Thompson Freeview Boxes

[Tin Can]

Just a quick mention that if you have a Thompson Freeview box with the 160gig hard disk and it suddenly appears dead and you put it down to a power spike etc taking the board out THINK AGAIN, their are 2 capacitors on the power supply board inside that are known weak spots. Two replacements from SatCure cost £1.55 and only take a few minutes to remove and solder the new ones in. It actually takes longer to get the outer case off - Mark

 

[cumbriasteve]

Nice to know...think my telly has a simple fault at the moment, sometimes does not switch on and hear a 'crackle' retry and it works, it pains me that I think it is something very simple and easy to fix but not have the skills to know what.

 

[Robotstar5]

It is quite common for items designed to be left powered up, Satellite, VCR, freeview boxes etc. to have faults with PSU as they will only tolerate so many start-ups before failing.

 

[Shox Dr]

Most stuff like this has a short life span, as the technology is turning over so fast, so there is little point in fitting parts that will last more than around 3-5yrs.

A mate of mine spent most of his spare time repairing analogue satellite receiver PSUs, at the time, and made tidy money at it, because of this.

 

[Robotstar5]

A mate of mine spent most of his spare time repairing analogue satellite receiver PSUs, at the time, and made tidy money at it, because of this.

Funnily enough, that's how I found out about the PSU problems when a mate repaired my analogue reciever, he said spares people supplied repair kits because it happened so often.

 

[Shox Dr]

Yup, The PSU circuit was even marked out of the boards, so you knew what to replace

 

[Premiershipman]

Ebay have tons of people selling repair packs with new electrolytic capacitors etc.

To be honest many electrical items have been using cheaper capacitors for the last few years - all to do with the stolen electrolyte recipe that was wrong.