24
That capacitor swap advice from a forum user burned me bad
Some guy named TechTommy told me to skip the ESR meter and just shotgun replace all electrolytics on a 2005 Samsung plasma power board. I did it, spent $45 on caps, and the board still had the same shutdown issue after 4 hours of work. Has anyone else learned the hard way that testing first saves time and money?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
the_faith1mo ago
Bro you think that's bad? My buddy Dave did the same thing on a old Sony receiver, replaced like 30 caps, then found out the real issue was a cracked solder joint on a connector he coulda fixed in 5 minutes. He still brings it up whenever anyone mentions "shotgunning".
2
taylor121mo ago
30 caps on one board is a lot of shotgun work.
2
milacraig1mo ago
And that's the thing about shotgunning, it works great when you're dead certain the caps are the problem. But if you don't test first you're basically gambling. I've seen guys replace a whole board's worth of caps only to find the real issue was a bad transistor or a cold joint on a pin header. The worst part is you end up second guessing your own work - was it a bad solder joint you made or was the cap already toast? Testing first with a cheap ESR meter takes 10 minutes and saves all that headache.
2