Folks,
A while ago a dead Vizio M60-C3 had landed in my lap. Its PSU (Vizio: 1P-1151801-1012) was not showing any secondary voltages. I started a separate topic about this problem which I may continue in the future. In the meantime I found a good replacement PSU board, installed it into the TV and turned it on. The white power LED under the bottom left corner lit up, the screen went from black to dark blue, in a couple of seconds dimmed a little and that was it. No picture. The screen would respond to pressing the MENU button on the remote by increasing the brightness slightly but there still was no picture. I also noticed that the right half of the screen (if facing the TV) appeared to be a little darker than the left one. Thinking that some of the RH side LED strips were out, I laid the TV on its face on the bench, took the back cover off and turned off the lights. I could see through the numerous holes in the rear metal panel that all of the backlight LEDs were lit. I dismissed the vision of the darker RH side of the screen as a figment of my imagination and began testing the voltages on the PSU board. All voltages were present as indicated by their respective silkscreen labels except for the T CON_ON (pin 15 of CN201). Evidently the T-Con was not reporting back to the MB so it was probably toast just as the PSU. The MB itself was likely OK.
Luckily I happened to have the same exact T-Con board in my stash (Vizio: 1P-0142J00-4010, Sharp: RUNTK5556TP) but fortunately I managed to resist the urge to install the T-Con into the TV right away and see if it would start up the TV. And was I glad I did... A quick search on badcaps.net revealed a 32-page thread on the same subject that I read from the first to the last post w/o catching a breath. It read like a novel. Tom66, Budwich, freakaftr8 - you guys are awesome! Daring to rip the side flexes with driver ICs off the LCD panel was one radical move.
I immediately recalled that one half of the screen of my TV appeared dimmer, and that was probably not a figment of my imagination. It became obvious that my newer 60-inch M-series Vizio was suffering from the same exact dreadful LCD plague as the older 70-inch units. The trouble was, according to freakaftr8 and some other folks posting in different topics, unlike the 70-inch TVs the 60-inch units did not have the side flexes with IC drivers and as such could not be repaired by ripping those flexes out. Wait a minute, sez me to self. Practically all of the cracked LCD screens that I took out while scavenging broken TVs for parts had flex circuits on the side edges. They were not connected to the bottom ones with Mylar bridges, but none the less they were still present. Apparently they were fed through the LCD panel itself, that's all.
So I took the bezel off the panel and sure enough there they were. Since at that point it had already become rather obvious that the TV was as good as dead because replacing the LCD panel was economically impractical and I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, I decided to peel the side flexes off the glass substrate on the RH side of the TV.
After I was done with the side flexes but before turning the TV on for the first
time with a known good T-Con board I disconnected both flat cables for the RH side of the panel from the T-Con board leaving both ones for the LH side of the panel connected to the T-Con. Turned the TV on and the LH side of the screen came to life! Just as freakaftr8 described in that 32-page topic. Amazing.
Turned the TV off, reconnected the two flat cables that I had disconnected in
the previous step, turned the TV on again and this time around the full screen lit up. The previously dead TV was working again! I have attached some pix with comments below:
Image 1. My LCD panel was made by some Chinese company named FOXCONN, not Sharp.
Image 2. You can see the LH side and the bottom flex circuits.
Image 3. A close up view of the lower LH corner of the panel.
Image 4. A different angle for the above view.
Image 5. A close up view of the lower RH corner of the panel with the flexes already peeled off the glass.
Image 6. A close up view of the upper RH corner of the panel with the flexes still attached to the glass.
Image 7. The same view as above but the flexes are already peeled off the glass.
Images 8-9. A close up view of the 8 RH side flexes. The 2nd IC from bottom on the right appears to be a bit darker than the rest.
Image 10. Both flat cables for the RH side of the panel are disconnected
from the T-Con board.
Image 11. The result of the above.
Image 12. Both flat cables for the RH side of the panel are reconnected to the T-Con board.
Image 13. The result of the above.
So, here's the conclusion for the archives. This brilliant method works not only on the 70- and 80-inch TV sets that have side flexible circuits with horizontal IC drivers connected to the bottom ones via two short connecting flat cables wrapping around the bottom LH and RH side corners of the screen, but it also works on smaller screens as well. The side flexes are also present in those screens and you also need to tear off the offending side in order to fix the no picture problem. The only difference is, with the smaller screen you can't and you don't need to disconnect the side flexes from the bottom ones.
My most sincere thank you goes to freakaftr8, Tom66, Budwich and a few other folks who came up with this method of repair and/or contributed to the original thread. Without you guys this TV would've been parted out.
A while ago a dead Vizio M60-C3 had landed in my lap. Its PSU (Vizio: 1P-1151801-1012) was not showing any secondary voltages. I started a separate topic about this problem which I may continue in the future. In the meantime I found a good replacement PSU board, installed it into the TV and turned it on. The white power LED under the bottom left corner lit up, the screen went from black to dark blue, in a couple of seconds dimmed a little and that was it. No picture. The screen would respond to pressing the MENU button on the remote by increasing the brightness slightly but there still was no picture. I also noticed that the right half of the screen (if facing the TV) appeared to be a little darker than the left one. Thinking that some of the RH side LED strips were out, I laid the TV on its face on the bench, took the back cover off and turned off the lights. I could see through the numerous holes in the rear metal panel that all of the backlight LEDs were lit. I dismissed the vision of the darker RH side of the screen as a figment of my imagination and began testing the voltages on the PSU board. All voltages were present as indicated by their respective silkscreen labels except for the T CON_ON (pin 15 of CN201). Evidently the T-Con was not reporting back to the MB so it was probably toast just as the PSU. The MB itself was likely OK.
Luckily I happened to have the same exact T-Con board in my stash (Vizio: 1P-0142J00-4010, Sharp: RUNTK5556TP) but fortunately I managed to resist the urge to install the T-Con into the TV right away and see if it would start up the TV. And was I glad I did... A quick search on badcaps.net revealed a 32-page thread on the same subject that I read from the first to the last post w/o catching a breath. It read like a novel. Tom66, Budwich, freakaftr8 - you guys are awesome! Daring to rip the side flexes with driver ICs off the LCD panel was one radical move.
I immediately recalled that one half of the screen of my TV appeared dimmer, and that was probably not a figment of my imagination. It became obvious that my newer 60-inch M-series Vizio was suffering from the same exact dreadful LCD plague as the older 70-inch units. The trouble was, according to freakaftr8 and some other folks posting in different topics, unlike the 70-inch TVs the 60-inch units did not have the side flexes with IC drivers and as such could not be repaired by ripping those flexes out. Wait a minute, sez me to self. Practically all of the cracked LCD screens that I took out while scavenging broken TVs for parts had flex circuits on the side edges. They were not connected to the bottom ones with Mylar bridges, but none the less they were still present. Apparently they were fed through the LCD panel itself, that's all.
So I took the bezel off the panel and sure enough there they were. Since at that point it had already become rather obvious that the TV was as good as dead because replacing the LCD panel was economically impractical and I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, I decided to peel the side flexes off the glass substrate on the RH side of the TV.
After I was done with the side flexes but before turning the TV on for the first
time with a known good T-Con board I disconnected both flat cables for the RH side of the panel from the T-Con board leaving both ones for the LH side of the panel connected to the T-Con. Turned the TV on and the LH side of the screen came to life! Just as freakaftr8 described in that 32-page topic. Amazing.
Turned the TV off, reconnected the two flat cables that I had disconnected in
the previous step, turned the TV on again and this time around the full screen lit up. The previously dead TV was working again! I have attached some pix with comments below:
Image 1. My LCD panel was made by some Chinese company named FOXCONN, not Sharp.
Image 2. You can see the LH side and the bottom flex circuits.
Image 3. A close up view of the lower LH corner of the panel.
Image 4. A different angle for the above view.
Image 5. A close up view of the lower RH corner of the panel with the flexes already peeled off the glass.
Image 6. A close up view of the upper RH corner of the panel with the flexes still attached to the glass.
Image 7. The same view as above but the flexes are already peeled off the glass.
Images 8-9. A close up view of the 8 RH side flexes. The 2nd IC from bottom on the right appears to be a bit darker than the rest.
Image 10. Both flat cables for the RH side of the panel are disconnected
from the T-Con board.
Image 11. The result of the above.
Image 12. Both flat cables for the RH side of the panel are reconnected to the T-Con board.
Image 13. The result of the above.
So, here's the conclusion for the archives. This brilliant method works not only on the 70- and 80-inch TV sets that have side flexible circuits with horizontal IC drivers connected to the bottom ones via two short connecting flat cables wrapping around the bottom LH and RH side corners of the screen, but it also works on smaller screens as well. The side flexes are also present in those screens and you also need to tear off the offending side in order to fix the no picture problem. The only difference is, with the smaller screen you can't and you don't need to disconnect the side flexes from the bottom ones.
My most sincere thank you goes to freakaftr8, Tom66, Budwich and a few other folks who came up with this method of repair and/or contributed to the original thread. Without you guys this TV would've been parted out.
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