Samsung TV Bad Capacitor Lawsuit Settlement

I have posted fixes to a number of Samsung LCD televisions on this blog and now am happy to see that Samsung Electronics America Inc. (SEA) will be reimbursing owners with defective capacitors for getting them fixed. See the Samsung web site for details:

http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

It involves the March 2, 2012 District Court of Oklahoma City No. CJ-2011-7260, Ryan Russell and Phillip Bourne + plantiffs vs. Samsung Electronics America Inc. If I read the settlement correctly, the two individuals get a new TV or $750 US and the lawyers get $475,000. I hope to get my expenses for the parts and time I spent repairing our TV.

Previous posts involving Samsung televisions:

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/03/purple-line-problem-with-samsung-lcd-tv.html

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/08/fixing-samsung-television.html

http://poppular.blogspot.com/2011/08/repairing-another-samsung-lcd-tv.html

Repairing Another Samsung LCD TV

This Samsung LCD TV (model LNT4065FX/XAA) was having a number of problems including taking 30-45 seconds to power on and sometime showing purple lines on the display when first turned on (see blog post about it with pictures CLICK HERE).  After contacting Samsung through their on-line form, I was contacted days later by a service person.  He did not think the problem was caused by capacitors but was instead the display controller board.  Well, apparently not.  The repair took about 30 minutes but capacitors had to be ordered on-line, they were $0.91 a piece.  After the repair, the television turned on it about 5 seconds and no recurrence of the purple display issue.

See this entry about another Samsung LCD TV that needed a  similar repair: CLICK HERE

UPDATE (Feb. 2012): Samsung has listed a settlement for this problem on their web site: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

Tools I used to make this repair: Philips screw driver, Weller soldering iron with stand, desoldering tool, wire cutters, and solder

This next picture shows the cluster of capacitors causing the problems.

The green arrow points to the area of the power supply board the capacitors were found on.

The next two pictures show the 1000 uF 25 V SAMWHA electrolytic capacitor with bulging tops.  Note the small brown spots on top of two of the capacitors.

Last two pictures are of the repaired board with Panasonic capacitors.

Picture of underneath circuit board before the capacitor leads are clipped.

Fixing Samsung Television

Recently, I was asked to look at a Samsung LCD television (model code LN26A450C1DXZA) that would not turn on. The red LED was lit so the power supply board was still supplying power to the television.  Even so the television would not come on.  The red LED would blink from time to time.

Update (Feb. 2012): Samsung Electronics of America has listed a capacitor problem settlement on their web site: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

If one does research on the Internet one can find that Samsung LCD televisions have had issues with capacitors. So I decided to investigate. On the power supply board, a SAMWHA 2200 uF 10 V electrolytic capacitor was found with brown material out of the top. I did not have a spare one but found a salvaged 2200 uF 35V one and wire it in.  The television began to work so I ordered extra capacitors because we had another Samsung television having trouble powering on. See this problem in an earlier post: CLICK HERE and it was repaired (documented in this posting CLICK HERE).

Here are the pictures of the repaired television.  It now turns on almost immediately.  The new capacitor costs ($0.89).  I ordered an extra one.  A possible class action lawsuit might be filed against Samsung about this issue. I read part of the filing and the lawyers contend this is being caused by a design flaw in the board allowing the capacitors to overheat.  If this really is the reason then this capacitor could fail again.  Oddly, they also bring up faulty capacitors which means it is not the board but the components used.  In this case, I believe the new part is from Panasonic.

Purple Line Problem with Samsung LCD TV

Samsung LCD televisions manufactured in 2007 can develop display issues when they are first turned on.  See image of small purple dots and vertical lines that appear throughout the picture.  If the television is turned off and immediately turned back on the display clears up.

The issue has been reported to Samsung service so I will see what their response is. They told me it was not the capacitors but maybe the computer display board. I did not pursue finding out how much the board costs.

Reading this web site, the problem appears to be with the capacitors in the television: http://www.fixya.com/support/t5448000-samsung

UPDATE (February 2012): Samsung has listed a TV Capacitor Settlement Notice on their web site so owners of these televisions might be able to get financial reimbursement: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/

I did not see any pictures of this phenomena so I posted these images.  Last picture is close up of screen.

UPDATE: The problem was caused by three 1000 uF 25 V SAMWHA electrolytic capacitors. The tops had bubbled up but not begun to leak yet. Another Samsung television I worked on which failed to turn on also had a SAMWHA 2200 uF 10 V capacitor fail.  Whew!  I am glad this is fixed.  It took about 30 minutes to repair though I did have to order the capacitors which took about 3 days to arrive from Mouser Electronics.

The problem documented in this posting now appears fixed.  See this posting for the fix CLICK HERE