Broken LCD panel! Who knew it could break so easily?
Here is a scenario which customers tell us about quite frequently:
I own an new LCD TV set. This morning I turned it on to watch Good Morning America, before heading off to work and the TV was working fine. When I came home, I turned on the TV to watch Oprah and the picture was all messed up (click here to see an example). The picture has a bunch of lines going in all directions. It looks like cracked glass or a spider web but the sound is fine.
After hearing this, we usually ask, was anyone else home during the day? Generally, the customer will respond by saying, one or more of their children got home a little before they arrived home. We then ask the customer, if they have asked the children if they were using the TV. It suddenly turns into the “George Washington and the cherry tree” story.
What has happened in all of these cases is that the TV has sustained impact damage. This impact damage comes in many forms: a hit with a Nintendo wii controller, playing catch in the living room, tossing glider planes inside the house, the errant football pass etc.. You get the idea…
You and the children do not realize how thin is the glass of the LCD panel, which is located directly behind the thin plastic coating that covers the LCD panel. When this glass is broken, the TV is ruined and the cost of the repair will exceed the price of the TV. It is very common for the replacement LCD panel ,alone, to exceed the cost which you paid for the TV, without considering the labor to install the LCD panel. The LCD panel is made up of two very, very thin pieces of glass (each piece of glass is the thickness of a thin business card) that sandwiches the very, very, thin LCD electronics (about the thickness of a piece of paper).
I have included some sample pictures of broken LCD panels (click here to see more examples), if you have a TV picture that looks like this, please do not waste anymore of your hard earned money looking for a cheap fix. There isn’t one! If you pay someone to come to your home and diagnose this problem, it will be like pouring salt on a wound, it hurts! If you want a professional opinion of a cracked panel, our staff will be happy to examine your TV, free of charge, if you can bring it into our service center.
If your TV does end up having a physically damaged LCD panel, ABC Electronics does purchase these TV’s for a token amount, to recycle some parts that we can salvage from the TV set.
Sorry that I am the bearer of bad news, if you want to talk to our staff please call 585-248-5510
Ben Fowler, President
ABC Electronics Service Corp.