All rights reserved

January 2011
 Dedication

to my father and mother to my wife whose

support was strong in completing this nice
guide .for my aunts and the engineer
jamal ashini who helped me years before
.to randy fromm the great technician and
the publisher of the slot tech magazine .to
john preher to great technicians and
friends to all of my readers

2
 Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………….. .4

The linear power supply ………………………………………….. . 5

The switch mode power supply …………………………………… . 9

The inverter ……………………………………………………….. 25

In-between circuits the start circuit ……………………………… 35

The cold cathode flourcent lamp ………………………………….. 37

Understanding liquid crystal displays ………………………....... …41

The main board ……………………………………………………. 56

Power factor correction ………………………………………….... 65

Frequency compensation ………………………………………….. 72

Tools and test equipments …………………………………………. .76

Smps repair ………………………………………………………... 93

Inverter repair ……………………………………………………... 101

Smps and inverter repair cases …….................................................. 107

3
 Introduction
It is the era of electronics .they are every where . a fact that can
not be denied .We use them every day. they entertain us they teach
us .and make our life better. But they also break down .especially
the new Chinese made equipments .and that is Where this ebook
comes in handy .it take you by hand to know how the new
technology works and how simple the fixes are once you understand
It is intended for electronics technicians as well as normal users
.For those who took electronics repair as a career . and for hobbyists
who want to know just how this things work and how to fix them in
simple word .

As the technology change the repair techniques also change.

learning new ideas and concepts can cut down troubleshooting time
and enhance your performance in this field . when lcd technology
first appear we were a little upset . we thought that this technology
is invincible but as time pass we were able deal with most
failures . it was the solid understanding that enabled us to develop
a systematic way in troubleshooting the lcd technology. another
important factor besides understanding is the test equipments . you
can not work only with the digital mulitimeter . you need the ring
tester for checking coils and the esr meters for caps testing .you
may also need other specialized test equipments and tools but
again your best tool is your brain . a guide such as this one ensures
that you know the hows and the whys of lcd technology as well as
new innovative ways for troubleshooting and repairing.

4
 The linear power supply

In the past there was no switching mode power supply . or

smps this is a relatively new technology tv's (crt I mean )main
voltage that power up the horizontal stage was derived from
linear power supply . also the only merit of linear supply is the
simplicity of design . while one of the biggest draw back is its low
efficiency because simply and with out any complication . the
linear supply regulate the voltage by putting the excess voltage on
a transistors resistance . so that the output voltage stays constant
this wastes a lot of energy and needs usually a huge heat sink to
let the transistor runs cooler let us consider the next figure to
have an understanding of the linear regulator . although we don’t
have to understand Them. in order to repair some thing we just
have to be able to test them .nonetheless We should understand
them .they have not gone to extinction yet. they still used in board
level electronics so lets see

5
 Lets assume that the vdc is 12 volt lets assume also that the
desired output is 5 volt and the R1 is equal to R2 so the the voltage
at R2 is 2.5 and the reference is 2.5 if little decrease happen in
output voltage. voltage on R2 will be slightly lower than 2.5 volt dc
this will make the error amplifier to produce more positive error
signal which will drive the transistor harder the voltage drop on
the mosfet transistor will be less and consequently this will restore
the voltage to its original state 5 volt dc this action will happen in
no time for beginners who cant not understand this . what is
necessary to understand is how to test the thing because when you
buy a 5 volt regulator from your radio shack you will not see this
funny things because they are all integrated in one 3 leaded
integrated circuit so relax and see the next figure

6
Input output ground what can be simpler the output voltage can
be any value according to the type of the regulator some common
values of the output voltage Are 5 volt 12 volt -12 -5 and 8 -8 vdc
and the newest regulators that are common use in lcd monitor are
3.3 2.5 vdc this voltages are needed by the main microprocessor
chip and is usually regulated by 2 regulators in the main control
board .they usually look like….

7
 Or

dc volt regulator and 2.5 dc regulator in an lcd monitor board 3.3

. U11 and u12 and the inductor shown are also some sort of 5 volt smps

8
 Smps Switching mode power supply

In the past few years whenever an equipment comes in for repair

we invariably meet our old friend the linear supply it was in the
video cd in the tv and in some video gaming console like the Sega
mega drive satellite receivers and etc now it is no longer the same.
smps are every where even your mobile phones adapter is actually
A smps

so why basically our dear manufacture change from linear to

smps?. Many reasons behind that. one of them is the light weight
due to smaller transformer(due to high operating frequency)
Another reason is the tight regulation. smps every time watchs its
output against load and line changes . another great merit is wide
range of ac input voltage.

You can see easily on the back of your lcd tv a 90 -220 Vac it
means that the tv can gladly accept full range of ac voltages they
can ship it from china to Libya where the line voltage is 220 vac or
to usa where the line is 110. apart from other merits like the
protection against short circuit which means if some
component(at secondary side) get shorted the smps will not
continue to work. it just will shutdown .less power consumption
due to the fact that the transistor that is used in the smps is
working between its two easy modes.it is either fully opened or
fully closed in either case no power lose can occur over its body ..to
the beginners who find this words complicated the linear power
supply works by tossing away the unneeded power on the
transistors body.while the smps draws only what is needed to
power an electronic equipment lets began our tour in the smps
wonderland .

9
 The figure shows the main blocks of switch mode power supply.

The main line 220 volt ac comes in and get rectified by the
bridge rectifiers this turns the ac signal into dc and this dc is still
pulsating and not totally smooth so the main capacitor is used to
filter and smooth the ac basically it does that by charging when the
pulse is higher and discharge when it is lower smoothing the dc
clean and deliver it to the smps primary transformer the ic
receives its startup dc voltage (look at the next figure) and
produce a square signal that drive the switching transistor on And
off .
when the transistor is on current pass from the positives lead of
the capacitor to the primary winding to the mosfet and to ground a
magnetic field steadily build up when the transistor is off the
magnetic field collapse . the collapsing magnetic field induces a
voltage at the secondary winding of the transformer the voltage is
rectified by diode filtered by capacitor the result is dc voltage which
is divided by the resistor divider and then compared to fixed
reference voltage (this thing is zener diode and is inside the ic
10
more on this later) if the output voltage is lower than the wanted
value consequently the voltage on the voltage divider is lower. the ic
recognize this by the means of feedback signal and recognize the
difference between its internal reference and the divided output. it
responds by increasing the width of the square wave which
Make the transistor stays on for longer time which induces more
voltage at the secondary .which in turn returns the voltage back to
the desired voltage output this is the main mechanism by which the
smps works .no manner how the smps looks complicated or
convoluted

11
The previous figure shows the difference of pulses width when
the transistor is on for longer time . and when it is on for less time .it
depends on the line and load changes .when the line say from 220
volt ac raise to 235 the smps chip respond by reducing the pw.
when the load increase the output voltage tends to decrease .and the
pwm chip respond by increasing the on time so the voltage will
back as it was see the next figure this is a real-world picture

Different pulse width is a natural response of the pwm chip to

different line voltages
Some people are amazed how clever this pwm chip some people
are curious . ok we are going to reveal some insidious secrets that
happening in the pulse with modulation chip

12
 This is what you could find in a smps . the components (inside the
pwm chip) that are related to the regulation of the output voltage
are drawn . actually there are more components than this in a usual
smps integrated chip ( actually that is why they call them integrated
circuit because it packs more components in one package) but these
are the main components that are responsible for the regulation.
that is why we address them . one may find this not necessary but
believe me the more you understand the more you be creative
Let began our story

It is dark and you are going home after a hard day's work . you
come in . you set on the sofa and turn on your lcd tv to watch your
favorite channel and the film begin .

the 220 volt ac come in and pass the fuse and get rectified on the
filter capacitor a 300 volt dc have developed on the bulk capacitor
a nice resistor divide the voltage to a reasonable amount to power
the starving pwm chip(all smps chip in the earth planet require from
12 to 20 volt dc some newer chips work with even 5 volt) the ic take
this and come to live .it powers its reference and its oscillator . when
your first power your tv the vea signal is low . so naturally the
13
comparator will produce wide pulse at the output .this pulse will be
sent to the base of our switcher transistor . the transistor will short
circuit from its emitter to its collector the current will pass through
the primary winding of the transformer to the collector and emitter
and to the ground and thus will power up the transformer a nice big
magnetic field will be built and when the transistor shut off at the
end of on time the magnetic field will collapse the collapsing field
will induce voltage to the secondary winding. this voltage will get
rectified and filtered and divided down by means of the resistor
divider and fed back by the opto-isolator which send the signal
from secondary side to the primary side .the error amplifier
compare its level against the fixed reference and produce error
signal that once fed to the pwm compartor will let it produce a
square wave with specific width

if the output voltage is low the the v error is high and this will let
the pwm comparator to produce wide pulse width which will bring
back output voltage to where it should be

if the output voltage is high the v error voltage will be low this will
let the pwm comparator to produce narrow pulses which will bring
back the output voltage where it should be

this method of control called the pwm voltage mode control because
basically it monitors the output voltage and based on its value it
produces varying pulse width to regulate the output

the comparator and the error amplifier are nothing more than a
component called the operational amplifier

the operational amplifier is the heart of analog electronics it can be

used to compare between 2 voltages amplify integrate add subtract
differentiate etc

in the pwm comparator operational amplifier is used as

comparator. in the error amplifier the operational amplifier is
used as subtractor where the output is ride on dc offset

14
the voltage reference inside the chip is usually nothing more than
a zener diode.a zener diode has a very unique property that it will
change its internal resistance to keep the voltage across it
constant

that is why zener is used as reference. learning about how individual

components work will enable you to analyze circuits easily
I urge that you should make your best and learn about all electronics
components like resistors caps inductors transformers transistors
diodes logic gates like AND OR NAND gates and flip-flops latches
etc some explanations in this ebook made with an assumption
that the reader already knows the behavior of basic electronic
components

On the left a stand alone operational amplifier

The chip size is no more than the pwm 3842 chip yet the last
contains 2 operational amplifiers?

On the right is the zener diode this is the general look variation
from this shape is possible ..you may also see diodes that have the
same shape yet they are not zener your best bet is to look at the
board typical diode is marked as d but zener is usually marked zd
..also zener diodes always carry their voltages rating on the body
like 5.6 v which means that the diode has 5.6 zener voltage

15
current mode control

you read about my previous explanations to smps controlling and

how the output is tightly controlled against line and load changes.
but this is not just good enough. A shorted component in the
secondary side will not be detected fast enough . the method by
which we control our output voltage is called the pwm voltage
mode control. and the new method we are going just to pass on is
the current mode control .actually almost all smps in use today are
using the current mode control. simply in the current mode both
current and voltage are monitored by the pwm chip such as the
ubiquitous uc3842 which is the most famous chip used in smps so
lets open it up and see the insides

A different and tricky configuration is the current mode control.

here the oscillator kicks on the r-s latch when the r-s latch get
high signal on its s (or set ) input its output Q become high
turning the transistor on .current will pass from THE v input to
ground now how the transistor will go off ? when the voltage
across R sense or the sensing resistor gets higher than the v error it
16
immediately signal the R input of the latch and the output Q
becomes low and the transistor goes off but also another thing can
actually let Q to become low so prematurely . if Vo become high v
error becomes low which make vsense become higher than v error
and the pwm comparator output becomes high which signal the R
input of the latch turning Q off or( becomes low as I always
say)turning the transistor off bringing the vout back to where it
should be

in this way we notice that the transistor goes off prematurely if

current becomes excessive or if voltage become so high .notice
that though the current on R sense is the primary current but we
know as current demand increase in the secondary so it does in the
primary . so we in this way control both current and voltage .
this method have more tighter regulation and inherent current
sense and protection against a short circuit .a shorted component
that draws excessive current in the secondary side will raise the
v sense which will become higher than the v error which will let the
pwm comparator to produce high voltage to the r input of the latch
which will drive the Q to go off shutting off the transistor switch
which will shutdown the entire smps . actually more and more
protection features can be packed inside the ic or the chip all
needed that if some dangerous level reached some circuitry will
kick on the R input of the latch which turns off the Q which
turns off the transistor which shuts off the power supply
completely

Some ices especially those which have the switching power

transistor inside them if the transistor over heated for some
reason like improper heat sinking some circuitry will sense it and
will signal the R input of the latch to shutdown the chip . this
feature does not exist in the pwm uc3842 because it has no
internal switching power transistor inside them.

By the way the oscillator circuit that is used on the pwm chips is
nothing more than an rc oscillator changing the value of the
resistor or the capacitor will change the frequency of operation
17
 Be careful at the trouble shooting always replace small caps in the
primary side with the same value

Protection
Protection is important feature of smps .. if some short circuit
happen in a component that is powered by the smps the power
supply will just shutdown it will stay in this condition until the
shorted component removed and/or replaced.
in the past most linear power supplies do not shutdown they just
blow out a fusible resistor .if you don’t replace the shorted
components and only replace the fusible resistor the newly installed
resistor will blow out again time and components are lost ..short
circuit protection make the smps just shutdown and never blow any
components this is nice feature added respect to the miracle of
smps I want my readers to understand the mechanism of short
circuit detection

You see in the last figure the 0.55 resistor is fed to pin 3 of the
uc1844 pwm chip when short circuit condition happen the current
draw become excessive in the secondary and thus in the primary
(this true even if you think that they are separated and not related to
18
 each other .. its mutual conductance ) and when current increase
in primary voltage raise up across the R10 0.55 OHM resistor this
voltage is sent to pin3 which is called I sense or current sense when
this voltage reaches a pre-determined level the power supply will
shutdown completely this happen in less than fraction of a second
so no damage can happen

Tip: usually the smps that is shutdown due to short-circuit will

produce periodic ticking sound as the power try to come on and then
shutdown each cycle

Under voltage lockout

To ensure that vcc of pwm chip is working in the wanted

range there is another form of protection inside the chip that will
shutdown the chip output if the voltage vcc is not within the range
for example the uc3842 the most common pwm chip in the world
work fine from 10 volt to 16 volt lower or higher voltages causes
the ic to shutdown this will happen easily if the ac mains voltage
drop from the the 110 volt ac to low value or the start up resistor
increased in value preventing voltage from reaching to safe limits

Soft start

Bring me up so smoothly that is what the soft start circuit does

we remember our previous explanation to smps operation when
you turn on your smps the v output is low vea is high which will
produce very wide pulse which can damage the fet soft start circuit
(inside the chip) brings the reference gradually from zero to the
predetermined value which have the effect of slowly increasing the
pulse width which is good for the fet transistor

Over voltage protection

For some reasons like open feed back signal due to bad
soldering bad optical-coupler etc the ic will see that the feed back
19
signal is low or missing and thus will produce wide pulse to
drive the mosfet switch harder in order to bring back the voltage
this will produce so high voltage fortunately the ic had another
eye on the output the ic's vcc pin is derived from a winding from
the smps transformer when the voltage at the output is high the
voltage on the vcc is also high if the voltage on vcc gets higher than
a predetermined level (usually 30 volt) the ic will shutdown the
power supply to prevent further increase in the voltage and
potential failure of the circuitries fed by this voltage .

Overload protection

Over load protection is similar to over current protection over

load protection is a condition where a load becomes greater than
the preset level, though it is operating normally in other words we
can define it as little increase in load which consequently cause
little increase in the current being drawn .problem with such type
of protection that it can be faulty triggered due to temporary load
transients . so all pwm chip does not trigger the overload
protection until this state continues for some amount of time this
will let the chip discern between normal transients in load or an
overload condition .

20
 design differences and similarity
Lets compare between this 2 smps schematics ..the essence of
troubleshooting is to be familiar with the design once you get this
feeling you then go on and begin your troubleshooting

This is typical uc3842 chip based power supply uc3842 is the

most common smps chip you may notice that there is no feed
back opt coupler …actually in this design the feedback signal is
taken by a separate winding (N2) . if the voltage at the output is
high the voltage on this winding will raise as well because it fed
by the same magnetic field this winding is used for more than one
purpose. it is also used to power the vcc .and for over voltage
shutdown .The ic takes its vcc at the beginning from the divided
down high voltage dc and then it takes its vcc from this winding

21
 In this design the Fairchild power switch Fs6m07652 is used (ic
101) this chip contains both the pwm chip and the mosfet power
switch also the sensing resistor is integrated into it . this design is
using the opt isolator as a feedback device. although it uses a tap
winding but it is not used to feed back the signal . it is used to
power the chip vcc pin and is used to watch the output voltage to
perform the over voltage shutdown …before the opt isolator we
can see the ka431 if you look for its data sheets in the internet you
will find it labeled as a shunt regulator in this design it is used as
an error amplifier ? but there is one inside the chip why using 2
….actually unlike the u3842 the Fairchild fs607 has no error
amplifier inside it so it is using an external one also it has an internal
mosfet and current sense resistor . while the uc3842 has an external
ones the point here is don’t panic they are the same

22
 This is the FS6M07652RT Fairchild power switch. Fairchild is
famous semiconductors company as you can see the error
amplifier is absent

You also probably see the other funny looking blocks and
components I know what this components do but this is out of
the scope of this book I will write another quick guide that will let
you understand this chips '' smps pwm familiarization '' will
probably be the name .you also can read manufactures data sheets
and application notes but it will be hard to extract the information
you need

23
 Conclusion

The duty of Smps is to deliver well regulated dc voltage to the

load Despite the change in the line voltage and the load resistance
and it does that by driving the mosfet by wide pulses if the voltage
is low .and narrow pulses if the voltage is high . in voltage mode
control only the voltage is monitored . in current mode both the
voltage and current are monitored this yield quick response and
inherent over current protection .smps are using multiple
protection features like over voltage protection over current
protection over load protection under voltage lockout etc smps
are the same no manner how the design is different but their
main structure is more or less the same

24
 THE INVERTER

The inverter circuit is basically a smps the difference is that the

inverter input is dc and the output is high voltage high frequency
ac the high voltage is used to strike or (turn on the ccfl) in lcd
panels we can see a lot of different configuration or topologies
each one have its own advantages and disadvantages for example
some are expensive to implement because it needs 4 mosfets like
the full bridge. the configurations are :

1- The royer oscillator ( indirect drive )

2- The full bridge (direct drive )
3- The half bridge (direct drive )
4- The push pull (direct drive )

1 . royer oscillator (indirect drive)

To a designer point of view it is the simplest to design but

unfortunately to a poor technician it is the trickiest to
understand ..the royer is a self oscillating topology which means
that once the components put together and given a dc voltage
they will create ac signal which is stepped up by the transformer's
secondary winding ..the only type of control that the pwm can
exert on this circuit is to change the dc bias that feeds this stage
which have the effect of changing the amplitude of the oscillation
in the primary side and thus in the secondary …and the pwm does
that by controlling small smps called the buck smps this thing is
used to turn high dc into low dc voltage
by controlling the buck output voltage which is the input voltage
for the royer oscillator the pwm chip indirectly controls the
output of the royer oscillator lets now examine the next diagram
to see exactly how the royer oscillator topology works

25
 This is a simplified version of a royer oscillator topology
..once the dc input voltage applied from the buck stage the
capacitor C1 and the primary winding A-C began oscillating the
out of phase sides of the primary winding began to produce
negative and positive voltages alternatively lets assume first the
the A side of the transformer have gone positive this will do
3things first it will turn on Q2 providing ground for the B+ and
clamping point c to ground ensuring that Q1 remains in the off
condition as time passes things change ..it is actually changes
gradually ..and the A side of the transformer is now negative and
the side D is positive which will turn Q1 ON clamp B point to
ground shutting Q2 completely off ..providing ground for the B+
….when we look at it. in general. we can tell that simply the C1
AND the primary winding produce ac oscillation that alternately
turns Q1 and Q2 on and off alternatively providing ground at the
A and D and alternatively drives current from the b+ to A side and
the ground or to B side and the ground …simple is not it ?

Royer oscillator simplified schematic

26
 Royer oscillator schematic

At the secondary side we can see the ccfls and what known as the
ballast capacitor which plays a key role in the operation of the
entire inverter
When the inverter is turned on the lamp has an extremely high
resistance so that the entire voltage available at the secondary side
will drop across the lamp which will turn it on ..this voltage is
known as the strike voltage which will kick the lamp to the on
state .in its strike state the lamp act as a very non linear load ..in
other words the more current pass through it the lesser its
resistance will be Which will again produce more current and
results in less resistance this cycle will never end until the inverter
blow up or shutdown ..in case it is has a protection (some models
have no protection) …but this scenario will not happen because we
have our hero the ballast cap

27
 We say that the current will increase in the ccfl and its resistance
decrease. at some stage the resistance or more precisely the
impedance of the cap will be much higher than the ccfls which will
let most of the voltage available at the secondary to drop across the
ballast cap which will remove the lamps from its strike mode
where the voltage across it is too high to the operation mode
where the voltage across it will be normal . in its operation mode
the ccfl will act as a linear load its resistance will be in the range of
kilo ohms ..thanks to the ballast if it was not there the entire
inverter would have met its maker (dead)
Another thing that I should mention about the ballast value and
replacement never replace a ballast cap with higher or lower
values always replace it with exact number in terms of the farads
and the operating voltage

What you probably don’t know is that the frequency produced

by the royer oscillator depends also on the value of the ballast cap
as well
It is the secondary winding and its load(ccfl and the ballast cap)
that setup

The impedance of the primary winding which set in its turn the
frequency of operation which has an effect on the voltage produced
by the transformer

All component in the royer oscillator are chosen carefully to set

up the frequency of operation and the strike and operation voltage

Strike voltage is usually between the 900 and 1800 operation

voltage is usually between the 200 to 500 volt deviation from this
values is possible but rare

Common values of the ballast cap are between the range of 12

pico farad to 47 Picofarad with operation voltage of 3000 volt

28
An example of lcd monitor that use a royer oscillator
inverter

29
From the back side of the board we can see the diode and
fet

30
2- The full bridge (direct drive )

Armed with 4 transistors the full bridge is able to utilize all

ability of the transformer to transfer the power if we look at other
topologies we can see that only the full bridge does that …other
topologies have a split primary winding …full bridge have one
winding and it is able to reverse current through this winding

This topology works by turning on the A and D transistors at

first time then shutting them off and turning the B and C
transistors
When AD transistor turned on current will pass from the dc source
to the A transistor to the primary winding of the high voltage
transformer and then to the D transistor and then to ground
effectively powering the primary winding … a positive voltage is
sent to the secondary side. when the the transistor A D are turned
off and the transistors B and C are turned on current will reverse
direction and a negative voltage is produced at the secondary side
creating an almost perfect sine wave to operate the ccfl

31
 Schematic diagram explains the full bridge components

3-The half bridge (direct drive )

The biggest advantage of the half-bridge architecture is that it

requires two MOSFETs per drive channel than full-bridge
architecture It does, however, require a transformer with a higher
turns ratio, thus increasing the cost of the transformer. Also, like
full-bridge architecture, half-bridge architecture may require p
channel fet . this topology uses the principle of resonance to
reverse current through its winding which beyond the scope of this
ebook

32
4-The push-pull (direct drive )

The push-pull architecture is common and so successful

utilizing Only 2 transistors (fets) which reduce cost . more and
more lcd monitors inverter boards are using this type of topology
in their Inverter

The basic structure of the push-pull topology

This architecture uses a center-taped transformer primary

winding when the upper transistor is turned on the currents pass
from the dc source to the upper winding and to the ground

when the lower transistor turned on (the upper is off) current

pass from The dc source to the lower winding to the lower
transistor and to the ground each time the current build and
reverse direction a magnetic field is build around the primary
winding and collapse When it collapse it induces voltage as the
secondary winding have much higher number of windings than the
primary a higher voltage is induced which light up the ccfl
Unlike the royer architecture where the transformer always
produces a high voltage that drops at first time on the ccfl because
its impedance is high once the lamp struck its impedance lowered
the ballast impedance is much higher and eats up most of the

33
voltage leaving only the operating voltage to the lamp so it can run
this is not the case in the direct drive

the inverter ic increases the frequency to high frequency during

the first moments to ignite the lamp once the lamp ignited the
inverter ic lower the switching frequency lowering the voltage to
the operating level the ballast cap in this design does not play a
key role actually it has a big value (hence low impedance) now
that the inverter ic bring the voltage to the operating range there
is no a lot of excess voltage to drop on the ballast the high value
small impedance ballast cap drops a very little voltage most of the
voltage is on the ccfl

This nice method ensures that the transformer works on its

maximum rated power only during start-up also the ballast cap
does not have to eat up all the excess voltage ..in direct drive strike
and operating voltages are dependent on the inverter ic rather
than the ballast cap
Value of ballast cap (if exist) in this architectures is usually around
100nf

34
 push-pull topology example

In-between circuits (the start circuit )

When you switch on your lcd monitor the main board sends a
signal to switch on your backlight inverter so the monitor can work
and produce light and it does that by sending a 5 vdc signal (some
times it is 3.3) to a simple transistor circuit called the start circuit
once this circuit have received the on signal from the main board it
will allow the 12 volt dc or what ever the voltage input of the
inverter to pass to the vcc pin of the inverter ic which will enable
the inverter pwm chip

the inverter will produce square wave to drive the mosfets the
mosfets will switch the dc that is across the primary winding on
and off which will make the magnetic field to raise and collapse
across the primary winding this will send high voltage ac at the
secondary side of the transformer which will light up the ccfls
look at the circuit

Start circuit schematic

When 5 volt dc is sent from the main board to the on off pin the
Q1 npn transistor will turn on when Q1 is on the base of Q2 is
35
dragged to ground which will turn on Q2 pnp transistor which will
pass the supposed 12 vdc to the vcc pin which will power up the
integrated circuit note that in some designs the inverter ic will
have a pin called ENA short of ENABLE this pin when receive the
on signal will turn on the ic so in this designs both the vcc and the
ENA signal should exist for the ic to work ..

Schematic of direct start circuit

We can see the on/off signal from the main board is directly
fed to the ENA pin through a 10 kilohm resistor we also can see
the 13 volt dc go through the fuse and directly to vcc because
switching the ic off and on now is no longer accomplished using
vcc pin it is now accomplished using the ENA pin

36
 Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL)

CCFL lamps are more efficient in comparison to other light

sources. CCFL bulbs convert about 20% of the applied energy into
light in the 380-780 nm range. Lamp diameter and length vary
which affect their operating parameters.
The cold cathode electrodes of the lamp are comprised of a nickel
plated iron structure, containing pockets of mercury during lamp
manufacturing. The cathode structure retains the mercury until
released by heating the structure using RF energy after the lamp
envelope is sealed.

The typical CCFL contains from 2-10 mg of mercury.

The cathode structure contains a gettering material on its surface to
remove damaging residual gases.
The getter material is comprised of an allowance of 84% ZR and
16% Al. With a lamp operated from alternating current the cold
cathodes alternate polarity.
The phosphor coating on the inside of the glass envelope is a tri-
phosphor RGB type. It is composed of red, green, and blue emitting
phosphors. Varying the phosphor ratios change the white light
emitted.

Electric Energy or voltage is introduced into the lamp via the cold
cathode electrodes on each end of the lamp. The applied voltage
accelerates electrons between the 2 electrodes. The applied electrical
voltage is actually a high voltage AC so the electrodes alternate
being cathode & anode and the current alternates. Electrons
traveling between elements collide with mercury atoms releasing
ultraviolet energy. The ultraviolet discharge or ionization of the
mercury stimulates the phosphor increasing the 253.7 nm
wavelength (ultraviolet) energy to visible light frequencies (red,
green, blue). Equal energy red, green and blue results in white light
emitted from the lamp.

37
 Ionization is enhanced by adding a fill gas (argon). Adding
argon enhances ionization and lowers the required voltage. The fill
gas (argon) excites the argon atoms releasing an electron which may
also collide with a mercury atom enhancing ionization. Ultraviolet
energy strikes the phosphors resulting in white light CCFLs have a
limited lifespan Ion bombardment of the phosphor over time causes
the

inner surface of the phosphor to become non-luminescent Ion

bombardment of the phosphor over time causes some phosphors to
absorb the mercury causing brightness deterioration.

A typical CCFL life rating specification is approximately 20,000

hours before its brightness is 50% of the lamps initial output at a
drive current of 5 mArms. This equates to approximately 2.28 years
if the display is operated 24 hours a day. Improvements have
increased the usable life of CCFLs in LCD panels. The Philips
38
LM181E06 LCD Panel has a lamp life time specification of 40,000
hours before lamp brightness is reduced to 50% of its initial value.

Lamp Striking

To create light, the gases within the CCFLs must first be ionized.
Ionization occurs when a voltage, approximately 1.2 to 1.5 times the
nominal-rated operating voltage, is placed across the lamp for a few
hundreds of microseconds. Before ionization occurs, the impedance
across the lamp is in the multimega ohm range; in a typical
application, it looks almost completely capacitive. At the onset of
ionization, current begins to flow in the lamp, its impedance drops
rapidly into the hundreds of kilohms range, and it looks almost
completely resistive. To minimize lamp stress, the striking
waveforms should be symmetrical, linear sinusoidal ramps without
spikes.

Also another note is that the operating voltage required increase

as the length increase or the diameter decrease Lamp current range
is between 3 ma to 8 ma (muli-amper) the ccfl brightness increase
as the current increase
It is this strange characteristic that prevent us technicians to
replace the ccfl with another type of load like resistor for just
troubleshooting purposes there is no electronic component behave
in similar way as the ccfl the ccfl at first has infinite resistance and
after the strike voltage the resistance drop to some thing in the
range of kilo ohms very strange. we only can replace ccfl with
another ccfl even for troubleshooting purpose

39
40
 Understanding Liquid Crystal display

The simplest way to describe the lcd monitor is to consider the

panel as a light valve the light from its source is a white light a
purely white that is sent from the back light to the glass plat that
has small tiny grooves that is filled with crystal material which has
a unique characteristic that it changes its position with the
application of voltage across it . it has also another unique
characteristic that if the crystal molecules are twisted against each
other light will never pass and if they are straight light will pass
they change their structure with an application of voltage across it
it is the duty of the main boards processor to pick up the rgb,
horizontal and vertical synch from your pc vga output and
transformer them into digital signals that it used to drive voltages
across the panel at each intersection to simply allow or block light to
pass light is white from the ccfl then get color when it passes across
an rgb filter just see at the next figures it has been said a picture
worth's thousand of words

41
This figure shows the entire component of an lcd monitor
display and its different layers

This figure shows how molecules of a crystal changing

their position to allow or block light according to the
voltage being applied

how the voltage is sent from the microprocessor to

the lcd panel?

Using the active materxing the processor is able to address (light

on) A line each time . so line by line the picture is written to the
screen See the picture below

42
The lvds (low voltage deferential signaling)

With differential signaling, you use two wires, and send the signal
twice through one wire 'positively' (+ volts for '1' and - volts for '0')
and the other 'negatively' ( - volts for'1' and + volts for '0'). Since you
get the same amount of noise induced into each wire, the noise
voltage at the receive end is cancelled out leaving only the signal
voltage. If your voltage comes out positive, the signal is a '1'; if it's
negative, the signal is a '0'. Put another way, differential signaling
allows the receiver to filter out noise by sending signals across two
wires simultaneously, each with opposing current and voltage
swings.

The actual data is read as the difference in amplitude between the

signals on the two wires. If noise is induced, it will appear on both
lines, but the signal information remains unchanged. Since the

43
signal has improved noise immunity, voltage can be reduced and
data rates can be increased.

Lets go back ….. In order to get good understanding of lcd panel

circuitry we must go back to the vga cable that bring the video
signal to your lcd up to the picture you see with your eyes
The Vga signal is analog signal which means that it is keep
changing all the time vga signal that come from you vga card is
actually 5 signals in. Red blue green signals vertical and horizontal
synch signals in older crt monitor this signal does not undergo
any change they are just get amplified from stage to stage until
they are applied the screen the red green blue signal are amplified
by color preamplifier ic and amplified by the color output amplifier
ic then get applied to the crt
also the synch signal By the vertical amplifier and the
horizontal output stage so they never undergo any transformation
in shape but this is not the case in lcd monitor
The red green blue or rgb signal that is coming to the lcd
monitor has the amplitude of 0.7 volt the first thing happen to
them is that they get buffered buffering is always good to weak
signals the second thing is that they are converted to digital signals
using analog to digital converter

The digital converter take samples of the video signal and turn
each sample into 8 bit signal the 8 bit signal in theory is able to
represent 256
Different shades of red green or blue. then this signals enter to the
lvds multiplexer the multiplexer circuit get 24 digital signal (8 red
+8 green +8blue) and turn each channel of them ( each 8 bits) to 4
differential pair
44
It also changes their level into low voltage level despite the fact that
low signal is not immune to noise but this one is . because of
implementing the differential signaling method which enable high
transfer of data and noise Immunity

at the other end (the panel ) an lvds (low voltage differential

signaling) ic is used to demultiplex them (back to 24 digital signal)
the control ic take this signals transform them back to analog
signals a and apply this signal to the source driving ic the whole
process is synchronized with horizontal and vertical synch pulses
so that line by line the vga signal is turned into digital form and then
back to its analog form and applied to timing control ic which
applies it to the sources of the first row the capacitors will hold the
charge keeping the dots in on state until the next time and the
cycle repeats
The control ic or the timing control ic to be precise puts
around 20 volt to open all the gate in a specific row and then
put varying different voltages To the sources of that row which
give us different colors being displayed on the panel the control
timing ic does not do this all by its own it actually signals the
(gate driver ic ) and the source driver ic this ices are connected to
all gates and all sources in the panel
also an interesting thing is the mentioning of 20 volt while we
know that panel works on low voltages we also know that lcd panel
receives 3.3 or 5 volt dc as a source of power but we must know
that there is little dc to dc converter exist on the small pcb that
attached to the panel that boost the 3.3 volt to 20 and -20 volt and
5 volt to power the different circuits in the panel board like the
control ic the lvds receiver ic the gate driver ic the source driver
ic

The construction of the LCD panel requires that electrical

connections be made to gate and source electrode connections.
These connections are at the top and side of the LCD panel. These
connections are far too many and tiny to be made with traditional
wire and soldering techniques.
Instead a TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) process is used to
make electrical connections with a TCP (Tape Carrier Package). A

45
TCP is a small flexible tape material with many tiny electrical
conductors.
It must be precision positioned, heated and pressured into a bond
completing the electrical connections. Specialized and expensive
equipment is required for this process (Pulseheated
anisotropic- conductive film (ACF) equipment)

46
47
 You may ask why the acrylic light guide is not shown in previous
figures I answer that a acrylic light guide is actually integrated with
the glass substrate which the heaviest part of the lcd panel the
acrylic light guide is etched with hundreds of tiny prisms you may
notice that the density of these prisms increase as we go to the
middle of the panel why is that? Usually lcd panel is lit by 2 ccfls
one at the top and one at the bottom.to avoid the the picture being
dark at the middle of the screen .because there is no backlight
there .the number of prisms increase at the middle the prism
function is to take the light from the back light and turn it into the
screen the light cant go by itself because and in contradiction of
what you may think the ccfl light does not face ( talking about lcd
monitors not TVS)the panel they are actually mounted on the top

48
 and the bottom the light travels from the top to the prism and then
to the panel . and from the bottom to prism to the panel

Taking apart an lcd panel

You need to know how this is done you need to know it because
you need to replace the ccfls lamps when they fail but before
starting I recommend you to take it apart in a very clean
environment because any dust come in between sheets of its
different components and the performance will be greatly effected
Important note : do this in a very clean environment never
do it in a dusty workbench always wear cotton gloves I
didn’t do that in the picture first because it is for educational
purpose second because the panel I am working on is
cracked and out of order
49
 Wearing white cotton gloves to prevent dust (I have not done it
because it is just for educational purposes )as we say pry it open
and work your way around it After removing the metal frame you
will be facing the lcd panel behind it another plastic frame will be
holding the different sheets and components so again using the
same method OF PRYING this time when the plastic frame get
separated immediately after it you will find a lot of white sheets
keep them in the same order put them in a corner the last thing
you will remove is the glass substrate that has the acrylic light guide
built into it. By removing it you find your self face to face with the
ccfl attached by rubbers in the upper and lower sides of the back-
metal frame of the panel carefully remove them put them away and
put in another ccfl as simple as this follow the picture they are
better than any words

50
That it what you find

Put it a side

51
 Put it aside

Crack it open

52
 Remove the sheets

remove the light guide

53
Here are the ccfls

54
 Just remove it carefully this thing is fragile

It is done you just have to make sure you soldered in the

New tubes in a nice shape as shown

55
 The main board

This is the brain of an lcd monitor this is where the vga signal is
turned into a digital signal and undergo lvds transformation this
main board contains also the microcontroller.it recognize the
existence of both horizontal and vertical pulses at the vga input
which will let him wake up the entire lcd monitor it then wake up
the scaller\DAconverter /lvds ic and send the on signal to the
inverter so it can light up the ccfl and also in some models switch
on the vcc panel and it does that using a software that is written
into it despite the fact that contain an outer eeprom yet it does not
contain the firmware which let this thing work this firmware is
written using the latest flash technology which simply allow for
adjustments if a flaw detected during the manufacturing in the
past firmware where written in a rom or read only memory that
only written one time during its life but now it is written in a flash
prom which programmable but only in the factory this type of
56
programming is not immune to common noise and magnetic fields
in other words that program may get corrupted which will allow the
controller to behave very strangely ..the main boards failures are
not too common but I believe when they fail most likely the reason
is to data corruption we will discuss her what is the function of
each ic and what are the types of failure you will see and their fixes
along with some test points

1- 5 volt dc-dc converter :

This is a small switch mode power supply that takes in the 12

volt dc and turn it into 5 vdc which power up circuitries in the
board and power the 2 linear regulators 3.3 vdc and the 2.5 vdc
regulator

2- 3.3 regulator :It takes in the 5 vdc and lowered it to 3.3

vdc to power some ices in the board such as the analog to digital
converter
57
3- 2.5 regulator :

It takes in the 5 vdc and turn it into the 2.5 vdc again it is
used to power the analog to digital converter

4- Diodes and resistors and capacitors :

Resistors in the vga input are used to put an impedance of 75

ohm so if the vga input get shorted There will be 75 ohm in the
input of the main AD converter
Diodes are used to clamp the input of the red green blue vga signal
to 0.7 vdc
Caps used to couple the vga signal to the AD converter ic rgb inputs

5-Vcc panel circuit

The microcontroller uses this circuit to switch on the voltage

to the panel during power on moment the voltage is usually 3.3
to 5 volts in the little board in the panel small converter and
regulator takes this voltage in and convert it into 3.3 and 20 and -20
volt dc to drive the electronics there

6-Lvds ices

Take the digital rgb signal and multiplex it (compress) change

its level to low level
And send it in differential pair to the lcd panel

7-Synch buffer and decoder

Change the polarity of the synch signal to some thing recognizable

by microcontroller Based on the polarity and the frequency of the
58
synch signal the microcontroller determined at which resolution
the monitor will work it also gives the signals a current
amplification

8-Lvds output

small amplitude signal 300 mv square wave high frequency up

to 300 mega hertz which means that if you want to scope out this
signal you must have a very sensitive oscilloscope with very high
frequency bandwidth …not a cheap device

9- Analog to digital converter and controller

this large chip performs a lot of tasks it switch on the vcc panel
send the on signal to the inverter and process the rgb signal into a
digital signal and communicate with the other ices such as nvram
and eeproms which are actually a part with the control system
the microcontroller also respond to the user input keys etc

10-Flash PROM (Programmable Read Only

Memory)

Used by the microprocessor.

11-NVRAM: (Non-volatile random access memory)

Provides permanent data in memory for microprocessor operation.

12-Crystal oscillator

59
Generates the clock signal which drives the microcontroller to
perform the program stored in its memory

13-Vga input

Receives the red green blue horizontal synch and vertical signals

14 -12 volt dc input

this is main voltage input to the main board this voltage feed the
dc to dc converter which is basically a smps that takes in the main
12 volt and produces a 5 volt dc this 5 volt dc then fed to 2 linear
regulators to produce the 3.3 and 2.5 volt dc this voltages are
needed by the microcontroller

60
 Understanding the vcc panel circuit

Vcc voltage must reach to the lcd panel . it drives the electronics
there .and the controller allow it to pass by sending a low signal to
the Q1 transistor turning it off .when Q1 is off there is high
voltage at the G(or the gate of the n-channel fet ic) this will allow
the 3.3 volt to pass to the panel
When the microcontroller send a high signal turning the Q1 ON
the voltage G will be low this will let the u1 to be off and never
allow the 3.3 vdc to reach to the panel
When the vcc panel is completely absent the result is sort of gray
display..with no vcc panel the video signal will not be applied to the
rows of the lcd panel the monitor obviously will be sort of grayish
this white or grayish picture is the backlight in action but with no
video signal ..please watch this video you will get what I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhEoUh0GV8

61
Main board troubleshooting and repairing

As I say main boards rarely fail and unfortunately when they do

there is little chance that we can fix them …most failures are
occurring at software inside the controller that may get corrupted
so troubleshooting mainly is checking the presence of the main
voltages like the 2.5 v 3.3v 5vdc also scoping the lvds output to
see data activity ..we may see no obvious shape but all we see is
some sort of a wavy square pulse also one important notice is
the caps the elctroliyc caps do fail in this boards a cap may fail in
the dc to dc converter and allow ripple to escape to the
microcontroller ruining the board you notice that the controller
will behave strangely . suddenly shutting down the display or
showing a distorted picture and many many strange symptoms
always make full esr check and replace any marginal
capacitor ..check the crystal for sine wave with the scope if you
don’t have a scope use the uni-t(see tools chapter) to check the
frequency(or any meter that have good frequency range in it ) you
may not see the exact frequency for example always when I
measure the 12 mega hertz I see only 11 or 10 megahertz in my uni-
t meter despite the fact the the board I am checking is a good one ..

Also if you have white or grayish screen you may have a missing
vcc panel its either vcc does not exist or it is there. but the
controller does not switch it on .. check the vcc panel you can
measure it on the panel itself there is a little board attached to the
panel and there is also a tiny fuse you can measure it after and
before the fuse . if before the fuse there is voltage and after it
there is none then suspect an open fuse . if there is no voltage
even before the fuse then suspect bad or open mosfet that does
not work even when the microcontroller turn it on or you have a
microcontroller that gone bad

the general recommendation is to check every thing in the main

board whenever you suspect that the main board is the source of
the failure
62
 This is the common lcd problems that are caused by the lcd
panel or the main board

Led amber no picture ( or blinking led) which means

the controller have not sense the presence of the synch
signals ) -
Vga signal is not present or main controller fail in such way that it
cant recognize its presence check the vga signal cable check smd
resistors in the inputs of the vga input

Led green and turns into amber (or begin blinking )as
soon as You apply the vga signal - this is main controller chip
classical failure

Noisy picture - usually this is caused by bad caps in the main

board

White or gray display-

All lcd repair manual refer to this failure as a white display but I
will say that it is gray because it is some thing in between.when no
video signal sent from the main board to the panel or the panel
will have no vcc to translate the video signal they receive to image .
the display we get is gray that is the picture produced only by the
ccfl while all liquid crystals are in a block condition never
allowing light to pass your panel the problem most likely is
missing vcc panel .. opened panel fuse …bad mosfet in vcc panel
bad controller chip or bad panel

White horizontal line - this is caused by shorted gate driver ic

panel and is beyond repair

White vertical line - this is caused by short vertical driver ic

in the panel and is beyond repair

63
Colored Dot or dots on screen -it is panel failure due to to
shorted tiny transistor that is switch the the voltage on and off thus
switching the light on and off when they fail and short they usually
on which mean they always pass the light

Conclusion

The main board and lcd panel are quit robust and usually
didn’t give failures when they fail we will not be able to fix them
..not because we reach to the limit of our ability ..but because of
the lack of spare parts a chip like ADC/controller will not be
available for sale in any spare parts website
You only have to replace the entire board again the board is not
available .so you have just to remove it from another junk lcd
monitor . panel failures are irreparable you have to swap the
entire panel ..panels are not generalized they are customized
which means that you cant replace 19 lcd lg panel with 19 lcd
Samsung panel main boards are also customized ..apart from
replacing ccfl you can do nothing . but the happy fact is that ccfl
failure is much more common than panel failure
Smps inverter and ccfl can contribute to at least 85 percent of lcd
monitor failure

64
 Power factor correction

Unfortunately power supplies are noisy the noise they

produce can ride on the ac 220 volt mains and distort it also the
way power supplies draw current from main electrolic capacitor
in short high spike pulses this is all cause our power factor to be
less than 1 which is not good I know that you may not know what
is the pfc or power factor correction

When a resistor load put across a 120 volt ac and since we

know that I = v/r

The current drawn is 120v/60ohm = 2A this is the simple ohm

law since the load is purely resistive which means no other
components with the resistor no capacitor or
Inductor the calculations are straightforward as if you were dealing
with dc voltage In the figure blue is our voltage red is our current
and green is our power Our power is always positive as you notice
it never gets down which means that our load resistor is always
dissipating power our power factor is 1 Notice that 1 is the highest
value of a power factor correction

65
 However if you put an inductor across the same 120 volt as
believe it or not the power dissipated by the inductor is practically
zero

Our green line is power our blue line is voltage and our red line
current
Inductors are known of causing a phase shift between the voltage
and current so when this one is in its peak the other is not and
vice versa this causes our dissipated power to be zero the power is
only absorbed and then return back to the source you also can
notice that our green waveform of power is alternating between the
positive and the negative which means it never get dissipated

The purpose of power factor correction basically and simply is to

force the voltage and current to be in phase

In the this example our power factor is zero because current

and voltage are out of phase another thing that makes our power

66
factor to be less than one is distorted noise voltage or current
waveform like the one shown in the next figure

In this example though the power factor is not zero but it is not
one

You notice that the current is in phase with the voltage but is
not sinusoidal in shape it is distorted actually only the part of the
current wave that is in phase with the voltage will get dissipated in
the load excessive current that does not
Contribute to the load power is wasted as heat on the power lines
wires .Worst it may distort the voltage wave of the main line further
lowering the Power factor for other equipments that are powered
by the same line it is up To the white knights of the technology to
eliminate this effects .and they did

Power factor in smps

In smps the ac 220 volt is rectified and filtered by the main

capacitor To form high volt dc that becomes the input voltage for
the smps The configuration of bridge rectifier followed by a filter
capacitor
Causes the capacitor to draw current from the bridge rectifier only
when the voltage On the main capacitor is less than the main line
voltage just look at the next figure

67
 The wave ABCDEF is the voltage on the filter capacitor the wave
ABXCDYEF is voltage wave if the capacitor is absent it is at the
moment cd when the current rush to replenish the filter capacitor
creating the undesired spike of Current (c) it is in these moment
cd and ef because in these moments the voltage of the line is higher
than voltage on the capacitor this spikes tend to distort the main
line voltage and send noise in it and also decrease the reliability of
filter capacitor
So lets remove it

Power factor correction circuit

68
 That is what it is all about plug in a diode coil and mosfet before
the main capacitor And perform the correction what is to done is to
apply the charge to the main capacitor all the time so the capacitor
stop drawing this high narrow current spikes when the line voltage
is higher than the voltage on it that is it

This is actually known as the boost power supply this is simply

a power supply type that produces high voltage from low voltage it
produces higher voltage from the fluctuating 220 v ac line and it
does that by monitoring the statue of the ac line when ac line is
low then big boost is needed the pwm controller keep switching
the Q1 transistor in high frequency this will boost the voltage to the
desired value if the ac line is already high the pwm will switch the
Q1 transistor in very low frequency because just very little boost is
needed in this way the capacitor is always have high charge on
it . no spikes no noise every thing is fine

69
 Notice that the vo which is applied to the filter capacitor is
always higher than the ac line with specific margin like shown in
the figure

Due to this fact you as a technician will always notice that in a

smps where an active power factor correction is used that the
voltage rating of the electrolytic
Capacitor is higher than normal. in conventional smps the cap is
usually around 400 volt . but when pfc is used it is usually around
450 volt sometimes 500 volt

70
SMPS WITH POWER FACTOR CORRECTION

71
 FREQUENCY COMPENSATION

ONE of the most avoided topics in smps is frequency

compensation the mechanism of its working has been over and
over again been described with math further complicating its
workings any way in order to understand what this circuit is
doing we must step back and describe oscillator theory

The oscillator is simply a circuit that produce ac signal from dc

signal it had been proved that in order for a circuit to oscillate the
output signal must be shifted 360 degree so the signal from the
output is additive to the feed back signal also another condition is
gain in order for the output signal to be additive the gain across the
entire loop must be at least one or the signal will be attenuated
each time it across the loop until it reach to zero . nice thing . that
what we wanted in an oscillator because its output is basically ac
but in smps the output is dc we don’t want ac we hate it we fight it
by all means we defend our smps with frequency compensation
.lets began
72
 What is happening in the previous figure is that the oscillator
gives a signal with amplitude of half volt and when it reach the
feedback network it is get phase shifted 360 degree and multiplied
in gain with 2 so 1/2 *2 = 1 volt
This one volt signal enters the oscillator and get multiplied with
1/2 and the result is 1/2 and the cycle continue forever as long as
the phase shifted 360 degree

In smps the different component simply behave in different

manner as the frequency change despite the fact that the output is
dc (so from where comes the frequency wael?) but it is dc rided on it
is The ac fluctuation that is cause by the constant change of the load
and ac line. another thing is the fact that feedback components
sometimes act like antenna pick up signal from different frequencies
that is coming from the air the smart designer notice this. If some
signal picked up and the loop components (transformer-opto
isolator-output capacitors etc) have shifted this signal 360 degree
and in that frequency the sad fact is that the gain across the entire
loop is 1 oh this is the conditions that achieve the oscillation and the
power supply will began to amplify this signal and spit it in output
our smps is noise we are lost so what to do

Bode plot

Don’t panic no maths will be used the beautiful English

language and the technician imagination is good enough …
mechanic engineer and technicians can actually see the gears of
their machines and every thing is common sense . but in electronics
specialization we don't see electronics we just have to imagine

Using some equations the combination of resistor capacitor

otosiolators and all components behavior(in terms of phase shift
and gain ) can be predicted along wide range of frequencies simply
they plot the phase against frequency and Gain against frequency
when ever the gain is 1 they ensure that the phase shift is never 360

73
(lest the smps will oscillate) when ever the phase shift is 360 (they
ensure the gain is never 1 (lest the smps will oscillate )

But how they ensure that ?. what they do? ok here comes the
frequency compensation
the compensation is always around one component the error
amplifier using combination of resistor and capacitors they can
determine the behavior of the error amplifier they shape its phase
and gain response

say at some certain frequency the phase shift of all comment of the
smps is 360 (except the error amplifier ) they ensure that at same
frequency the error amplifier contribute a negative value of phase
shift again dragging the entire phase shift less than 360 or
contributes a fraction gain( so the entire gain is less than 1) and if
in one frequency the gain is 1 the error amplifier will contribute
either negative phase shift or a fraction of gain dragging back the
gain across the entire loop less than one

they do that by changing the value of capacitors and resistors

actually in designing a smps the error amplifier is left the last one
they see what the component contribute to the entire loop in terms
of phase shift and gain they plot(draw) the entire response of all
component of smps phase and gain against frequency in what
known as bode plot once they get it they use the error amplifier to
correct or compensate the detrimental effects of the other
components in the loop

74
Resistor 160 k and 100pf cap are the components that establish
the frequency compensation task in this diagram

75
 tools and Test equipments
One of the most used cheap test equipment Is the digital
multimeter this thing can test a lot of components like resistors
fuses dc voltage ac voltage frequency continuity diode and
transistor you should always invest in a good multimeter my
multimeter of choice is fluke this thing is rugger and accurate it
can serve you many many years we will take a look at some
''must have'' test equipment and some specialized test equipment
that are not a must yet having them will increase your flexibility

Fluke 111 rugged and nice

Although a super meter but fluke tends to be little expensive if

you want to start with accurate meter and little cheaper then go
with a uni-t this is new Chinese multimeter that I have used
along with fluke it is very nice meter with very nice case and a lot of
accessories

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 Uni-t UT71A

Fluke 111 is always around 200 us dollar excellent but only flaw
is that it lacks wide range of frequency measurement uni-t UT71 is
accurate and had a frequency range of 200 mega hertz

while the fluke is only 100 kilo hertz big big difference uni-t
UT71 price is only 100 dollar. nice investment
Note that there are a lot of good meters that are solid and around
100 dollar but I only recommend this because simply I have not
used the others like extech bkprecision amprobe etc

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The esr meter ( equivalent serious resistance )

One of the most important meter that you will need it will help you
in your task

Esr meter is a must it allows you to measure the esr value in circuit
save you time and components (instead of replacing all cap you
only replace the defective ones)
There are a lot of versions of this esr meter however I recommend
the esr micro this is Russian made simple cheap easy to use with
digital display and with capacitance value range what could be
nicer only 50 dollar with free shipping

The esr micro it fits on your palm very tiny in size very
huge in performance and very cheap in price the
incredible formula

Capacitors are not purely capacitors the lead in them amongst

other things are causing the capacitors to have some resistance
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element in it this is ok as the resistance is usually so low and will
not effect the performance but as the capacitor ages especially in
heat plagued equipment such as the lcd monitor where heat has no
way out capacitors ESR increase as esr increase the capacitor will
lose it ability smooth the dc voltage the capacitor will allow ripple
voltages to escape
Esr problem in capacitor can cause almost any type of failure from
shutdown to no power etc the esr meter job is to test this resistance
equipped with a flowcharts that explains the naturals esr value of
intact capacitors so you can judge if the capacitor is good or not

Capacitance value on the left capacitors operating voltage on top

and the different esr Values in between if the capacitor have esr
reading like shown then it is good if it had more higher esr reading
then it is bad. in my experience the capacitor usually go 10 times or
more from these values however any deviation from the shown
values is suspicious

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The ring tester

This is the ring tester a device we use to test high Q

transformer

The ring tester is a must-have device this can test the otherwise
uneasily testable Switching mode power supply primary winding
that some times get shorted from over heat or heavy short….using
multimeter all you detect is short circuit whether it was a shorted or
intact winding clever people who know the characteristic or an
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inductor with a lot of windings know very well that an inductor with
many windings will definitely produce a lot of ringing voltages
waveform if it is subjected to a fast pulse …simply it will ring but
also notice that an inductor with many winding and have only one
winding that is shorted (short here means break down of
insulation between the wires and they began touching each other )
will produce highly damped waveform which mean simply only
few rings by counting this rings( or pulses) we can sort of judge
whether this coil or inductor is shorted (bad)or good in the
previous figure you see if only the first 3 leds that are red colored
are lit then this mean that the inductor is bad if 4 to 8 led are lit
this means its ok. You can buy the ring tester online or you can
build it on your own. I can see it is quite easy I ordered mine and
blow it after 2 years of use (my mistake)then I build another one
in a crazy looking box , In electronics servicing we use this thing
to detect shorted inverter high voltage transformer despite the fact
that they only ring 2 to 3 which is bad . but even a new perfectly
working lcd if you open it up and test the inverter high voltage
transformer it will actually most likely ring 2 to 3 (only very few
models the inverter rings 6 or even 8 leds) here is why. the inverter
transformer does not have a lot of winding as the smps transformer
so you will not expect more Than 2 to 3 lit leds if you in doubt
about the readings what you do is just to compare
in an inverter most of the time we have 2 transformers in the
inverter board of an lcd monitor it is extremely rare that the 2
transformers are actually simultaneously get shorted in the usual
scenario one of them is shorted try to compare between them test
the secondary winding in both transformers and see the results if 2
to 3 leds are lit in both transformers most likely they are ok

Notice that the smps transformer will actually ring full bar most of
the time . 5 to 7 ring is not uncommon

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 Also you must notice that we ring the primary winding of the
smps and because it is contains a lot of windings(than its
secondary ) and we ring the secondary winding in the inverter
transformer because it contains a lot of windings (than its primary)
If you are tight on the budget you can build your own ring tester
just download this link

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bobpar/k7205.pdf

Specialized test equipment

This things are not necessary but they will increase you flexibility
in dealing with electronics failures

Component analyzer

This nice 3 leged meter from peak electronics is used to check

the components and identify its type this thing can identify many
semiconductors like transistors (fet and bipolar ) . triacs
Darlington diodes etc due to many newer Chinese models of lcd

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monitor many new fet ices and transistors are of unknown pin
configuration and type
You cant tell if this transistor is pnp npn n-channel or p-channel fet
you need to know this so you can find replacement this thing come
in handy in this situations even the latest trench fet that is built-in
inside an ic package can be checked all you have to do is to hook
each probe in one pin and press and the result will be prompted to
you. each probe’s color represent one pin For example red base
blue emitter red collector if you were checking bipolar transistor of
unknown pin configuration

The oscilloscope

this is a powerful tool that make us see electronics in action so

far all previously mentioned test equipments produce numbers for
the measured value unlike the test gears oscilloscope. can show
you the actual waveform of the signal you are measuring whether it
was ac dc it will be shown on its screen we usually use scope in lcd
monitor repair to monitor the data activity between lcd monitor and
the main board it sort of tell us whether the main board is doing its
job sending the digitalized video signal to the lcd panel or not we
also may use it to check the inverter pulse that is coming from the
inverter ic or the crystal oscillator waveform .this is very versatile

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Test equipment its only problem is price nice scopes range between
400 us dollar to 1000 for a scope with good frequency range or
bandwidth

Sine wave signal sawtooth signal square signal

In this figure common signals waveform are shown Sine wave is

what the waveform of the crystal oscillator in an lcd monitor looks
like Square wave is what the output of the inverter ic looks like The
sawtooth is what the signal on the R-C oscillator in smps pwm ic
looks like. Just to mention where you may see this signals . we are
not going in detail about Oscilloscope usage or other test
equipment because its outside the scope of this eBook

Dc this a what dc voltage looks like on a scope. just a

line
The base line here means the zero volt line the 2 volt/dv means
that each square equals 2 volts then what is the value of this signal
lets count from base line to the dc line we have 2 squares and half
multiplied by 2 it is a 5 volt dc signal that is shown on the picture

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Ccfl tester

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 Ccfl tester

This is the ccfl tester a nice tool that deserve a place in the tool
kit of an electronics technician yet it is not very necessary I will
actually explain why it is not necessary ..the ccfl tester in the market
today are nothing more than an inverter in a box simply in the
matter of (chicken or egg) in determining what cause the inverter
to shutdown is it a bad ccfl or is it the inverter it self that has a
problem. what you have to do is the elimination method if we
bring known good ccfls and if they light up then the original ccfls
are defective or if we bring a new inverter and use it to test the
existing ccfl if they light up then they are ok and the inverter is
defective and that what the ccfl tester shown in the photo does ..
It is actually an inverter however these ccfl testers are not
exactly like the conventional inverter conventional inverter are
specialized to work with specific length and diameter of ccfl that is
how they are made their scientific name is the induction inverter
ccfl tester inverter is called the piezo inverter the piezo inverter
have interesting characteristic to produce the voltage as required
by the ccfl lamp which will light up all lengths and dimensions of
lamps used in lcd monitor and tvs it actually will most of the time
light up even a bad lamp that will not lit up by its original inverter
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this is bad property so you might wonder what is the usefulness of
this thing. ok
When you first light up a lamp my recommendation to spot a
defective lamp is to keep your eyes on the panel and observe what
kind of light is produced by the panel if it is reddish pink at the
first say 20 second then the lamp is most likely defective and
needs to be replaced .also it is nice to detect a broken lamp cause it
will not light up (will it??)

The sure test for the matter of (egg or chicken?) which is produced
by the inverter and the ccfl is to bring a new working ccfl and test
the inverter with it

Most of the time lcd monitor use 2 to 4 ccfls and when an obscure
inverter shutdown occur and we don’t know what is the cause we
must plug in new ccfl with out opening the panel and replace the
suspected ccfls

though each inverter wants specific diameter and length of ccfl

which might not be available but we find out that an inverter
which is used in 19 inch lcd monitor will always be able to light up
18 or 17 ccfl again if your monitor is 18 inch you can use 17 inch ccfl
for testing purpose and so on

Ok lets recap you have 19 inch lcd monitor with inverter shutdown
the display come briefly and then go off there in the corner of your
work shop you have a rubbish 18 inch lcd monitor with known
good backlight you dismantle it and take out the say 2 backlights
unplug the 19 ccfl backlights and plug the 2 backlight you just get
from the rubbish 18 inch monitor turn on your lcd monitor and
keep your eyes on lamps if they light up brightly and stay on
And never shutdown then the original lamps are defective if they
immediately shutdown then you still have some thing wrong in
your inverter

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 I use this method and it work for me perfectly fine you may say
that the ccfl tester is useless but I think it is really comes in handy
in lcd tv more than lcd monitors
Lcd tvs use from 12 up to 40 ccfls it is not practical to load its
inverter with 40 lamp because you will not get them easily and it is
just awkward that you put 40 lamp in your bench just to load the
inverter ..in this case your best bet is the ccfl tester

The light bulb trick

I don’t know if I can say that this trick is classified under test
equipment or under tools but it is very nice trick that I will teach
you in order to detect a short circuit in the primary side of the smps

Ok an lcd monitor come in for repair with the problem of no power

you opened it up and you find the fuse is burned it is black colored
you say wow it is going to be an easy fix you put in a new fuse and
turn it on and puffffffff the newly installed fuse is burned again
and you never win

First when ever you find a fuse that turn into black or have a
mirrored look you should always suspect that there is another
component that is shorted in the smps primary side . some time
more than one component . if all shorted component have not been
replaced the newly installed fuse will just blow again. some times
you replace the shorted components and only missed one and you
turn the power on and puffff…sad story even the newly installed
components are again get shorted we need some thing to detect if
there is still a shorted components with out risking the other
components. here it is
When a say diode in the bridge rectifier get shorted it will
keep drawing excessive current from the 220 v ac line this current
will exceed the rating of the fuse and the fuse will blow but by
putting an ordinary 220 ac light bulb (or 110 v ac if you live in
usa ) instead of blowing the fuse the light bulb will light brightly an
no other component will short out
With this trick you can avoid blowing precious component and the
frustration associated with the process

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You put in a new fuse .put the lamp. and turn the monitor on if
bulb is brightly lit then there is still a shorted component if it
light briefly and then becomes dim then you probably did it . no
shorted components . check the secondary output to see if there is
any dc output if there is then you did it congratulation .. ok see the
picture

Tool

You may buy them separate but in my case I tend to carry a large
bag like this one that include every thing one don’t know in what
situation he will need this or that type of tools so its recommended
to have all types of them believe it or not in some of my repair
cases I was in need of a saw and in other case I needed a driller

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Soldering equipment

A good and nice soldering iron like Weller brand is a good

choice out of question also Nice smd station is excellent for easy
removal of smd components

Also a nice product such as the chip quick is very very good in
dealing with smd components
This solder is having different melting temperature than the
conventional one
In other words this solder .once melt it will stay in this condition
for more time this will lets you cover the entire smd chip with
solder heat it and remove the chip with an incredible easiness

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My best collection of test equipment (look at the crazy
looking ring tester)

I even have the tool bag that I carry in my car

I am a tools -addictive

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 Conclusion

I don’t mean that you have to buy all this things or you will not be
able to start fixing lcd monitors But if you intended to start a well
respected business you have to posses all the previously
mentioned tools and test equipment if you want to just be able to
fix your own stuffs and make small business fixing lcds to a limited
number of shops that you work with then only digital multimeter
esr and ring tester are sufficient again your best tool is your
brain

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 Smps repair

SMPS are easy to repair in general . once you understand how

they work most problems are easy to to find

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 Smps example lcd monitor

Important note : whenever you measure some voltages at the

primary side make sure that you take the ground pin of the primary
capacitor as your reference (hot ground) and whenever you made
some dc tests at the secondary side let the cold ground(the vga
screws are a nice ground ) of the output filter capacitor as your
reference please don’t go wrong with this you will certainly blow
components (guaranteed )

Caution : the primary filter capacitor contains a lethal charge of

300 volt dc ..if you want to test components in the primary turn off
your lcd monitor unplug it and discharge this cap with a 220
ordinary lamp

94
lets divide smps problems into 4 categories and discuss each one
separately

first no power fuse is blown

when the fuse is blown and have a mirrored look we

automatically think that there is some thing that get shorted
blowing the fuse in the process putting in a new fuse will not help
…what you should do is to use the lamp trick(after replacing the
fuse) if the lamp glow for instant and then dim out then there is no
short and you probably fixed the smps but if it glow continuously
then you know there is real short and you must replace the
shorted component before refiring the.equipment . the first
component you must check is the bridge rectifier this things when
they fail they almost always short circuit .if you find them ok then
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test the mosfet and look for shorts between its source and drain
and also look for shorts between drain and gate source and gate ..if
you find only source and drain short then replace the transistor and
any other shorted component and plug in your lamp for testing
still there is short. ok now go to the line filter components the
blue gum-like ceramic capacitors are notorious for developing short
circuit test or replace them and refire the unit again short??? Ok
it is the filter capacitor despite the fact that capacitors when they
fail they usually increase in esr and-or lose their capacity value
the 400 volt rated main capacitor also notorious for developing a
short circuit .. direct replace it some times it work fine but
develops short circuit when under load so replacing it is a safe step
if you did all the previous steps you most likely solved the no
power problem just I wanted to add one important note please if
you tested between the drain and gate and find short circuit please
check the pwm between its output and ground for shorts and check
it again between its output and vcc for shorts why I am saying
this ?? ok some times when a short happen in the mosfet power
switch and if the gate get shorted to the drain or source a very
large pulse 300 vdc will reach the output of the chip that happen
before the fuse blow the poor chip will get shorted in the process .
you may not notice this. you may see that the chip is intact. but a
shorted chip will wreck a havoc in the smps if you don’t realize
it ..a shorted chip tend to put out constant dc at its output
instead of putting a square wave . so the newly installed mosfet
will be turned on all the time by this (failed chip) a lot of current
will pass through it and it will soon get shorted and the fuse will
blow ..the fuse will blow because you failed to spot the last shorted
component the pwm chip so it is enough to actually test the
pwm chip say the uc3842 between pin 7 which is the vcc and the
output pin 6 looking for short circuit (any thing less than 1 kilo
ohm is suspect) and between pin 6 (the output) and pin 5 (the
ground) this is a hair-pulling experience that I gone through and
I want you to avoid actually I can see my guide will help you not to
get bald so soon (joke)

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fuse ok no power

fuse ok means at least that we have no shorted components

your first step here is to turn on the equipment and measure the
voltage across the main filter capacitor
(assuming the voltage line is 120 volt ac ) you should find 160
vdc across that capacitor if it is low or missing check the main
capacitor for opens -diode bridge for open circuit- line filter for
open winding and for bad soldering if it is ok then next step is to
measure the pwm chip vcc for approximately 12 to 20 vdc if this is
missing then you have an opened start up resistor unplug the ac
cord discharge the main filter capacitor and look for one or two (2
to 3watt) resistor which have the value from 35 kilo up to 200 kilo
ohm measure them if they are intact then you have either a
blocked power supply or bad pwm . blocked power supply means
that the power has a short circuit in one or all of its outputs .turn
the power off. and measure all the output diodes replace what is
shorted some times the diodes are ok put the loads they sustain
are shorted ..in lcd monitor the power supply have 2 outputs most
of the time It have the 5 volt output and the 12 volt dc output I
have seen some monitors which have instead of 12 vdc a 15 vdc or
even 22 the 5 volt is sustaining the main board and the(12 or 22
vdc) is sustaining the inverter usually we check which source in
the power supply is shorted if it is the 5 volt we then separate the 5
volt dc from its load usually by unsoldering a resistor or link or
even removing the connecter that takes power to the main board
and check the power but if the short is in the (12-22 volt ) then
we have to do additional step ..first we have to remove the (link-
fuse-fusible resistor) that connect the (12-22 volt) to the inverter
board then we have to connect a automobile lamp from this
source to ground ..if the source's voltage is 12 then we use a 12
automobile light lamp
if the source voltage is 22vdc then use the 24 volt automobile as a
load .now you turn on the smps if the lamp glows and the voltages
check ok then you did it if not then you have as a last resort is to
replace the pwm chip also make sure you make full esr for all
capacitor and it is good that check all components in the primary
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side ..i believe if you do all this steps you will catch the offending
components…also before replacing the pwm you just have another
trick that I use is in such scenarios … remove the mosfet from the
power supply and in the board measure the dc voltage where the
drain was. you should find it 300 vdc(assuming your line voltage is
220ac) and measure the gate with a frequency counter or even an
ac range you should find it around 5 v ac or 30to200 kilohertz
depending on design so with this trick at least you should know
that the pwm is fine and producing the high frequency square wave
that drives the mosfet is after this final trick if the pwm produce no
pulses then its most definitely that it is a pwm chip an/or the
surrounding components that are defective

Test the vcc pin for 12 to 16 vdc

Remove the mosfet and measure the dc in the center pin ..of course
you Will test it from the board side not from the component side

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If after performing the isolation trick and the result is that there
are pulses at the gate but still the power wont work(once you
resolder the fet ) you then consumed all the tricks available
You should began direct replace all shown caps and the power
transformer as a last step

power is shutting down

this mean that at least the pwm chip is working but some thing
else is not ..for you to find any output for even one second this
means that the pwm chip have worked for one second pwm are go
no go type of device of you getting any output most likely it is
working this problems are usually related to output capacitors or
feedback components …shutdown happen because of an overload
condition …over voltage condition over load related to the fact that
the load gone crazy and pulling more current than what it should
the difference between over current and over load is that the load
is completely short and draw more more than it supposed but
over load means that the load is drawing a little more than it is
supposed so as we say before divide and conquer separate the
smps from its load and see what will happen if the smps still
shutting down check for high esr all the caps in primary side and
output caps check the sense resistor for the right value the sense
resistor is usually big resistor with the value that ranges between
0.2 ohm up to 1 ohms check it for open this will definitely shut
down the smps also check the feedback coupler and direct replace
the tl431 error amplifier also check for bad connection or change
in the value of feedback resistors ..bad connections in the feedback
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area are notorious for causing such failures again you can use the
aforementioned trick of separating the primary side from the
secondary side by unsoldering the mosfet and measuring the dc
voltage at its drain and the pulsating voltage at its gate if the
pulsating action continues with the mosfet removed then you know
it is not a pwm chip problem at all

But this does not mean all the components in the primary side are
ok because some components are related to the feedback I can
only exonerate the pwm chip and the start up resistors other
component must be checked and replaced

Output Voltage is too high

this was a very common failure in the old good days of crt
monitor repair this is usually caused by small filter capacitor that is
used to filter the voltage coming from the auxiliary winding of the
smps we know that this winding is used to ''tell'' the pwm chip
about the output voltage level if this cap fail it will tell the pwm
the wrong information it will tell him that the voltage is too low at
the output this will let the pwm chip to send a wide pulse driving
the mosfet on for longer time which will drive the voltage
unnecessarily high …look for a bad capacitor in the primary side
with the value of between the 47 to 100 microfarad and replace it
this type of problems are very unlikely to happen in the designs

100
that use the optical coupler as a feedback device and the auxiliary
winding as an over voltage information source
it require the failure of both the optical coupler and the mentioned
capacitor in order for such a failure to happen ..if the optical
coupler fail the feed back signal will be missing this will let the
pwm drive the mosfet with the widest pulse which will raise the
voltage at the output ..with failure of aforementioned capacitor no
manner how high the voltage raise it will seems low to the pwm but
again…even if both things fails which is extremely rare another type
of protection will shutdown the smps and prevent this over voltage
condition this is the overload protection ..overload protection will
be triggered if the feedback signal is very low or missing but it will
not trigger immediately it usually wait for some time and then
trigger the reason why should it wait is because some times during
normal smps operation a quick change in the load will change the
feedback signal to very low level the smps will wait for some time if
the signal stay low then the overload condition will kick in if it is
gone then the power will know that it is normal load transients

Output Voltage is too low

This is almost exclusively to to either a failure of output capacitor
or feedback components you may ask that if output capacitor fail
and the voltage gets very low this will trigger some of the
aforementioned protections but I want to tell you that not all
output voltages are monitored by the feedback coupler usually the
highest one is monitored in an assumption that if one output is
ok the others are also ok which is right except when one of this
pesky capacitor fail in unmonitored output the voltage will go
low and there is nothing to stop that …that is why you should
extensively check all the capacitors of the output … look for value
shift in the feedback resistor divider network and the value of the
ceramic and elytrolic capacitor surrounding it if you still cant find
the problem then change the tl431 and feedback a coupler as a last
resort I did it many times it work for me and it will work for you in
cases
The tl431 contains your reference voltage so it is must be replaced
and also the components around it must be checked

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 Inverter repair
Inverter according to my experience will fail in 2 ways either
will shutdown (display will appear then vanish )or will not work at
all (power led on yet no display ) ..that is where you can see that
your power is working but your display is dark ..inverter shutdown
is due to many reasons such as bad electrolic capacitors ..bad
ballast capacitor ..open or short in the primary or secondary
winding in any high voltage transformer.
Bad component or bad connection in the feedback area. bad or
opened ccfl..that is what I find every day .
After we determine that the inverter is the failure .we then can
focus our efforts only in the inverter area in order to solve the
mystery ..problems like display shutdown can be caused by almost
every circuit in the lcd monitor .. problems of no display but
power ok can also be caused by the main board not sending the on
signal or the start circuit is not responding to this signal because of
a failure in one or 2 transistors or a defective inverter

How to determine that the inverter is the source of

our no display or display shutdown ?

Very simple …lets test every thing else .first lets began with
ccfls fortunately all ccfls have the same plug so remove this old
ccfls and plug another known good ccfls you don’t have to
dismantle the display just plug them outside and see if they work
when you first turn on the display or not ..they will glow like your
flourcent light . but they will be much brighter . if they shutdown
then your problem is not in the ccfls .. check the on signal this
signal is sent to by a connector from the main board to the inverter
board in order to wake up the inverter if this is missing(or
fluctuating)the inverter will not work(or will shutdown) look for
3.3 or 5 volt dc if this is missing then your main board is the
problem so far we eliminated the possibility of bad main board
and ccfls now lets eliminate smps
Some times an output capacitor that is marginal will not cause
the smps to shutdown but the inverter will shutdown ..also an

102
opened fusible resistor or fuse will cut the power to the inverter
which will prevent the inverter from working test the inverter vcc
pin and enable pin(if exist) for correct voltages vcc usually from (12
to 22 vdc) enable is 3.3 or 5 vdc .. so I suggest when ever you
suspect the smps having problem you must check the esr in the
outputs caps and test the voltage output for correct values ..if there
is still doubt you must remove the link that carry the voltage to the
inverter and connect it to automobile light lamp and power up the
smps an see if the light continue to glow normally. and to be 100
percent sure test the voltages for the correct values fortunately they
are marked in the board ..now we eliminated the smps as a source
of the problem lets go to the inverter circuit

How to solve power led on but no display ?

The first thing you must check is the vcc of the inverter ic if it is
missing then it is most likely a start circuit problems (or opened fuse
in the inverter ) then try to test this transistors ..if the vcc is there
try to test the ENA pin. some inverter have this pin hooked to the
on signal even if the ic have a vcc voltage which in the range of
12to22 volt dc ..the ic will not work if the enable pin have no
voltage … in this case it is a main board problem . please note that
the ic that have enable pin. usually there is no start circuit because
the on signal is directly fed to this pin …

Voltage is there yet the there is no display . switch your meter on

the frequency range and look for a signal with some high
frequency ( 30khz to 200khz ).at the output pin of inverter ic
Some times the inverter ic work fine but
Due to bad fets the high voltage will not be produced to strike the
ccfls I suggest that you look for this signals first (even momentary
pulses )and then test the fets for opens or shorts .if no high
frequency signal produced by the inverter ic even momentary then
(.dont be mislead by thinking that shorted fets will open the
inverter fuse some you will see in my repair cases )

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.

this is absolutely an ic problem (or surrounding component)

because all other problem like opened primary winding or bad
ballast cap or bad feedback component will likely cause a display
appear then shutdown

How to solve display shutdown due to bad

inverter?

For the display to work even for a fraction of second then we must
have vcc on the inverter ic and at least one working
transformer ..as we say before we eliminated a bad ccfl and power
supply as a source of the problem we now know that it is an
inverter problem ..

If the inverter contains an electrolytic cap please check it for

high esr value this things are number one culprit of all types and
sorts of failures in lcd panels ..second thing to check. is the
feedback area try to test some semiconductors there try to find
short circuited ones and try to spot bad connections ..bad
connection also cause display shutdown I have see this failure many
times now jump to the high voltage transformers and check the
primary winding for open circuit check the secondary as well for
shorts using the ring tester and for opens using the ohm scale of
your multimeter thank god they are a twin so comparisons
between the 2 transformers is recommended . if one is opened
and u can not find a replacement then use the Libyan trick
Now if they are ok try to check the ballast cap for partial or
complete shorts if they are ok then you either have a transformer
or feedback component that fail under load this is a very hard
problem to spot I cant imagine that you remove and replace each
single transistor or diode or smd cap and replace it just to solve
this problem .this things are too tiny and not available ..instead I
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suggest that you should use the transplantation trick to solve this
problem ..

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106
Some important test points and common failure in the inverter(direct drive half bridge )board of the lcd monitor

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108
Some test points of buck royer oscillator

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 SMPS AND INVERTER REPAIR CASES

A digital receiver comes in for repair despite the fact that I

don’t repair this things because they are too cheap but I
decided to repair it because it was for one of my best friends

The symptom was no power jumping to the outputs for

my surprise I found that the 12 vdc 5vdc 33vdc -12 vdc are
all present except the 3.3 vdc was testing 2.7 which Is highly
suspicious I tested the ohm between this source and ground
in case there is some partial short because if it is a dead short
then the smps will shutdown the result was 2 mega ohm
which is any thing but a short . so I decide to check the
new-looking filter capacitor and to my surprise the esr
reading was 2 ohm at what should be 0.1 ohm . I even touched
the cap during working and great heat was emitted from it
replacing only that cap solved the no power issue the 3.3
vdc volt was sustaining the controller which will keep the
entire device off if the voltage reaching it is less than 3 vdc

Short circuit instinct

This story is one of my best repair cases about smps

repair .. an lg 17 crt monitor comes in for repair the
customer claim that all the shops in the city were even
enable to find what was wrong with this monitor…the
monitor will power up but the led will stay orange (even with
the vga cables pluged into a pc) …when the led stay orange
this primarily means that either the vga signal is missing or
the microprocessor is not working for some reason ..i open it
up

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 The monitor looks new I can see some people try to repair
it and I am happy that they didn’t damage it they just close
the beast up when they realize it will not be an easy fix ..i
took it as a challenge I began by checking the smps outputs
all outputs are ok 12 vdc -12 and 50 vdc and 24 volt dc
except one ..the 5 volt was measuring 4 volt I don’t know
why. I tested the filter capacitor at the 5 volt output and it
was fine so I decided to check the ohm between this source
and the ground I was getting some 950 ohm …this is called
a partial short ..i got excited I know I catch the beginning of
the the rope but I don’t where the ending will be the next
step is to separate the 5 volt from the rest of the monitor to
see what happen .the 5 volt in crt monitors is used to sustain
several circuits the processor is one of them it is also sustain
several transistor circuits in the synch and a nice power
connector is used to carry the 5 vdc for the osd and the color
output circuits so it is nice to just unplug this connector to
see where the problem lies …great surprise when I unplug
the connector and power up the monitor I can see the led turn
green I can hear the nice crackling sound of the high tension
of course there is no display yet cause the color circuit is the
source of this partial short …I even tested the 5 volt and it
was a solid 5 volt …going to the neck board where our
shorted components lie and one by one using the solder
sucker I unsoldered all the vcc pins from the ics located there
and powered up the monitor but for my surprise it is still
wont work the fact that I separate the vcc pins means that
the 5 volt source is no longer feeding this circuit but again to
my other surprise I can see that the 5 volt now is reading 4
volt ..what else could load the 5 volt to dead …if all circuits
fed by it are practically removed from the circuit ?…hmm…ok
full with determination I deiced to suck off all pins of the ices
located there and power the equipment each time one pin is
separated . it is in the 7th pin in the preamplifier ic that when
I separate it the smps works fine pin 7 is not a vcc pin but it
is called sda or serial data the processor use this pin to
communicate with the ic the voltage of this pin is always
held 5 volt by the 1 kilo ohm pull-up resistor ..when this pin

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 get shorted (ic fail) there will be practically 1kilo ohm across
the 5 volt output this is not a dead short that will cause the
smps to shutdown ..this is a marginal short that will reduce
the 5 volt to some value that will not allow the processor to
work normally and can drive you insane if you don’t know
what you are looking for . with the replacement of the ic
ks2508 the monitor works fine
Go figure problem in the crt color board causes no display
the key here is the smps

Lcd repair the transplantation trick

An lg lcd monitor come in for repair the symptom was

power on ok ..led is green
But no display at all this is typical inverter failure after
opening the lcd every thing looks ok I test the main board on
signal and it was 5 volt ..testing the vcc signal and I find it
again ok ..12 volt after more tests testing the primary and
secondary of the high voltage transformer yields nothing they
where both find with ring and ohm tests

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 So I tested the mosfet driver ices and I could see obviously
that the p-channel fet is shorted ..at that moment I had no
such ic in my part stock the problem that the customer was
unwilling to wait so ..there must be a quick solution I know
a method of taking the (power inverter /board) from another
lcd panel and implant it in the panel with the bad power
inverter board .I have done this trick many many times it
work like charm …but you cant simply put any
power/inverter board there are some strict rules that you
should follow in order for the transplantation to be successful
so
The first role is that if you have an lcd that have a
power/inverter board failure the replacement board should
be from a slightly wider lcd power/inverter board in other
words if your 17 inch lcd have 2 burnt transformer and the
lcd panel is beyond repair
And there at the corner of you shop lies a 18 inch or even 19
inch lcd monitor with broken screen then yes you can take
that monitor remove its power /inverter board. and put it
instead of the bad inverter/power board and bring the lcd
monitor a live

Again if you have a 18 inch lcd monitor with

power/inverter board that is beyond repair then you can take
your bad (broken lcd) 19 inch monitor's power/inverter
board and transplant it to win and bring the lcd back to life

Please notice that most of the time you will be surprised

by different physical dimensions and the sore fact that the
new power/inverter board is different from the original
one ..you may also try to use a driller to drill different holes
for the screws to fit your new power/inverter board in the
place of the malfunctioned one ..
I think I need to recommend you not to drill where a trace is
passing this will Spoil your new inverter/p board …ok one
last thing .. can I use a 17inch inverter/p
To fix a 18 inch inverter /p ? yes and no …I usually
refrain doing this but under one condition we can do it .please

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focus with me so you can make a successful transplantation
method …if . and only if the 17 inch inverter/p board is
feeding only 2 ccfl and the 18 inch lcd monitor's power
inverter board is feeding 4 ccfls then yes the smaller
monitor's inverter can fit in the wider lcd monitor…this is the
only condition ..for this last condition there is also an
exception …you cant fit 15 or 16 inch in 19 inch just because
the 19 inch had 4 ccfls inside it and the 15or16inch lcd
monitor 2 ccfl …basically for the transplantation to work the
difference between the 2 panels should be no more than 2
inches ..now what is the steps for such big trick to work ?

The main board requires 5 volt dc from the smps and the.
ground and it gives To the power board the on signal the on
signal is used to switch on the inverter it sort of saying hi
inverter please wakeup ..by removing this wires from the
main board and hooking them to the new board you are up
and running the monitor will work fine ..far more better
than tossing a way a nice lcd monitor or ordering an
expensive and scarcely available board from the
internet which will easily eat up your profit margin

See this is the bottom of power/inverter board you will

find markings on this board and the main board what you
have to do is to bring the new board remove each wire from
the main board and feed it to the new board so that 5 volt go
to 5 volt bright go to bright gnd go to ground etc ..i am sure

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you know it intuitively. by the way most of the time you don’t
have to solder at all. you just have to remove wires from old
inverter board and put them into the new plug of the new
power inverter board

Power factor correction trick

I confess I have never met active power factor correction

circuit in lcd monitors
The chinese manufacturers first priority is to keep costs
low ..to implement a power factor correction in an lcd smps
will obviously raise costs ..only in pricy lcd tv and some high
tech color laser printers where I spot this stuff.. when the
power factor correction circuit fail to work. you probably will
not know it. it will continue to work as ordinary smps ..the
most likely scenario is that the failure of the mosfet will blow
up the fuse so what you should do is just to replace the fuse
And the mosfets ..the mosfets in the power factor correction
tend to be high current mosfets which some times are
unavailable ..i don’t know if I should say this but some times
when the mosfet are not available in the market and the
customer refuse to wait for the order you just can disable the
power factor correction circuit the smps will continue
working as a typical smps and will consumes more watts
and be more noisy ..an Epson come in for repair this was
extremely expensive printer for a company nearby my shop
they ask me to repair it as soon as possible it was obvious
that they don’t want any delay when I opened it and scan all
components I found an open fuse and shorted mosfet and
when I realize that the mosfet is used in the power factor
correction circuit by simply following the drive of the gate..
that led me to the pfc chip fan 7527 .replacing the fuse and
removing the shorted mosfet brought the 4000 $ dollar
printer back to life
The company give me 200 hundred dollar (6 times the price
of the guide )For the repair.

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 this is the only place where you can remove a component of
the smps and the unit will continue to work normally and for
200 dollars I think my reader are getting convinced with
their purchase ????email me if you don’t

inverter circuit failure repair case

A 19 inch lcd computer monitor come in for repair the

problem was no power after opening up the case I can see an
obviously 2 bulged capacitors at the secondary side
capacitor failure is extremely common in lcd monitor the
capacitor dry out due to heat accumulate inside the unit …
this is good news for us technicians I cant count how many
times an lcd monitor come in for repair just because of
capacitors problems any way after scanning the board with
my esr meter I can see nothing wrong with any other caps..i
replaced both obviously bad bulged caps and turn the unit

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on ..power come up but there is no display.hmm also I can
hear zzz sound from the smps
from my experience such sound mean that the smps is
working with no load
some smps doesn’t sound happy when they work with out
load and thus producing such sound ..(joke)..power ok and
no display is the usually failure of inverter circuit
the inverter do not draw current from the smps that is why we
hear the buzzing sound …ok I began by measuring the
output of the smps the 22 and 5 volts the 22 read about 23
and 5 volt is 5 volts this does not mean that the smps fail and
produce 23 volt instead of 22vdc. no not at all it is 100 %
natural for a smps that work with out load to produce a little
higher than usual voltage to make sure the smps is fine lets
load the thing I removed one of the links that take the 24
volts to the inverter circuit and connect a 24 automobile
lamp there
switched the thing on the lamp lit brightly and the smps
output now is exactly 22 volt and also the buzzing sound
disappear . so now lets go to the inverter …I know it is
inverter from the first time but I must be 100% sure that the
smps is innocent ..ok what the inverter needs in order to
work ?
simply 2 things .the first one is the on signal from the
microcontroller board ok I can measure this voltage on the
connector that connect between the main board and the
smps putting my meter on dc voltage scale I can easily see it
3.3v is there .ok now lets go to the vcc of the inverter pwm
chip. ok I can see the 16 volt is there .it is 16 vdc because it
had been divided down to 16 volt dc

So the inverter is being given what is needed to light the

ccfls but the inverter refuse to do so. is it because of the load
or the inverter itself ? ..from my experience a marginal or
bad ccfl will usually light up briefly and then the inverter will
shutdown but with such failure where the panel never show
any display even for one second I do not think that it is a
ccfl failure scenario ..to confirm I bring a known good ccfls

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from a broken 18 lcd panel to test the inverter ..true
enough the inverter refuse to light up a known good ccfls
even for second so it is an inverter problem ..so far we
eliminated smps and ccfl for no display problem we also
measure some test points in the inverter to no avail ..now I
try to perform some tests on the high voltage transformers
unfortunately .both transformers pass the ohm and the ring
testing

So where my techniques fail ..looks like it is a haunted

monitor ? I keep my eyes on the monitor I think I have
seen it blinking back challenging me ..and I do accept the
challenge ..the only thing that I have not tested is the
mosfets relying on the fact that if they are shorted the fuse or
the fusible resistor will open circuit or the smps ocp
will shutdown and also the power fets where integrated in
one ic package so testing them requires at least downloading
the data sheets of these ices In order to know where is the
drain gate and source ..after some tests I concluded that
the p channel fet is shorted drain to source here I was
wondering why the fusible resistor have not get opened but if
you just review the schematic that I was able with a miracle
to find in the internet you will know that the mosfets where
capacitvly coupled to the transformer which mean If a short
circuit happen (and it does ) there will be no short circuit
seen by the smps. in other words the aforementioned
coupling capacitor will not work until there is switching
action or ac signal …when there is a failure that will
prevent the switching action such as this failure where the
transistor is always on because it is shorted . the capacitor
will not work because capacitor do not pass dc
I was lucky to find one monitor that lies in the corner of my
shop that has the part I just wanted to solve the mystery .i
remove it and soldered it in …turn the thing on yepee it
worked again and the outcome of this repair story
Is that assumption are allowed in electronics we can always
think that if short circuit happen the fuse will go open and/or

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the smps will shut down due to short circuit protection …but
there always be exceptions to the general rules

19 inch LG lcd monitor inverter circuit schematic

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 The Libyan trick

I have never named it so . actually the name come from

an old friend and expert us technician his name is
randyfromm
This man has over 30 years of electronics repair experience I
personally regard him as the most skillful electronics
technician of all The time
..he has a practical electronics repair school just go to
website mentioned below to find how you can get his unique
service ..it is when I wrote this article of a way to enable the
monitor to work even if one transformer Have failed
which give the choice to perform the same for lcd tv which
have one transformer that gone bad I like how randyfromm
put it and his unique introduction so lets listen

Dear Readers,
Regular readers of Slot
Tech Magazine are aware of a somewhat mysterious collection
of electronics-related files I received from a technician
in Libya. The collection included lots of educational
material on things like power supplies, CRT monitors

and LCD monitors (not to mention networking, mobile

phones and a hos of other, non-gaming-related
material)

The gentleman’s name is Wael Fathe (he said it was OK to

identify the source) and he is working in a difficult

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environment to say the least. I kid him about having to ride
his camel

over to the Internet Café but I have a feeling it’s not

a whole lot better than that for him, especially when it comes
to obtaining replacement components. Often,

there is simply no easy way for him to obtain parts.

Although Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi has renounced
terrorism and remains the longest ruling and most fabulously
well-dressed world leader in modern times, many US
companies will not deal

with Libya out of an abundance of caution. This often

leaves Wael in a position familiar to many

slot techs who are working at properties in the boondocks, the

lack of immediately available spare parts. Of course, here in
the USA we can always order the parts and get them in just a
few days, no matter how remote the location. In Wael’s case,
he often must resort to cannibalization but where even that
option is unavailable to him, cleverness can be substituted for
a component. This is the story of an LCD monitor repair that
Wael performed, wrote up and submitted to me as an
example of performing an LCD repair, Libyan-style, when the
replacement part is simply
unavailable I present it to you because it illustrates how the
inverter and CCFL work together
to light up the display. Yes, you can do this yourself if
necessary. No, you probably do not want to do this if the
monitor is in a bank of identical machines as you will be
operating with half the luminous flux and there will be a

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difference in the visible brightness of the display (but far less
than you likely imagine). Enjoy Wael’s story-rf

Hi Randy. How are you? I just wanted to share with you my

repair story and this one is not conventional as well so listen.

The Symptom A customer had brought me an LCD monitor

that would only briefly show some display and then,
shutdown. power LED is still lit only the display is dark. First,
I opened it and checked for bad connections (I found none)
and then an ESR check ESR check of the electrolytic
capacitors revealed nothing the power supply tested OK as
well so it is an inverter problem. I have some spare lamps and
so I told myself if just one or two lamps are bad, maybe when
I replace them, the inverter will work. When I connect the
lamps to the upper side, they glow briefly and then they
shutdown. This is the same as the original problem so I
haven’t found the problem yet. When I tried to put them on
the other side (this monitor has two transformers, each one is
powering two CCFLs) they refused to work at all, not even one
second not even one bit of glow. There is one transformer that
does not produce the high-voltage AC at the output. Why? I
compared between them and true enough, the offending
transformer has an open primary winding. Now this is not the
end, I know. The transformer is almost impossible to get but I
know another technique to fool the inverter IC is to give it the
feedback signals from the good transformer/ lamps and feed
them to the other side. The IC thinks that the transformer
is working and it never shuts down the monitor. The monitor
will work perfectly well with only two lamps in operation. The
amazing thing is that the LCD is still very bright and the other
thing is that we have still two lamps for future use, the lamps
that one day lost their transformer!

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How it is Done

First, I sucked the solder off the pins of the transformer so it

is no longer attached to the circuit as sort of a safety step.
Referring to the schematic diagram, in my case, transformer
TX1 is the one that has an open winding. Then, I connected
the “Open Lamp Protection” circuits together. I connected
OLP1 to OLP3 and OLP2 to OLP4. I also connected the two
“Open Lamp Regulation” (OLR) nodes together. OLR was not
easy to find in the board as it is not marked. One should
follow carefully the circuit until he reaches D4, which is a
dual-diode in the same package as a small, surfacemount
transistor. Once the OLR points are found we just have to
connect them to each other. Feedback (FB) was ignored
because if we connect the two OLP nodes, FB will be taken as
a result.

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The schematic of the inverter of the 17 acer lcd monitor

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 References

1- switching power supply design by ibraham L pressman

2- big blue book by randyfromm
3- lessons in electric circuit by tony R kuphaldt
4- the slot tech magazine
5- www.sencore.com
6- www.fairchild.com
7- My 111 electronics repair center daily challenges

For online support

King_waeel@yahoo.com

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