Sunday, January 29, 2012

LCD Monitors from the rubbish heap

I was recently given a faulty 19" Acer Monitor.
The monitor has built-in speakers, and these emitted a load and intolerable 50Hz buzz while the Monitor was switched on.

This was very a similar symptom exhibited by another Acer LCD monitor that I'd obtained a year before. In this case, there was a loud buzz, and the monitor didn't actually work.

In both cases the solution was to replace main high voltage electrolytic capacitor in the power supply.
This was an 82uF Capacitor rated at 400V.
In both cases the capacitors showed physical signs of leakage, possibly corroded leads.

As soon as the failed capacitor was replaced, and the LCD monitor reassembled, it was an immediately apparent that the fault was cleared.

The image below shows the leaking capacitor before being replaced. Notice the leaked material on right-hand (+ve) lead.


Conclusions ??
The Acer Monitors were about 6 years old when the main high voltage electrolytic capacitor failed in their power supplies.
These monitors both had built-in speakers, which means that any failure in the filtering on the power supply is immediately apparent due to the loud 50Hz buzz.
If the same failure occurred in an LCD monitor without speakers, then it wouldn't be as immediately clear what the fault was. Perhaps there's an easy fix that can be applied to a few other LCD monitors as well.

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