Recession boosts demand for repair services

It is ironic that something as adverse as the economic recession would provide the stimulus needed to increase demand for repair services. But as statistics from OnForce Services Marketplace Index show repair interventions accounted for 63% of all job orders. New installations for consumer electronics products accounted for only 31% of job orders as reported in the CEPro feature article.

Will repair activities again become a vital part of Customer Service? Surely, the time has come once again for electronic repairers to use this opportunity to maximize the practice of their skills. This is also the chance to cultivate a closer relationship with the customer and encourage them to adopt a mind-set of reuse and having their defective sets repaired instead of throwing away the defective appliances. This will also reduce the volume of e-waste going to the garbage dumps.

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This increase in demand for repair services can be seen as the consumers way to minimize spending on new appliances and use the savings for more important items.

Troubleshooting Philips CTV 21PT3932: Black OSD problem

Symptom: Black on-screen display(OSD)
Cure: Replace diode BZX79-C3V9 on board location 6601.
Repair Details:
Set used the L9.1A chassis.
Picture and sound is good; the only thing obviously wrong was that the OSD was black.
When the +3.3V supply going to the microprocessor was measured actual voltage reading was at about +5V. This indicated that the +3.3V supply regulator circuit was defective. The +3.3V supply was restored to its specified voltage output when the BZX79-C3V9 was replaced. Normal color was also restored to the OSD.

Cleaning the optical lens of CD and DVD players

'No disc' error message appearing on the front display of the disc player or screen of the TV monitor can often be solved by cleaning the lens of the disc player.

So in my years of working as technical support engineer for a multinational consumer electronics company one of the most frequently asked questions that I have come across from end-users of disc players was how to clean the optical lens.

Always the answer I gave to end-users was to try to clean first the tiny, delicate optical lens of their disc player with a cotton bud before bringing their player to the repair center.

Later, I found out from one service information document that there is a right way of cleaning the optical lens than just brushing its surface with the cotton bud.

OK, according to the service information you have to brush the surface of the lens with the cotton bud lengthwise -- not in circular motion as I myself had been accustomed to do earlier.

For top-loading disc players the optical lens is easy to access. Just lift the tray door and the tiny glass eye looking up at you would be the optical lens. Cleaning the lens would be easy. If the lens looks blurry it might help if you slightly moist the cotton with rubbing alcohol to take away sticky dust or dirt.


For DVD players, you need to take off the top cover of the set. Then remove 2 screws on top of the loader.



After removing the screws the optical lens can now be rubbed with the cotton bud. Always remember to rub lengthwise along the direction of optical pick-up travel.