Restart Success for Leicester Hackspace!

One of the popular events we hold at the Hackspace, is a Restart Party - part of a national organisation. Members of the public bring in broken electrical appliances. We test them for safety and then attempt to help the visitor fix the broken item.

This item was a tricky one - a modern flat screen TV which was dead. The first problem was opening up without too much damage - using plastic tools and screwdrivers and a torch to peer inside, so as to eventually release the internal clips holding the screen onto the rear part of the case. Inspection of the mains switching power supply didn't show an obvious problem at first, and the bridge rectifier across the mains was charging the input capacitor to +350V. Luckily, with two us peering from both sides of the box, we noticed a slight bulge on the capacitor of the main 5V supply. Closer inspection revealed a hole where presumably "magic smoke" had been released.

Our supplies of capacitors desoldered from other power supplies revealed a larger replacement of the same capacity but higher voltage rating. A hot glue gun and some longer wires allowed us to shoe-horn the new capacitor into the case, and we managed to re-assemble it. To the delight of the visitor, switching on the TV showed all was working, except for a stuck DVD which time didn't allow us to fix - however he told us he never uses the built in DVD player, so we left that for another day. Here's a picture of the repair and the Restart Calendar for the next few months.