My son found a 32" TV abandoned in the back lanes and my partner inexplicably allowed him to bring it home. Consistent with my litter policy (once you pick it up it's your responsibility) it's been kicking about the house awaiting proper disposal.
With the family away I had space to open it up and work on it, so I ordered some backlight strips from spares2repair (good service!) and went at it.
I'd seen this fix described as being a bit further along the difficulty spectrum than I'd normally tackle, with some folk saying it had taken them 4 hours or longer. Maybe I'm getting better at this stuff because I found it quite straightforward. Getting the inner screen bezel off was the hardest part, but it just took the right ratios of patience and confidence.
In the course of figuring out how to do this I'd watched a bunch of videos and become aware that the backlights possibly weren't the problem â it was possibly more likely to be the LED driver or some other part of the backboard. I didn't know how safe it was to try and test parts of the system in isolation with the box open, so I just reassembled the whole thing before turning it on.
Good news: it worked!
Bad news: the screen has significant cracks that were invisible while the screen was dark đ
Oh well. I've stuck it in the loft and maybe the kids will get some use out of it. When you're watching cartoons the cracks aren't so obvious.
I think the parts cost ÂŖ23, so overall I'm not disappointed. It was good to have a win and worth a punt for the chance of a 32" smart tv that's much better than our real TV!
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