wasn't careful with the those flex ribbons. If you have the room, put it aside and troll Facebook Marketplace for another with bad LEDs or better yet, bad main board.

If it's any consolation, even pros break screens.

Another issue I forgot to mention is that some screens use some tenacious double sided tape along the edge to hold the screen down to the plastic forms. Lifting the screen without gently heating and lifting the tape will also crack the screen.

I do the larger ones for a competitor of mine (he's a good friend LOL). I did a 75" Hisense for him that was about a year old, and I used four suction cups spread out along the screen and attached them together with rope to form a single handle.

Even when lifting the screen out, the four cups raise four hills on the screen - I've never seen a thinner screen at any screen size. How it didn't crack was a miracle. It took a lot longer to do this 75" than we budgeted for, and we've put that model on the do not fly list even though we got away with the repair. Just too much time for the replacement price point of this bottom feeder.

John

Well That sucks, because this was a Roku Ready TV that came with a Roku Streaming Stick bundled with it that I thought maybe I could repurpose it to be used with my 60" Vizio I have currently, but apparently the Roku sticks that came bundled with Roku Ready TVs could only be used with those TVs which sucks.

What is so special about Roku Streaming Sticks (at least the one which came with your TV) that they cannot be used with TVs other than the set they were bundled with? I would think these sticks could be used with any TV that had at least one HDMI port. You mentioned your TV is a "Roku Ready" set. What does that mean?

BTW: I guess your only option at this point may be to get a Roku device which connects to an HDMI port on the set, unless there is an "antenna" option on your set's input menu; this will let you use a standard TV antenna. I use a Roku 2 device on my Insignia 32" TV; it works very well on cable (Spectrum streaming service).

You may be more or less forced to use a Roku device if you are in an area with poor or no reception of local TV stations. Since you are in an area of Indiana which should get Chicago TV with no problems, I would think an antenna, even rabbit ears, would get most of the area's local channels.

What makes the Roku Stick that came with this (and other Roku TVs) special so that it couldn't be used with other TVs is how it interacts with the TV and the remote that operates it, the TV remote that comes with these Roku TVs are made so that they only work with these types of TVs only, because of that the Roku Stick will only work with the Roku TV it came bundled with, I actually took and looked up to see if I could make it work on a non-Roku TV and it said that they are designed to only work with the TVs they came bundled with.

I am currently looking into just getting a $30 Roku Device to hook up to my TV I have now, because all I have is an Antenna at my place (no cable or anything) and there's hardly anything decent on antenna in my area anymore, (also the stations that do have decent programming such as old TV shows and movies, don't come in) and I have a subscription to PureFlix (which is a Christian Alternative to NetFlix) which can be viewed on Roku.

That's what I was planning on doing anyways, but because this TV was a freebie and if the screen wouldn't of broke on me when I was fixing it, I could of had access to Roku Streaming services without having to pay for a new Roku Box, which I do have to do now.