Samsung TV Bad Capacitor Lawsuit Settlement

I have posted fixes to a number of Samsung LCD televisions on this blog and now am happy to see that Samsung Electronics America Inc. (SEA) will be reimbursing owners with defective capacitors for getting them fixed. See the Samsung web site for details:

http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

It involves the March 2, 2012 District Court of Oklahoma City No. CJ-2011-7260, Ryan Russell and Phillip Bourne + plantiffs vs. Samsung Electronics America Inc. If I read the settlement correctly, the two individuals get a new TV or $750 US and the lawyers get $475,000. I hope to get my expenses for the parts and time I spent repairing our TV.

Previous posts involving Samsung televisions:

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/03/purple-line-problem-with-samsung-lcd-tv.html

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/08/fixing-samsung-television.html

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/08/repairing-another-samsung-lcd-tv.html

Fixing HP Photosmart C6180

Today, I replaced some failing capacitors on an HP Photosmart C6180 printer. Four TEAPO electrolytic capacitors showed signs of failure.  Three were 330 uF 10 V and one was 680 uF 6.3 V.  The procedure took about an hour due to the through hole capacitors being more difficult to remove than anticipated.

The initial instructions I found to do this fix was on the web site www.fixyourownprinter.com in a 09/22/2010 posting by user dodo105: CLICK HERE Thanks to this Internet poster for providing the repair information.

Tools one needs are Torex screw driver (I used a Craftsman T8 x 2 1/2), long nose pliers to grip capacitors, wire cutters to clip capacitor leads, camera to photograph original part placements, soldering iron, thin line solder, desoldering tool, and scissors to remove new capacitor packaging..

First step was opening the printer lid and taking off the side panel of the printer. Three torex screws needed to be removed as seen in the next two photographs.  Inspect plastic pieces for clips to unlatch as well on the top, bottom, and sides of printer.

Three plastic sections removed from printer.

I next removed five Torex screws keeping the circuit board in place. I also unlatched four wire harness connectors to allow the board to fold over better allowing easier access to capacitors.

Component side of circuit board now shown.

The arrows mark the capacitors to be replaced. I believe the locations were: C613, C614, C660, and C662.

This next picture shows the board after two capacitors have been replaced, one is removed and awaiting replacement. The desoldering process consisted of heating the two leads on solder side and removing as much solder possible. Next gripping the bad capacitor with the pliers on one side of the board and heating the connections on the other allowing it to be pulled off. Once the capacitor was off, heating the holes some more and using the desoldering sucker to remove excess solder.

When placing new capacitors remember the + and - polarity and properly placed them on the marked circuit  board.

Once all the capacitors are replaced, the leads are trimmed and the soldering iron is used to touch up the connections.

Picture of bad capacitors removed.

Pictures of new Panasonic replacement capacitors.

Printer is turned on and test pages printed.  It is then burned in overnight to make sure power is good.

Section of self test page.

Repairing Another Samsung LCD TV

This Samsung LCD TV (model LNT4065FX/XAA) was having a number of problems including taking 30-45 seconds to power on and sometime showing purple lines on the display when first turned on (see blog post about it with pictures CLICK HERE).  After contacting Samsung through their on-line form, I was contacted days later by a service person.  He did not think the problem was caused by capacitors but was instead the display controller board.  Well, apparently not.  The repair took about 30 minutes but capacitors had to be ordered on-line, they were $0.91 a piece.  After the repair, the television turned on in about 5 seconds and no recurrence of the purple display issue.

See this entry about another Samsung LCD TV that needed a  similar repair: CLICK HERE

UPDATE (Feb. 2012): Samsung has listed a settlement for this problem on their web site: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

Tools I used to make this repair: Philips screw driver, Weller soldering iron with stand, desoldering tool, wire cutters, and solder

This next picture shows the cluster of capacitors causing the problems.

The green arrow points to the area of the power supply board the capacitors were found on.

The next two pictures show the 1000 uF 25 V SAMWHA electrolytic capacitor with bulging tops.  Note the small brown spots on top of two of the capacitors.

Last two pictures are of the repaired board with Panasonic capacitors.

Picture of underneath circuit board before the capacitor leads are clipped.

Fixing Samsung Television

Recently, I was asked to look at a Samsung LCD television (model code LN26A450C1DXZA) that would not turn on. The red LED was lit so the power supply board was still supplying power to the television.  Even so the television would not come on.  The red LED would blink from time to time.

Update (Feb. 2012): Samsung Electronics of America has listed a capacitor problem settlement on their web site: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

If one does research on the Internet one can find that Samsung LCD televisions have had issues with capacitors. So I decided to investigate. On the power supply board, a SAMWHA 2200 uF 10 V electrolytic capacitor was found with brown material out of the top. I did not have a spare one but found a salvaged 2200 uF 35V one and wire it in.  The television began to work so I ordered extra capacitors because we had another Samsung television having trouble powering on. See this problem in an earlier post: CLICK HERE and it was repaired (documented in this posting CLICK HERE).

Here are the pictures of the repaired television.  It now turns on almost immediately.  The new capacitor costs ($0.89).  I ordered an extra one.  A possible class action lawsuit might be filed against Samsung about this issue. I read part of the filing and the lawyers contend this is being caused by a design flaw in the board allowing the capacitors to overheat.  If this really is the reason then this capacitor could fail again.  Oddly, they also bring up faulty capacitors which means it is not the board but the components used.  In this case, I believe the new part is from Panasonic.