Quote Originally Posted by spongebue View Post
Not only that, but (somewhat contradicting what I said earlier) newer LCD tvs are a lot easier for a common person to repair. Once you get past the main power supply (which I don't think goes bad as often, and can be replaced as a unit fairly reasonably) things are very low-power. Tube tvs, on the other hand, store HUGE electric charges, even when unplugged. If you don't properly discharge it, and touch the wrong point, you can be killed.
Problem I've run into things like LCD tv's is WHERE DO YOU GET THE REPAIR MANUAL and where do you get spare parts? A repair manual like aircraft manuals tells you FAULT ISOLATION procedures such as TV RECEPTION NOT WORKING. NO SIGNAL. Then you have a flow chart like steps to help you fix it. And I'm not talking about the owners manual with stupid steps like, to make sure that the tv is plugged in. Or like the antenna is connected. I've been told that repair manuals for tv's are not sold to anyone aside tv shops. If you have the right manuals/schematics/troubleshooting guides, that may be enough for a trained technician with semi-technical training. But you still have to have certain skills like soldering, and understanding how a fuse, resistor multimeter works along with certain hand skills like taking a tv apart. Not to mention tooling or even test equipment. Removing and replacing parts is easy. Finding out what is wrong with it (troubleshooting) is the hard part, or even gaining access to a suspect part. Be aware of those that say they can fix TV's by watching youtube videos and have zero formal electronics training. (Or any kind of technical training.)