Dangerous Prototypes

Here is the gallery! http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Dell_Tv_Fix/ (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Dell_Tv_Fix/)

As you all can tell, I have been working on my printer thing lately, which has been going well until I found out that I can't find my working pickit2 anywhere. Well, in the meantime, my girlfriend decided to get rid of her two tv's and a few other electronics, which for me is one of the most awesome things anyone can say, 2nd only to "I'm full, do you want to finish this"? (1) Anyways, back to what I was saying! The lcd's are both not powering up all the way, and the best part is that the lcd's are not cracked. If the LCD is cracked you can pretty much use it only for parts, buying a LCD panel costs more than the entire lcd unit usually, and you can't really fix a cracked LCD. So, with someone helping me carry the HUGE lcd back to my place, we carried it into my basement and I got to work.
(1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooChw1NLizo 2:00

The one on the left is the smaller Dell, and the one on the right is from a company I never heard of, but it has not bad reviews on amazon so I presume it does not suck and it is worth the effort to fix it.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250671.JPG


First of, the Dell monitor. It is smaller, looks cooler, and seemed like an easier fix. (The big TV did not even have the power light on, the little guy had a power light at least)
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250677.JPG


Side view
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250680.JPG


Back view
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250682.JPG


Model model for all those interested.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250683.JPG


Some certifications for the people who want to know. :P
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250684.JPG


Back of the unit with the back case off.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250686.JPG


Guts!! Left is the power board and the larger right board is the "logic" board. Power boards in tv's usually have one or two large caps rated for 400v+ (Mains rectification) and then a bunch of smaller caps grouped together for each of the voltage rails. Mosfets with large heatsinks are the switchers in these power boards (most are SMPS due to better efficiency), and the yellow colored rectangles are the transformers. The two coils on the bottom of the power board are for (I think) just filtering.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250705.JPG


Close up of the power board. Nothing seems wrong here, the caps look a TINY bit bulging, but that is pretty much all of them, and I am getting power to the power diode which means the processor is running, so I am guessing the voltage rails are fine. Upon closer inspection with my multi meter and scope it seemed to be indeed running fine.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250710.JPG


The entire thing is insulating with a huge high heat conductivity "mat"! I have never seen such a huge amount used before, especially to insulate the entire board. Instead, I saw it used for heat conducting pads between ram ic's and v'regs in motherboards and graphic cards like the 8800GT, but it was only a small thin sheet.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250712.JPG


One thing that caught my eye was this. It is the board that has audio jacks on the side. I don't know what those inductors are meant to do as I don't dabble with audio, but I presume it is also for filtering? Also, Dell uses LG components in their tv's! I didn't know that!
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250695.JPG


Also, Dell had a really interesting satellite adapter! I still need to check if it is a VGA with some data pins, or just a data connector with a VGAish connector. How nice of them to label the pins though!
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250699.JPG


Pin labeling
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250698.JPG


Back of the satellite dongle
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250701.JPG


Close up of the logic board. I see the genesis chipset very often in flat panels, but as always I can never nab the datasheet on it. I never saw a V chip like that though, bottom right. The satellite dongle is under the metal cover on the top left of the board. Also, you can spot that there is a non connected VGA foot print with its associated passives. I could probably add in the third input if only I had access to the processor on this board.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250708.JPG



Now, lets get to trying to fix this guy. Here is the left most CCFL PCB, what things do you spot first?
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250702.JPG

Some charring near the caps, specifically the top left most cap, some charring near the mosfet legs, and only one high voltage wire. I was dumbfounded as to how they got the CCFL's running with a wiring setup like that, as the datasheet for the CCFL driver  has a different application circuit than actually implemented, which for me happens very rarely. Edit: Explanation here http://http://goo.gl/Honjp

Close up on the CCFL driver ic and other circuitry. Upon a closer look, you can notice that they labeled the connectors! That is SO awesome! It made finding out what is wrong infinity easier, and if something goes wrong later, then at least I will have a better idea on what does what so I can quickly find what went wrong.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250703.JPG


Another angle for the board.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250722.JPG


When you look closer, it seems like it is just left over flux, but why is it specifically around the components that are interacting with the higher voltages? Edit: Explanation here http://http://goo.gl/Honjp
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250731.JPG


The other cap
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250732.JPG


Something interesting I found while probing around. This is the gate on one of the mosfets for the CCFL driver. 1 us per division and 5 volts per division. Looks normal, right?
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250736.JPG


Here it is with .1 us per division and I think it was 1 volt per division. I never saw ringing like that before. IT seems to have the first ring right after the gate drops to 0v, a bit of nothing, a sharp ring drop, then another larger ring, then .35 us of nothing again, and then a very large ring out of nowhere, nothing, small ring, then nothing again. Any ideas on why the ringing stops, comes back again, and then stops again? Especially the sudden out of nowhere ring with a huge 2v drop. I am open to any ideas!
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250738.JPG


How I had it all connected.
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250739.JPG


After cleaning up the dirty PCB spots and getting rid of the left over flux .... Tadaa !! Of course I had to take a picture of how dangerous prototypes looks on this tv, since I am putting this on the forum. :P Much to my surprise, my contact message thing shows up on the front page of dangerous prototypes! I sent it yesterday I think and after a few hours it wasn't put on the front page nor a response, so I thought it wasn't worth the mention, but I guess I was wrong. :P One LCD down, one more to go!
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Dell_Tv_Fix/P1250748.JPG


I am currently working on putting up a image gallery of sorts on my site (http://http://www.hak8or.com), I will update my threads slowly with the link to the appropriate image gallery along to where you can get the source code for it. I have used up ten gig of bandwidth this month so far, which is much higher than what I usually get, awesome!

If you have some links on troubleshooting High Voltage Power Supplies in monitors and TVs, please post. I'm about to reopen my monitor that died. I replaced the caps and it worked for about 2 months. Then it started turning pink and then it started shutting the HV down again. Thanks and gratx on your TV!

Are you sure that you did not overlook a blown cap? Maybe another cap was about to fail but showed no visual signs so you didn't replace it. Though, it turning pink is unusual. :P

What I normally do, depending on if I am feeling adventurous or not, is either google the monitor model with the problem I am getting, for example "2232BW flickering" or "2232BW backlight". Usually something shows up and I can get some good information before I tear it apart, so I would know if it is likely to be a quick fix like changing a cap or if it is a horrible power supply problem that could take days to fix. If I am feeling adventurous, I just tear it open and poke around to see what is up. :P A scope is very valuble in these situations since you can check if the PWM ic's are working, then check if the mosfets are actually switching, and later see if there is anything out of the transformer on the board. I have never seen a transformer go bad in anything really, except fly backs when you drive them too hard, but that is a totally different story. :P

Often the PWM ic's have a "fault" pin, if it goes high or low (it says what the fault pin does in the datasheet) then you can get a very good idea of what is wrong. For that you don't even need a scope, just a multimeter.

In the monitors I worked with, there is always a 5v rail, and a 12v rail, and very often some other rails with varying voltage, like the LCD I am working on right now has a 28v rail. If you check each rail with your multi meter and they are getting the proper voltages, then you know it is either the processing board or the power board is not sending out the "Power good" signal.

My information above probably does not help much, so here are a bunch of links like you asked for. :P
http://neoxy-yx.blogspot.com/2011/12/ti ... g-lcd.html (http://neoxy-yx.blogspot.com/2011/12/tips-and-tricks-on-repairing-lcd.html)
http://www.thice.nl/repair-a-broken-hp- ... baking-it/ (http://www.thice.nl/repair-a-broken-hp-laserjet-printer-by-baking-it/) <-- you can always try baking it, but I never heard of LCD boards being fixed by baking them.
http://www.geek-republic.com/2011/09/11 ... -1-repair/ (http://www.geek-republic.com/2011/09/11/sangean-hdr-1-repair/) <-- SMPS repair
http://g3nius.org/lcd-controller/ (http://g3nius.org/lcd-controller/) <-- would give you a much better idea on the signals in a lcd

I got all of those from searching "repair" on hackaday!
http://hackaday.com/page/4/?s=repair (http://hackaday.com/page/4/?s=repair)

http://badcaps.net/ (http://badcaps.net/) <-- the forum on there is very active, and full of good information!

Also, off topic but relevant to my post, here is the gallery to these pictures! It looks really good! :)
http://hak8or.com/projects/Dell_Tv_Fix/ (http://hak8or.com/projects/Dell_Tv_Fix/)

Any feedback is welcome!

I have repaired two LCDs, the first one was easy, 3-4 caps and it is working still, 2 years from the repair.

Second one was trickier, because it had external power supply, and as I don't have oscilloscope, I measured the voltage rails with multimeter. However, the multimeter is not fast enough to show the voltage drop, which prevented the screen from starting. Then I opened the power brick, and there were blown caps. Now it works again :)

Edit: pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuvakkeet/ ... 457805926/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuvakkeet/sets/72157625457805926/)

That 'burning' on the caps and fets, is actually  rework (not burnt), either the PCB has been reworked in the factory or in the field.
The 'brown' is a low quality rosin flux that has burned off during the melting of the solder.

I bet that the rework is not RoHS compliant and has used lead solder by the look of the joints, in fact it really looks like a low quality repair as a factory would normally strip the flux using a cleaner.

After running the PCB for a while (unplug) and then just check the temperature on those Ecaps, there may be some HF leakage causing them to overheat, if so they may need replacing.

Awesome Awesome pics! Congrats on fixing the Tv's asdf!

Planetjay, I just realized that was your first post! Welcome to Dangerous Prototypes! :)

Hardcore, thank you a huge bunch for the explanation, I will adjust my explanations with your information in mind! How can you tell that the joints are using leaded solder?

I didn't think my pictures are that good. Thank you.

As I only have (two) pocket camera(s), and neither is very good, I need to use flash on all of my pictures, any amount of light I can bring to scene other ways is not enough. I don't like the flash burn in the picture, because it covers usually some traces etc. you want to see. The solution is to put white paper in the front of the flash, not too close tough. The number of layers control the light that passes through, and some of the light is reflected to roof and back, so it gives smoother flash. I saw this method in some book or so :)

Oh gosh, I thought I was the only one here that constantly fiddles with his/her point and shoot to get rid of the flash problems. :P

The white paper thing I never even thought of! For my camera I usually disable flash and use a tripod, and macro mode has a max shutter speed of 1 second, and I always use 100 iso. But, this time I got too tired with constantly setting up the tripod to get a good angle, so I gave up and used flash.

One thing I want to do is set up a different sort of flash, something like this:
http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/02/06/diy ... lash-ring/ (http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/02/06/diy-fiber-optic-camera-flash-ring/)

hak8or, do you repair TV/electronic equipment for living?

No, I am far too young and inexperienced to do something like that. :P Not to mention I don't know that much about analog electronics, yet at least. I get a massive portion of my stuff from other peoples garbage, which consists of me walking home and finding stuff during garbage day on on curb on the way. If it seems interesting or useful I take it and try to fix it, hence me finding lots of stuff every now and then.

/rant on
If anyone is interested, there is a new law/idea in my city that by 2015, it will be illegal to put your electronics (TV's, computers, toasters) on the curb for garbage day, which will mean that I will loose my main source of electronics. :(
It wouldn't bother me that much but when I found the reasoning behind it I was appalled. They are doing it to apparently "recycle" the electronics and prevent it from going into landfills. If a person wants to throw out that big plasma tv, he/she will have to take that huge item to a special location, god knows how far, and gets no compensation for it. Imagine some poor sap sitting on the bus or train with a big flat panel or vacuum cleaner, taking an hour or two or more away from their time to give that unit, and then getting nothing in return for the time. At least now people like me can actually recycle the things and physically keep the unit out of the land fill! Also, image the increased danger of getting assaulted or robbed if you are walking around with an expensive looking piece of equipment on the way to one of the locations? Also, it ends up in land fills anyways, are they actually planning to try and fix all the electronics people dispose of and "recycle" it?
/rant off

Anyways, yeah, I don't do it for a living. :P I am humbled though that some may have thought that about me!

I wish here were piles of "junk" to find parts. No, anything that uses electricity (batteries, solar power, mains...) MUST be returned to place of purchase or special electronics recycle place. And, the recycling is paid in the purchasing price, so don't expect any rewards :D

Also, it ends up in land fills anyways, are they actually planning to try and fix all the electronics people dispose of and "recycle" it?

My understanding is a huge amount is shipped to developing African countries where families live in e-waste dumps and smelt the gold out of ICs in open fire pits. It's not pretty, and the human and environmental damage is immense.

[quote author="ian"]

Also, it ends up in land fills anyways, are they actually planning to try and fix all the electronics people dispose of and "recycle" it?

My understanding is a huge amount is shipped to developing African countries where families live in e-waste dumps and smelt the gold out of ICs in open fire pits. It's not pretty, and the human and environmental damage is immense.[/quote]

this is a huge problem, many companies that advertise cheap/free e-recycling do this, they omit the fact that they ship them and make a killing overseas. i'll gladly pay the $25 at the town recycling center to get rid of that old crt.

By landfills I meant either the electronics sitting in a land fill in the States or sent to unfortunate countries where the land is filled with the electronics. But yeah, the smelting process is extremely toxic for the people doing it (often it is the young people) and very, if I have the right idea, toxic to the environment.

A few minutes drive from me is a scrap metal place, and I gave them an air conditioner, a very heavy fully metal cooler, and lots of copper piping, and I only got 15 dollars for all that. But, here is where it gets interesting, the owner lets you walk around and pick stuff out, and if you want it then you either pay for the item in weight or the guy sets a price. I found two LCD's sitting there in the rain, and asked how much, ten bucks each. I ended up not taking them since I wasn't sure if the screen was cracked, but the point is that at least in these private scrap dealers you can walk around and take what you want while paying a somewhat reasonable fee. Once it goes in a city land fill there is no way on earth they will let you in and walk around and pick something out.

Another example is when my school was throwing out their computers. They had maybe a hundred or more of them to throw out, all of them working fine, just needed proper IT people to actually update them and do some virus scans. I was feeling like I stepped on a gold mine, imagine if I could take out many of the power supplies, and I was always in need of extra computers in my house, servers and Nas and whatnot. They were even getting rid of a lot of the flat panels! So I ask a majority of the staff, finding people as high up as I can, if I can nab some, and I was even willing to pay since I know the monitors are working. No, absolutely not, they legally have to dispose of them in a way that the department of education knows that they will be destroyed. Then just don't give me the harddrives, still nope. Some awesome role modeling there! I wonder what the teachers that taught environmental classes would have said about that. The school probably said that because of a legal obligation, which I can't put the school at fault for following it, but it is still frustrating.

Ah dear, there I go again. :P

Anyways, I am currently working on the very large TV, but I have not gotten around to continuing, so I will hopefully upload pictures sooner or later. A power resistor blew on the board (2 holes, charring marks on the board), must have looked awesome when it blew! I am partially color blind so I cannot tell what the resistance was of the resistor originally, but according to what other people told me the colors were, I switched the resistor and it still does not work, I am guessing the blown resistor took some of the mosfets with it. I cannot find the datasheet for the board anywhere, but I found a datasheet for a 2nd revision of the board I think. It looks generally the same, but not quite, and the amount of wires in the connectors differ by one, but at least it gives me a good idea of how the board works. http://www.fspgroupusa.com/fsp2714f02/p/764.html (http://www.fspgroupusa.com/fsp2714f02/p/764.html)

They do indeed intend for them not to go to the "Local" land fill.  Most of the places it is not legal to put them in the landfill there are local "recyclers". If it's not illegal yet where you live you can lobby and they will set someone up with loans and all that tinfoil hat type stuff.

Another example is when my school was throwing out their computers.

You could have tried "Oops I dropped this one i'll just take it up to the dumpster for you.", or asked the guys actually that did the moving =)

I've not seen a resistor fail without cracking. When you say power resistor i picture big ceramic bricks, but those aren't color coded. So it's a larger metal type.. metal-film vs carbon-film? Also if it charred they might be more wrong about the color than you.

Yeah, I included asking the people that were doing the actual moving from the school building to the truck. :P

Sorry for the confusion, I am not referring to the brick ceramic power resistors, I will give you a picture soon enough. Hopefully within this hour! :P

Edit: Quick question, do you guys prefer pictures to be in the gallery thing I made (first post in this thread and in my other high voltage thread) or just embedding the pictures in my forum posts?

Edit2: http://http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/index.html Pictures! I have to add in descriptions still.

Edit3: The actual embedded pictures!

Back of the unit to see the model number and other things if anyone is curious.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250749.JPG

The thick screws used to connect the stand to the tv.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250750.JPG

Close up of the screw that holds the stand together to the tv. They are rather thick and feel heavy, so those are some really nice screws!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250751.JPG

Back of the unit with the cover off. Notice all the screw holes on the top most metal cover? If you wall mount this guy then that is where the weight of the entire tv goes. And let me tell you, it is A LOT of weight. I was barely able to lift it by my self, much less carry it.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250754.JPG

Now this is interesting. I don't know what this is meant to do as I never saw something like this before, but I suspect it is meant to sense how much light is in the back of the TV to adjust the screen brightness. I don't know why they wouldn't just put a photo resistor in the front, and I also don't know why there are three of them, with one angled and the other two right next to each other. Any ideas?

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250755.JPG

I call this "The Middle Board", because it is in the middle. Yes I know it is very creative. You can see the LVDS connection to the actual LCD panel on the left of the board. Black "tape" is covering it though. The 5 pin ic on the left part of the board is a switching ic, I have to check what voltage it generates, but I am guessing it is 3.3v since I see no 3v3 rails coming from the power supply, and I doubt they would use a linear regulator due to the large current demand of all the processing ic's, and I also doubt they would even consider putting a switcher on the logic board due to all the noise.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250756.JPG

Smushed power button. :( I had to take out the switch and temporarily replace it with a piece of wire till I get the power board working.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250757.JPG

Power board with metal cover.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250760.JPG

The power board, you should be able to tell right away that something is wrong here.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250761.JPG

Close up of the switching mosfets. I suspect they died when the power resistor blew.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250763.JPG

Close up of the blown resistor. Look at how far the "scorch" marks on the pcb go!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250767.JPG

Back of the power board. They labeled the primary and secondary side at least. :P

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250768.JPG

I never saw headers used like this before to hold and provide extra safety to the mains rectification capacitor.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250770.JPG

Blown resistor from one side

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250771.JPG

Blown resistor from the other side. What a spectacular failure!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250772.JPG

Power supply information

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250774.JPG

Resistor is in this pic, and yeah thats close enough to ceramic, might of actualy lived if it was. You can see the wire bulges right up to the part it vaporised!
http://hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250761.JPG (http://hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250761.JPG)

What is part type is B1, not sure i've ran across this one.

I embedded the pictures in this thread to satisfy both worlds. :P My logic behind the gallery thing is so that people can view the pictures in as much detail as possible without downloading 3 MB a picture, but I realize that I am posting a thread, and I don't want to post a thread with just a link to the gallery.

Anyways, I think B1 is a capacitor or some sort of oscillator, I see it some times on boards, but I don't know what their function is. My guess is a capacitor, since why else would an oscillator be there. Also, I did not notice the wire bulging, heh. I think the resistor was less than an ohm, but I can't really tell the colors.

What it looks like, it maybe is red gray silver gold green, and online calculator gives 0,28 or 0,29 ohm (5%), depending on is the gray gray or white :)

Thanks for the color identification asdf. I tried to put in a resistor that is around 0.3 Ohms, and the fuse immediately blew. I did not want to push it so I just stuck in a 2.2 ohm (if I remember correctly) resistor. I have some more pictures I took yesterday, but I will be rather busy today, so I will probably put them up by tomorrow night. In short, the power supply I think is severely damaged and I don't really know what exactly failed, and most of the ic's on there are ones I cannot find online or just cannot buy. The mosfets are getting 120v spikes on all their legs including the gates, I think I spotted a few other failed resistors, and I am sure that 120v is too high for the mosfet drivers, which means they are gone too.

So, I have been working for the majority of yesterday to find the pin out of the power board, and I am pretty much done. I can't find the difference between the blue and yellow wires, but I know that both of them are a combination of turning the back light on and dimming control for the back light. I won't need to fiddle with that though since the power board does nothing with those 2 signals, since the traces literally go on the side of the pcb from the logic board to the CCFL driver boards. I have a very good idea on what the rest of the wires are on which voltage rail is which. So, I want to design my own power supply for this, and it will surely be very challenging! 24v at around 8 amps is quite hefty, but at least I have a good idea of the specs thanks to other boards online from this company that seem to be extremely similar. I am getting excited already. :P

Just a random thought: Could you use camera to detect colors, like CHDK firmware in Canons? I'm not sure, but it could be possible to extract RGB values in the image, maybe you would need white (or just known) background...

I REALLY don't know (it it's possible), but that feature could be useful.

Hopefully you get the power supply to work!

I could have sworn I posted in this thread in response to you asdf, but it seems to have disappeared! :(

I remember saying that my point and shoot unfortunately does not support anything like CHDK (curses you panasonic!), but I like your idea, though I eventually realized something. When you take a picture with my point and shoot, a gray might turn into a silver, and vice versa, due to the lightning. The white balance on my camera is also a bit wonky some times, so I cannot be sure that the colors in the pictures are the real colors. But, my next purchase of a point and shoot will definitely be, if not only, for chdk. I really want direct control over shutter speed, iso, aperture, get RAW, run nice scripts, and further mess with it. I have how my timer is only 2 seconds or 10 seconds, and how I can't control the shutter speed. I mean, camon, it can go to 60 seconds in Starry sky mode yet it still takes 120 seconds to take the picture? Pah! >:(

Anyways, thanks. :) I got to work with the gallery a bit more, and I made the description window movable! I used jquery ui for that, but for some reason resize was not working correctly so for now it is only movable. I also put this "feature" only on the syntax gallery for now to test it out. (Just realized the width of the descriptions has been reset, woops, I will fix that soon) Can you guys check that out and tell me your experience with it, like does it work, is it useful, a pain in the butt, super awesome, things like that.

Edit: An awesome app note from microchip regarding smps's http://http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes/01114A.pdf

I also put a temporary page in "projects" on my site that links to these galleries so google can crawl my site better. I took a lot more pictures but I still have to upload the rest of them and the forum re sized pictures.

The pictures are worth the wait, I promise. :P

Woops, I accidentally uploaded the html file. You guys can see the gallery with around half the pictures I meant to upload! I decided to start linking to the chips' datasheets and other relevant information, hopefully it is a good addition. Also, the descriptions I will try to make more detailed and add in useful information here and there. Any feedback would be welcome! :)

I will add in the pictures to this forum once I finish with describing the pictures.

Oh gosh, I spent nearly all day working on adding in these pictures! D:

I more than doubled the amount of pictures I had, and the descriptions are very descriptive this time, and I linked to the datasheets of important ic's. For now I will just link to my site, and later I will add in the pictures to this thread with the descriptions.

http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... index.html (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/index.html)

edit: And here they are! :)
This is in general how my entire setup looks like while working on the tv.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250779.JPG

A close up on the problem area. From right to left: Power board, middle board, logic board.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250781.JPG

Did you know that the entire logic board can be taken out by just unplugging that one big purple connector from the middle board?! I have never seen something like this before, that is just flat out amazing!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250782.JPG

Logic board compartment that I took out in the previous picture. Rather large and it looks very bland and simple.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250784.JPG

Other side of the logic board compartment. Nothing spectacular here, normal HDMI and video and whatnot.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250785.JPG

Getting around to opening the compartment, but the two cords (black and silver) on the right are holding it closed.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250786.JPG

Oh cool, three boards!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250788.JPG

Unplugged the cables so you can get a better view on the boards inside. On the left most board I see a heat sink with quite a bit of decoupling capacitors, some RAM or Flash chips, and lots of little chips, and the HDMI connections go to this board, so I am presuming this has the main processor on it for this tv. On the right bottom board you can see a TV tuner with the footprint for a 2nd optional tv tuner. It seems like most of the analog signals just go through the board. On the top right there is a board that is connected to the "analog" (bottom right) board, and I do not know its function just yet.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250789.JPG

First off, the left most board. Looking closer and you can spot two major chips, which is the heat sinked one and another chip on the bottom left. On the left of the heatsinked chip there are two ram chips (Most ram chips have very similar chip packges) and ontop of the heatsinked chip you can spot another chip with a sticker!

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250791.JPG

The numbers and serial for the board we are looking at right now.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250794.JPG

The chip with a sticker surely is a flash chip! Flash chips are used to store the firmware for things such as TVs, game consoles, and phones, anything pretty much that has some sort of complex digital functionality. The sticker is there to say what it has been flashed with so the people assembling these guys know what tv the board is meant to be paired with. A 42 inch tv that uses <a ATSC href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_standards, and L2.3 I presume means the revision of code. The marker "20" mark, I have no idea. Maybe batch number?    

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250793.JPG

Here is the chip with the sticker taken off, yummy! It is a MX29LV160BBTC-7016 http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... BTC-70.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/MX29LV160BBTC-70.pdf) 16Megabit Flash memory ic, as I thought earlier. It is possible to get the data off this flash chip without much trouble (very easy to interface) and then knowing the processor the data is meant to you can run a disassembler on the code to find the assembly language. It is a complicated process, known as reverse engineering, and often you have to write the disassembler yourself, unless of course you just use IDA http://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/index.shtml (http://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/index.shtml) and hope someone had already written the disassembly plugin/script for your particular processer. Also on these chips you can usually find the pictures and audio used in the TV, and if you are REALLY good you can add in functionality, emphasis on really good. Ofcourse, there is always the possability that the flash is encrypted, which is a whole other ball game. In short, this is the flash chip, and if you are super mega awesome you can make this tv do anything you could want.                  

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250797.JPG

The ram chips used in this guy.M13S128168A-6T http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... BTC-70.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/MX29LV160BBTC-70.pdf) 128 Megabit, 166 MHz This tv uses HDMI, which is increadibly bandwith intensive. Here is some math to show just how much bandwith HDMI may contain.
-------------------------------------------
720p is 1280 x 720
Assuming each color is 8 bits (255 values for Red, Green, and Blue)
Not including all the other signals like Vertical and Horizantal sync
Would give you: 471,859,200 Bits per frame or 471.9 Megabits Per Frame
Assuming 30 frames per second: 14.16 Gigabits Per Second
-------------------------------------------
That is just video by the way, HDMI also handles audio and new cables also do ethernet. I assume this TV is HDMI DRM compliant, which means that it would have to be able to decrypt 14 gigabits of data per second, and you have to store that data somewhere, hence the Ram ics. HDMI is capable of much faster speeds, so feel free to check HDMI on wiki. Also, those chips have to store uncompressed pictures and audio, not to mention the OS that the TV is running on (rarely linux, most often a proprietary OS). So, HDMI is very bandwith intensive, most if not all flat panels have RAM chips, and there is a good reason why that processor has a heatsink.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250796.JPG

The HDMI connectors fo to this guy, but of course this is a "secret" ic so you cannot find the datasheet for it unless the Silicone Image gives it to you. I presume this chip has the no longer secret HDCP keys in it, hence not being able to find the documentation anywhere.                        

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250799.JPG

This is the TV tuner card, nothing really special in there. The footprint under the top LG Tv tuner is for another tuner, presumbly with two antenna jacks. When companies make things like LCDs or tablets, the PCB is designed to accomodate all possible models, since it would cost a lot more to make seperate versions of PCBs. Like, in tablets, there are 16GB models, 32GB models, and 64GB models with a 3G connection. Chances are that the PCB will be exactly the same in all the models, the only differences are that the Flash chips on the PCB are higher density and the 3G modem is populated. That is why you can often spot some really large things "missing" on the board, like unpopulated foot prints. So, the TV tuner there is lacking probably because this is a lower end model.         

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250792.JPG

Numbers and serial for the TV tuner card. U3 (big shiny pad and legs) is the footprint for a votlage regulator I think. You can tell by the decoupling capacitor cloes by and all the filtering inductors close by. I think it is missing because the 2nd TV tuner was not populated, so it did not need the extra voltage rail, hence the missing votltage regulator. Or maybe since the 2nd TV tuner is missing the existing tuner can use a less hefty power rail which was originally meant for something else.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250798.JPG

I wont take pictures of the undersides of the boards that you saw earlier because it would be too much of a hassle (there are nuts holding them in place to the back), so instead here is a look see on the third board (top right)! This is a hefty board it seems. You can tell there is a BGA chip on the other side because of the tiny holes on the middle of the board, not to mention the tiny decoupling capacitors on the footprint. You can also see "squiggly" traces leading to the BGA ic, and those traces are squigly for impedance matching which means that each high speed trace has the same length. At very high speeds (50+ MHz) traces need to be the same length because, believe it or not, electricty does take time to "travel", and the rise/fall times also need to be controlled.  Some good app notes for information about high speed PCB design can be found http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... /an246.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/an246.pdf) and http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... _Speed.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/USB_High_Speed.pdf) .The abundance of high speed traces and what seems to be a pattern leads me to believe that there are some RAM or Flash chips on the other side of the board. Also, notice the series of dots resembling a 2X7 header footprint on the left of the board, could that by any chance be a non populated JTAG connector?

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250800.JPG

Close up of the header I mentioned earlier.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250802.JPG

 Model and serial for the board in question.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250801.JPG

Trying to take the circuit board off to see what is on the other side, and look at what is holding it down! A heatsink, so I am guessing that is in fact a BGA chip (complicated chips usually are BGA, especially things like SOCs and processors), but look at the design. A heatsink gets hot, and it has the fins to help radiate the heat, and if it is passively cooled, airflow is very important. So, why is the top of the heatsink stuck on with a heat conductive pad like that to the metal case? What were they thinking, is it even worth the money to stick a pad like that there? There is barely any contact between the heatsink and the conductive pad. From my understanding, this is a horrible design decision and a waste of the ten cents that pad cost.                  

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250804.JPG

Top side of the board. Oh now this is interesting, we got our selves four ram chips (as predicted earlier), one flash chip with a sticker, another stick with 520MB on it, and another tuner. There is also a push button on there! It does also look like that header is JTAG, as the traces are going to the BGA chip. Often times in complicated boards with a processor of sorts, there is a JTAG used to program the bootloader and debugging. A bootloader is the first peice of code (programmed to the actual chip using JTAG) a processor runs; it setups up configuration bits for the processor like what oscillator to use and the caching scheme, tells the processor where the rest of the code is, and then gives up control to the next step in booting, like a L2 bootloader or straight to the OS. If there is security in the unit like an encrypted Operating System, then the boot loader contains the keys to decrypt the OS and check if the OS is "signed" using those keys. If you can get JTAG access to a processor, you have full control over everything that peice of silicon does.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250807.JPG

The labels for the board and tuner. Notice the unpopulated connector on the left bottom of the board.                                    

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250808.JPG

I see marks from LG and Phillips everywhere, regardless of the brand of the Tv. TV tuners are usually enclosed in metal containers like this for very good reason. Tv signals reach you at very high frequencies (54 MHz - 890 MHz), and to work with those signals you need a very controlled enviorment, so that metal case acts as RF shielding.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250809.JPG

The suspected Flash chip with the sticker seen earlier with the button and header. Also, I just spotted the 4 prong header on the left of the chip next to the capacitors. I am increadibly curious what the button and the header are meant to do, and I would press the button if it were not for the risk that the button is something that could possibly clear the flash or something. Also, why would they put a button there, where no one can reach it except when fully dissassembled. I am thinking it has something to do when programming or testing the boards, but why not just use the JTAG for that instead? Seems like a waste of money to put that button there. Anyways, the sticket indicates that this is indeed a flash because there is a filename (20050726.bin). Bin files are binary files which are normally programmed onto flash chips. The filename obviously shows the date the file was compiled, which is about seven years ago.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250810.JPG

And there goes the sticker! This Flash chip http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... BTC-90.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/MX29LV320ABTC-90.pdf) MX29LV320ABTC-90G very similar to the earlier flash chip (MX29LV160BBTC-70) except for a few things; this chip is larger (32Mbit vs 16Mbit) and slower(90ns vs 70ns). Why they designed the LCD to have two totally seperate processors like this I have no clue. A short googling gives me nothing for that file name sadly. :(

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250812.JPG

And these HY5DU281622ET-5 http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... 2ET(Rev1.0 (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/HY5DU281622ET(Rev1.0)).pdf are the Ram chips on the board. There are four of them, each being 128 Megabits, which gives a total of 512 Megabits or 64 Megabytes. Same as said for the earlier ram chips on the other board, these guys are used by the OS and whatnot for the Tv. Question is, why is there so much more ram on this board, it seems to interface only with the Tv Tuner, and the cable does not indicate that there are any high speed traces between this board and the other board with a processor. I am dumbfounded as to how the system design looks in this tv.                        

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250809.JPG

The four pronged header from earlier seems to be connected to the processor on this board, maybe it is for "upgrades" or repogramming for the customer? Or it is a connector for an optional fan?

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250817.JPG

After putting back the logic compartment thing from earlier, we go back to the boards we originally saw in the begining of the tear down. This is the middle board that the logic compartment was plugged into. The connector on the left is for the menu buttons on the bottom of the tv, I forgot what the red and white three pronged connectors were for, the two rectangular connectors next to those are power connectors, and the connector on the right of the board is for LVDS to the actual LCD panel. You can see a switcher http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... 30.pdf.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/gm7130.pdf.pdf) GM7130 on the board, I presume it is for the 3.3 volt rail, as there is no 3.3 volt rail from the power supply. Also, there is no marking on the chip to tell what voltage it is or if it even is adjustable. The chip on the left has no markings so unfortunately I cannot say much about it other than it has a heatsink on it. The connector next to the LVDS is to the photodiode board shown earlier, and I have yet to find what that board is meant to do.                                    

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250820.JPG

Underside of the board. The blemish you see on the board is due to the switching regulator and all the heat it generates. That should not really happen, they should have put a small heatsink on the switcher to prevent the heat from damaging the PCB, but I guess the additional cost was not worth it.                                       

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250821.JPG

This is the CCFL driver board for the backlights. There are two of them, one on each side of the TV, and they are connected to each other with that white FPC. The boards get 24volts (red cables), ground (black cables), and yellow/blue for dimming and turning the backlights on and off.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250822.JPG

This is the best picture I can get of the FPC area. I presume that the square IC on the left is what keeps the backlights synchronized with each other. I sadly was unable to find anything for that IC, but I found a datasheet for the rectangle ics! They appear to be confidential. http://http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/gm7130.pdf

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250831.JPG      

Me trying to be artistic and get a good new wallpaper. :P



http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250844.JPG
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250845.JPG
http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250848.JPG

One thing I realized when I powered it up without the cover on the logic compartmnet. Leds light up! That is fantastic! It means that part of the logic is still working. The power supply constantly generates 5v (+5vS B) even when turned off so it can turn back on when sensing you pressed power on the remote or the power button. It seems that +5vSb survived in the power board, even though all the other voltage rails died. :P

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250851.JPG

This is the power connector on the power board. As I am scraping the power board due to it seeming to be damaged extensively like a destroyed switching regulator, blown mosfets, and 160 volts in all the wrong places, I need to find the pinout of the board board. My conclusions are this, from left to right: blue and yellow are a combination of backlight on/off and dimming, black is ground, and red is 24v.

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250857.JPG

And the pinout of the other two connectors, from left to right: first wire is +5vSB, next wire is PS_on, white is +5V, black is ground, blue and yellow is a combination of dimming and enabling the backlights,red wires are 24v, and black are ground.                                 

http://http://archive.hak8or.com/pictures/Syntax_Tv_Fix/P1250858.JPG

I had to continue it because my post was too big.
"Your message contains 20351 characters. The maximum number of allowed characters is 20000."

Nice pics.

not to mention the OS that the TV is running on (rarely linux, most often a proprietary OS).

Did you pull the heat sink off the processor? I'm sorry if I missed it. Do you think it really runs an OS? My guess would be something totally coded from the ground up, the way most PIC/AVR/ARM stuff is.

Very nice pics there! As far as I know, my LG TV runs Linux, so it is possible. I have some pictures of disassembled electronics, too. Do you want them here somewhere, should there be a thread or something for "inside electronics"?

[quote author="ian"]Nice pics.

not to mention the OS that the TV is running on (rarely linux, most often a proprietary OS).

Did you pull the heat sink off the processor? I'm sorry if I missed it. Do you think it really runs an OS? My guess would be something totally coded from the ground up, the way most PIC/AVR/ARM stuff is.[/quote]

Well, I know that things like LG TV's use full blown Linux, a lot of set top boxes use Linux, and a few other electronics use it too. Or maybe not an OS like windows or Linux, but a proprietary RTOS coded in house. If not an RTOS than at least a state machine of sorts, though an RTOS would make more sense in this case. It has to keep checking for remote information, put a overlay on the screen, some tv's have Ethernet connections, all while displaying the main video.

Here are some links to different brands using RTOS's of sorts. Nucleus is one of the top closed source OS's out there I think.
http://www.iqmagazineonline.com/magazin ... -AQUOS.pdf (http://www.iqmagazineonline.com/magazine/pdf/v_3_2_pdf/pg70-71-IQ60-celerat-AQUOS.pdf)
http://blogs.unbolt.net/index.php/brinl ... runs_linux (http://blogs.unbolt.net/index.php/brinley/2009/03/18/samsung_lcd_tv_runs_linux)
http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php5/Main_Page (http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php5/Main_Page)

Also, my logic is that if a company like samsung puts linux on its tv's and doing so not for a PR stunt, then there is good reason it is running an OS like that on the tv.

And, sadly I did not take the heatsinks off the chips. I don't have any AS5 to replace the dry thermal paste after disturbing it when lifting it off the chip. :( I have heard though that toothpaste is a not awful replacement though, so I might check in on that. :P

[quote author="asdf"]Very nice pics there! As far as I know, my LG TV runs Linux, so it is possible. I have some pictures of disassembled electronics, too. Do you want them here somewhere, should there be a thread or something for "inside electronics"?[/quote]

I envy you and your linux Tv!
If the electronics are TV stuff, I guess you can put them in this thread. :P  The more the better! :)

I also put in the link to the "confidential" pdf.
http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Synt ... gm7130.pdf (http://archive.hak8or.com/projects/Syntax_Tv_Fix/datasheets/gm7130.pdf)

Yes Yes, I know, there has not been much activity lately. I am currently working on a database thing on my site so I can keep track of all my components and the quantity of them that I have. I never played with SQL or PHP, so this is all very very new for me. Anyways, for the TV, I cannot find a cheap power supply delivering 24 volts at 8 amps and 18 volts at four amps, so I will try to make a SMPS myself. Instead of going with a transformer I will try to go with a buck converter, as this is my first SMPS design and buck seems to have less complications than a transformer based supply. To do this, I obviously need new parts, so I decided to stick with digikey and try out their free shipping if paid by check. I emailed for more information and here is what I got, so I can spread the word.

http://http://dkc1.digikey.com/us/en/mkt/Terms.html

When a check or money order accompanies your order, Digi-Key pays all shipping and insurance (our choice for method of shipping) to all addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Digi-Key does accept personal checks from customers within the U.S.  There are two ways you could pay using a personal check.  First, you could do what we call a pre-paid order, where you would send us a list of your parts. (either mail or you could enter the items on the website and then under billing select contact me, and then in order notes reference that you will be sending in a check.)  Once we receive the copy of your parts we would let you know the total and once we receive your check in the mail we would then process the order and ship. No stock is reserved until we receive the payment.  Digi-Key would pay for shipping which is usually shipped UPS Ground.  Once the order clears the shipping department if you provide an email address you would receive an automatic email confirmation stating the order is being shipped.  Second option would be to place an order via phone, fax, email, or on the website and select to pay via COD.  With this you would pay the UPS or USPS carrier when they deliver your package. You would be responsible for shipping charges and I believe there would be a COD charge as well.  If you use a personal check for that we would just need the bank information from your check.  (Bank name and location, check #, routing #, and account #...ect) 

I never played with SQL or PHP, so this is all very very new for me.

Welcome to the rabbit hole :) Despite it's many shortcoming, I feel PHP is one of the easiest environments to knock up a prototype and get instant satisfaction. Now, once you need to sanitize input and do full CRUD (create/read/update/delete) with the database it is a nightmare and you reach for an (overly complicated, difficult to use, too restrictive and rigid) framework, but none the less it is a lot of fun IMHO :) I write PHP apps on airplanes to pass the time :)

I am genuinely interested in learning PHP, so no matter what it will be fun for me too. About it being easy, I remember dabbling in PHP a few years ago and it seemed easy and quick, but for some reason I left it alone for a while and eventually forgot nearly all I previously learned with it, so I have to start again from (somewhat) scratch.

I already found a not bad ready made charting thing, and searching for a word means you search every column for that phrase, which is really cool. I discovered jquery a while back, and it is amazing! Combining the chart with jquery will hopefully give me some awesome fancy stuff. :)

About the TV, I will send my order hopefully Friday morning or tomorrow morning so digikey can start sending me the components soon. I am planning on making a buck converter from scratch to go from mains to 24 volts. The reason for doing this is because I need upwards of eight amps, and I don't have a power supply like that now, and all my computer power supplies are dead expect the ones in my computers right now. I am already familiar and comfortable with working with mains, I plan to implement safety things in there like TVS diodes and whatnot, and thanks to making it from scratch I will learn a very valuable skill to hobbyists, making a power full efficient power supply directly from mains, instead of a step down wall wart and then a linear v reg capable of only three amps at most.

At worst, it blows up in my face and I loose like ten dollars of parts. At best, I use the knowledge to make my own variable buck converter power supply for all my electronics. The other project using a server rack chasis would benefit immensely from a switcher instead of the bulky transformer I am using now, and it would give me much much greater flexibility as it could supply a generous amount of current. My current "design" is quite different, from what I see at least, than what is currently implemented right now, not to mention that it allows for very easy monitoring and control. I will say more once I get it done, as I don't want to spoil it all. :P

Also! Did anyone know that you can get mosfets with ratings of 600v VDS,  capable of tens of amps, and a Rdson of only 19 millaohms !? And it is only thirteen dollars! Even cooler, there are other fets out there that are not in stock on digikey that have an even lower rdson, which is crazy! Goes to show how little I know about fet's. :P

Just wanted to say that I am still alive and working on this. :P Me buying BF3 and making a little bit of money here and there, specifically on Mturk, have been horrifically sucking away my time, so this turned into an on and off project.

I am designing an off line SMPS, not isolated sadly, to replace the current power board. My goal is to have it be much smaller, more efficiant, and much more reusble, meaning that I can use it in other projects.

Currently I have decided to use the DSPIC33FJ16GS502 for full smps control, and the basic design is something like this:
[attachment=0]

I am currently designing the board, I have most of the parts chosen except for the smaller stuff, like decoupling caps and pull up resistors. My idea behind it is so I can reuse it for other components, I have designed it to be able of supplying upwards of 30 amps, limited by the mosfet max current, with there being one main rail voltage (mains[250v] down to like 3 volts) and then splitting that rail into three other rails, each capable of supplying voltage of the main rail down to maybe a volt.

I wanted to use fets instead of diodes for the rectifier for much less wasted power, but I do not really understand the theory behind it, so I will leave that for a later project.

First this will go in the TV, and once it works to my satisfaction on there I will put it to use in my power supply. Once it works I will put the schematic and board designs up for all of you.

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