Sanyo DP37647 LCD no picture no sound

Picked up a Sanyo DP37647 from a guy who said it just died while he was watching it. I determined there was a problem with the CPU after cooling it down with an inverted can of compressed air. As long as I kept the CPU cold the TV functioned normally. 

I don't think the CPU can be replaced. A  replacement board (N4PH) is a little less than $100 but there don't seem to be any available right now.

I managed to mount a small PC CPU fan at the bottom of the main board that draws air from the bottom of the TV and blows it up over the CPU. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics before putting the back cover on. I'll post something if I ever open it up again.

The fan cools things enough to use component video but not HDMI. I suspect HDMI puts greater demands on the processor and the fan doesn't provide enough cooling. HDMI does work when the CPU is iced-over from the inverted air can but that's not a practical way to watch TV. :)

One other thing, I took 12V from the power board then ran it through a 7805 to slow it down and keep the noise down. Don't know how long this fix is going to last but it's working great for now!

Genesis Technologies GT-3.0 no audio no backlight

So I have one of these in my travel trailer and it started acting wacky after I plugged my Galaxy S5 into the front USB port to charge it. I thought I read somewhere you could do that. Well, all of a sudden the backlighting on the front panel doesn't work anymore and there is no more audio from any function (radio, DVD, CD, USB stick).


Turns out there's very little (none) online resources for this unit and a few e-mails to dealers yielded only one response, to the tune of "there are no repair facilities for these units but we can sell you a replacement!".
So, not to draw this out, turns out the problem was a burnt BD438 power transistor inside the box.

The transistor is located on the upper board behind the sockets for speakers and 12V power. To get to the view you see above you'll have to remove the unit from the RV, remove the front control panel and remove the side plates. You'll have to remove five screws from the top board to access the underside to solder the new transistor (hint: the fifth screw is on top of the unit, under the sticker).
I ordered a new transistor from Digikey for $0.72 and I was good to go.

Good luck!

An Introduction

Ok, so I've been thinking of starting a blog for some time... I'm a tinkerer and love the challenge of trying to fix stuff. Ever since I could work a screwdriver I've been taking things apart, sometimes even managed to get them back together again. :)

The web has been such a great resource for me that I would like to have a place to share some of my 'fixes' with the world. Hopefully I can post a collection of things here and maybe, just maybe, someone out there will have a search engine point them to my blog and they can take away something useful for the project they are working on.

I don't pretend to be a professional repair man nor will this blog be a work of art. The vision I have right now is a repository of pictures and notes to share how I managed to bring something back to life.
Enjoy!