[geeks] Wal-Mart

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 01:08:43PM -0500, Sandwich Maker wrote:

Sent privately.

> i see lots of stuff on my local freecycles that are described as
> nonworking and/or with some problem or other, 'an easy fix but we just
> bought a new one' or 'but if you're handy...' which clearly shows that
> a. they're not, and b. they don't know what they're talking about.
> one was a tv which had suddenly dropped blue, which generally means
> that the picture tube is bad, and since the tube is the bulk of the
> set's cost...


I would say the opposite. Very often when a TV set (or monitor)
drops a color, the LAST thing that is wrong is the picture tube.
Most often it is something else, and since the supply chain is
full of bad capacitors, I'd bet it was a capacitor.

However with that said, I don't have the proper tool to test a capacitor
in circuit, or trace a TV set's signal path. Not only that, but at this
point if I had an income, I'd dump all of my CRT TV's and monitors
except for one that is less than 2 years old and replace them with high
quality LCD's.



> i have two old window fans, same model.  the first i 'inherited' years
> ago when my mother downsized; the second i picked up a couple of
> months ago two blocks from my house, where it was left for trash
> pickup.  it looked like it'd never been cleaned [20+ years] and the
> bearings were so dry the motor would barely turn.  unscratched,
> undented, an easy r&r.  why was it tossed?  see above.

My experince with the ones made in China in the last 10 years
is also the opposite. You can clean them up, you can oil the
bearings, but no matter what you do they will freeze up again.
20 year old fans were probably made with bearings that would
last forever, new ones are made to self destruct, no matter
what you do, in a year or so. And yes, I do use the correct oil.

Geoff.
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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