How About some tv repair help?

[swoll1980]

I have this 32in toshiba flat screen crt tv. I want to use it as a monitor if I can get it working, but I have to repair it first. The tv Turns on, there is sound but no picture. The cathode heats up and the tv projects a thin beam of white light in the middle of the screen from one side to other. One thing I notice is when I touched the screen there wasn't any static on the tv screen when I first turn the tv on the is a couple snaps of electricity right were the tube connects to the circuit board that hangs off the back of it. I don't know if it's supposed to snap like that or not. Maybe thats the problem. Is there anyone out there can give me a little clue as to what maybe wrong?

[popch]

DANGER

There is electricity of very high voltage in there. Do not touch anything inside your tv, even when it is not plugged in. Or if you intend to, tell us first where to send the flowers.

[swoll1980]

Thanks for the heads up I tried to find a soulution to my problem and in big letters on most of the help forums that warning is posted. I never would have thought it was all that bad. I'm taking all the nesesary precautions. Hopefully I will survive!!

[Ocxic]

either you have a blown / failing Flyback transformer, or one of your deflection coils, or driver circuit has gone bad.

since you say you can see a white line on the screen I would assume a deflection coil, or circuit has gone bad.
i doubt this is something you can fix yourself unless your really good with electronics, and can find the fault.

alternatively as you say you can hear/see a snapping sound check all soldering joints and connection around that area, could be a board or circuit path that has burned out and can be fixed by re-soldering the connection, or bypassing the burned out section of the circuit path with a wire. also check for a burned look on the components thats a sure sign of a failure. if you can find another tv of the same model your could try swapping parts.

And as mentioned before there can be anywhere between 5-40KV (5,000 - 40,000 volts) of power stored in your tube, this is lethal. to remove this charge connect a wire to a flat head screw driver, and the other end of said wire to a GOOD GROUND, like the round hole (NOT THE SLITTED ONES) of an electrical socket, or any COLD water pipe in your house.make sure the screw driver's handle is RUBBER or PLASTIC and NOT metal.
Locate the High Voltage line going to your picture tube(this is usually a red wire coming out of a small transformer, leading to your picture tube, there will only be one, and it will be fairly thick) carefully slip the slotted screw driver under the plastic cap and make contact with the wire underneath, you may hear a sparking sound, hold the screwdriver there for a bit and you will have dis-charged your picture tube and the biggest danger has been removed..
NOTE: you may wish to put a resistor between your screw driver and the ground point, this will prevent sparking and provide a little resistance to the discharge making it safer (I think).

There are other capacitors and devices that may still hold a small charge so some caution is advised.
From working as an electrician I found out that any good shock to you from electrical equipment can cause your heart beat to be disrupted, and could cause problems weeks, possibly months later, possibly causing heart attacks,,
so in doing any of this you get a good shock (ex: the shocked part of your body goes numb or hurts after the encounter, or have ANY chest pains) I would suggest going to the hospital for an EKG just to be safe, and explain what happened.

[swoll1980]

This sounds out of my scope of electronic abilities. Plus in researching that flyback transformer I learned that it creates and stores a 30,000 volt current. It just doesn't sound like something I want to play with

[Ocxic]

check my post again, I was editing for a while adding some new info you may not have caught.

[EllyCD]

I had a funny experience with my power adapter for a PHillips LCD TV... My ferret went on a rampage and ate his way through the adapter. The TV was off, but I'm still amazed it didn't kill him! Anyhow, it took ages to find a replacement (the manufacturer wasn't much help as it was an older model). I thought I was going to have to replace the whole darn thing! Radioshack was useless, BestBuy couldn't help me, couldn't find one on ebay. But then I found 12vadapters.com and got a replacement. I don't suppose this is a common sort of dilemma, so maybe this is a useless bit of advice, but you never know. Someone else may have a ferret related power adapter fatality...