A while back, a guy contacted me through my blog about contracting some monitor repair. He had come to acquire a bunch of LCD monitors that all had failed in similar fashion. So I took him up on his offer to repair them so he (and I) could resell them all.
The monitors were mostly all Samsung 740N. I did some early research and found this forum that went into great detail about the problem and how to fix it.
As it turns out, Samsung made a bit of a bad design decision in its component selection. A few aluminum electrolytic capacitors, all 820uF, were especially prone to “puffy cap” syndrome, shortening their life operation. 1There’s some great photos online of other plagued PCBs.
Also known as “leaky cap” or “capacitor plague.” Wiki of course has a great article on the syndrome. To quote:
, it’s a disease that can render your personal electronic gadget inoperable. The only cure was capacitor transplant. Also typically affected was a poly fuse that was blow open-circuit. The designators in question are:
- C111
- C112
- C301
- F301
The suggested part numbers 2These part numbers are Digikey stock part numbers., as per the above mentioned forum, are:
Item | Part Number | Description | Price |
C111, C112, C301 | P11221-ND | FUSE PICO FAST 3A 125V AXIAL | $0.61 |
F301 | 0251003.MXL | CAP 820UF 25V ELECT FC RADIAL | $1.07 |
It should be noted that the above capacitor replacement turned out to be slightly too tall. There was mechanical interference with the monitor’s plastic case (not good!), so I found a better, shorter-bodied cap. That part number is P14423-ND.
I replaced the caps and now the monitor(s) works great!
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Don’t forget to contact me if you too need some electronics repair work done!
Footnotes
- 1There’s some great photos online of other plagued PCBs.
- 2These part numbers are Digikey stock part numbers.
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