Pro tip: That guy at the parts counter saved my bacon on a power supply fix

I was hunting for a cap kit for an old Samsung TV last Tuesday and this older technician behind the counter stopped me. He said "you're wasting your time, the real issue is the cold solder joints on the main IC, not the caps." I almost ignored him but figured I had nothing to lose. After I reflowed those joints the TV fired right up. Has anyone else had a parts guy drop knowledge that saved you hours of chasing the wrong fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

faith_shah881mo ago

Those guys are absolute wizards with a soldering iron.

jessej231mo ago

Man that is a SOLID save right there. I had a similar thing happen with an old arcade monitor I was trying to fix up. The guy at the parts shop just watched me grab a flyback transformer and shook his head. He told me to check the B+ voltage first because nine times out of ten it's a bad filter cap in the power supply section. He was right on the money and it saved me like three hours of soldering junk. Those old school techs who have seen it all, they really know their stuff.

kai_webb911mo ago

Oh man that is the truth! Those guys who have been around since before the internet really know their stuff in a way you can't just google. So I gotta ask, did that filter cap look obviously bad like it was bulging or leaking, or was it one of those sneaky ones where everything looks fine on the outside but the meter shows it's toast? I swear half the time I pull a cap that tests bad it looks totally normal until I check ESR.