Old tube TV repair from 2003 vs now - night and day

I cracked open a 27-inch CRT from 2003 last week, and man, I forgot how much space was inside those things. You could almost stand inside it compared to the flat panels I work on now. The difference is the old power supply boards had like 6 discrete components you could test with a multimeter, now it's all surface mount stuff that burns up in a second. Anyone else miss when you could actually replace a single cap without a microscope?

2 comments

2 Comments

theathomas9d ago

Oh, I hear that loud and clear. That old stuff was built like a tank and you could actually see what you were doing with a basic soldering iron and a multimeter. Now it feels like you're working on something designed to be thrown away the second a single component gives up the ghost.

gonzalez.rowan9d ago

Built like a tank" is right. I could fix those CRTs with a screwdriver and a soldering iron in my garage, no microscope needed. Now you need a heat gun and a prayer for surface mount stuff that was designed to fail.