"CJ" bravely wrote to "All" (12 Jun 04 21:32:33)
--- on the heady topic of "Repairing Lightning Damaged Tv's"

Typically, lightning damage tends to be limited to the antenna
connection, tuner, and of course the AC line, ergo the power supply
circuits. However, high voltage electricity can arc anywhere that
forms the physically shortest path and thus damage can be done just
about anywhere in a circuit.

Your 2 tv's that won't power up may be the easiest to repair because
the power supply may have stopped the lightning surge before it got
any further into the circuit. The tv with colour missing may just be
more the difficult one to fix.

However, with lightning one can never really say for sure because even
if a tv seems to function properly after being repaired it may fail
again within a day, week, or month. Insurance companies know this and
tend to write off equipment which is hit by lightning right off.

What happens is that the lightning surge tends to stress semiconductor
junctions by charging them beyond their rated voltage and causes them
to breakdown. This breakdown current tends to cause localized
ionization of the semiconductor material and results in either a
permanent short circuit or a latent leakage path. The shorted
junctions will of course cause an obvious malfunction. However, the
leakage paths will typically worsen over time until they enventually
short out too causing a new failure.

For these reasons it makes more economical sense to dump a tv that was
struck by lightning surge and buy a new one, basically to avoid the
hassle. But insurance companies are usually good in paying for this,
no?

A*s*i*m*o*v


CJ From: (CJ)

CJ I have no knowledge about repairing televisions, so I thought I'd ask
CJ here, All 3 of my tv's have been damaged by lightning , 2 of them wont
CJ even power up and the other one is in black and white now(is a color
CJ tv). Just wondering what I could do to repair my tv's? Thanks


.... Batteries not included.