Broken TV treasures

[EWorkshop1708]

Over the last couple months, I've been on the prowl for any TV's on the side of the road on the way to the trash! I ripped apart a projection TV the other day on the side of the road, and also took a 27" TV home, and salvaged the PCB that's packed full of components!

TV's are the best sources for valuable parts, and saves you a lot of $$$, because you don't have to buy so many parts.

I got a BUNCH of 0.1uf and 0.22uf capacitors - valuable in most DIY circuits
Lots of 50V caps 1000uf and 2200uf
Some nice 200V, 250V, and 400V electrolytics
Lots of low-ohmic value resistors and also high wattage wirewounds
Some nice HV plastic capacitors
Diodes and Bridge Rectifiers
High Power Transistors and heatsinks
Lots of colored wire to use in projects
Many more, too many to list!

Why buy some parts, when most of the free ones are just as good, and most of those parts don't go bad anyway, even out in the weather. I'll buy the specific parts I need of course, but it saves many hours and $$$ not having to buy a bunch of small common parts for DIY projects.

TV's are treasures. I hope in the next few years as everyone upgrades to digital TV, we find more trashed TV's on the side of the road!

[Eviternity]

Aren't those capicitors getting cheaper and cheaper by the day?

By the way, I rather invest a few cents more and less time in some quality parts.

[jackinnj]

fwiw, I still have a color-TV transformer which I used to power a ham radio transceiver with -- then I ditched the power supply and kept the trafo. I could do a couple hundred watts of CW or SSB with that baby.

There's a tsunami of TV stuff coming into the dumps here owing to digital TV -- it isn't a sin to be cheap.

[radtech]

When I started learning electronics I had pretty much zero money, so old TVs and other discarded electronics were my main source of parts.
They can be a great source of not only useful common components, but also unusual ones that may inspire you to find new uses for them.

[unclejed613]

some of the newer ones use MOSFETS in the switching supply. heat sinks are another goodie to be had from them.. for CRT type TV's, there's the flyback core (usually glued together or using a spring clip to hold it together) and the yoke core (some of them a nice one-piece). these are good for toroid cores if you can get them apart without breaking the ferrite. don't use any electrolytics without an ESR test. small and medium transistors are always useful, and some of the big rear projection TVs also have some large audio chip amps in them. if you find any old tube type TV's the open frame flybacks are great for building high voltage projects like an ionophone.

[EWorkshop1708]

You make some good points.

I always test parts before use, even new parts.

I did get a 10w+10W stereo Audio IC and the heatsink and surrounding parts for the IC, and also a 14W+14W IC of the same IC series from another TV.

Also, I was needing a fairly high value HV cap for a 120V-powered 12V battery charger/desulfator project, and I found a large 4.7uf 275V cap, which should do nicely.

Also got some nice small 150V and 300V transistors in TO-92 and TO-126, great for audio amp projects with high supply rails.

Also got a bunch of 100V, 12A TO-220 complementary Darlington Transistors, great for amplifiers and power supplies! (BDW93CFP, BDW94CFP)

Got a few 800V and 900V MOSFETS! I'll find a use for them.

I did save some flybacks, for some future HV projects. Maybe an electric fence type theft deterrent or Jacob's ladder, LOL

It's nice to be able to find stuff for your projects, but also build projects based on what you find as well.

[star882]

I find broken/obsolete TVs and monitors very good for parts. Apart from what's already mentioned (capacitors, transistors, large resistors), the transformers are useful for projects. The high voltage one works nicely for lots of science projects. The lower voltage ones can be disassembled with the help of a heat gun and rewound, or in some cases, used as-is.

Also note that a lot of projections are discarded due to bad bulbs. In that case, remove the existing bulb and its power supply and put in a more common bulb. A CFL can be used for testing but will be too dim except in a dark room. Common metal halides would work well for a permanent replacement.

[keantoken]

Capacitors?

You mean those funny looking blue and sometimes red things? A friend I know told me that they certainly weren't capacitors, but I'm starting to question his judgement. They say things like .39J on them. It must be a .39-Joule something-or-other.

I've taken apart a few computer monitors, but I don't have a reasonable setup for desoldering. I have been content with simply ripping the desired component right off the board. I used to try to desolder with a butane torch. I've given up.

One of the old ones I took apart was a gold mine with 2SD669A/649A, and green and gray RF transistors.

I will have to learn how to figure out the ratings for trafos so that I can use old ones.

- keantoken

[unclejed613]

39J would actually be 39pf, and the J is the tolerance, which according to data sheet info is +/-5%, K is +/-10%, and M is +/-20% (L is not used because it could be mistaken for a 1 or upside down as a 7).


in part codes, you will often find that I, L, O, S, and Z are avoided (also on connector pin numbering that uses alphanumerics ), because they are easy to mistake for 1, 0, 5, and 2. other letters that are sometimes avoided are A, B, G, Q, and T, because of the similarity to 4, 8, 6, and 7.

[keantoken]

Thank you.

Can you point me to a page that has all those weird codes and things? And maybe even pictures to aid in identifying different components? Schematics are like a second language to me, but those funny little things on the PCBs can be very ambiguous.

Hopefully this will be remedied once I have the money/equipment to go full-DIY.

- keantoken