Written by Jonas Haydn Meritas on behalf of Harvard Components, Inc.
Welcome to this eGuide! I hope you enjoy reading it. Most importantly, I hope you get your TV or VCR repaired. We wouldn’t want that not to happen, because we’re a caring bunch here at Harvard Publishingâ„¢.
Joke Alert
This guide is completely unserious. It is not intended to be taken seriously, nor do I expect you to perform any of the actions described here.
Introduction
This book is so good it doesn’t need an introduction.
Warning (it’s only here because of dumb legal reasons)
Don’t kill yourself as a result of performing the operations described in this book. If you do, we’ll have to pay your creepy loved ones for the rest of theirs and our lives so give us a break and help us to make a big meaty profit out of selling this book.
Disassembly
Need we say it? Before you can start fixing the problem, you need to get to where the problem lies. And they usually lie in the guts of the device.
For disassembly tools, we recommend the Harvard Toolsâ„¢ BlockBuster Classicâ„¢ and Harvard Toolsâ„¢ CrowBar Stealthâ„¢. Of course, cheaper variants may suffice but we do recommend you fork out the extra cash for Harvard Tools’ great quality reputation. And for this job, quality counts.
Basically smash open the case of the TV or VCR (the crowbar is handy for getting the metal plating off the outside) until you see what looks like shattered green panes of glass spill out onto the ground. This is the remains of the circuit board. Snip all the wires connecting these pieces, as we need to look at all the pieces individually.
Careful!
By the way, I hope you didn’t smash the glass on the TV (called the Cathode Ray Tube). If you’ve rushed ahead and done that, too bad. You’ll have to buy a new TV now.
In the VCR, if there’s a tape (or remains of a tape), you’ll need to get rid of it, as it’s probably not the problem, as you already thought to try a different tape before repairing your VCR, or, at least I hope you did.
Diagnosis
In this section, we describe finding the fault in your TV or VCR.
First of all, get any gunk off that may be creating short circuits on the circuit board. My favourite way of doing this is dipping the board momentarily in Sulfuric Acid; however if you don’t happen to have a Sulfuric Acid manufacturing plant in your backyard, Methylated Spirit will also suffice.
Ouchies!
Make sure you wear gloves while handling Sulfuric Acid. It burns, so don’t try it. We already wrote a disclaimer at the beginning of this book so we refuse to pay your loved ones anything, so if you die, it will have been in vain.
Next, check for obvious foreign matter that may be jamming up the mechanical system (doesn’t apply to TVs), like chewing gum or various items of cutlery, or even bits of crockery…I don’t really know. Use your common sense. Stop pestering me.
Anyway, there might be some dead animals somewhere. See if there are any dead mice in the CRT. They might have seen some of their fellow species on the TV and tried to join them and gnawed a little hole in the side and got sucked in because of the vacuum. Stop watching veterinary programs. They attract all sorts of critters.
Last, but not least, check for weak electrical components by wiring up the pieces of circuit board to a high-power welder. If one of the transformers or microchips or capacitors or something on the board fizzles and melts, then that component doesn’t pass Harvard Componentsâ„¢ stringent quality specifications.
Recovery
When you have found the location of the fault, replace the faulty component with a new equivalent quality Harvard component. You can find them at all leading Harvard Componentsâ„¢ retail outlets. You can also find a large quantity of them buried about 1km under the sea bed just off the coast of Hawaii, as the factory watch-cat was sleeping next to a large crate of them when someone came up and shoved a handful of pop rocks and about 300mL of Cola (the brand of Cola in question is, due to stupid legal reasons, unnamed) down the poor kitty’s throat and it soon exploded, severely damaging the valuable components next to it. Also, we got a 5m deep and 20m wide crater in the ground which we periodically fill with water and have a swim when we should be working on welder-testing capacitors or writing semi-useless books like these.
You will then need to reassemble and glue the pieces of circuit board together with some plastic glue. I hope you remember what order the pieces were in before you started. If not, then just glue them in any old way. It might still work — who knows?
Then, wire all the connections you snipped previously together with a soldering iron. Harvard’sâ„¢ SolderMarchâ„¢ X2000 should do the trick. It doesn’t really matter exactly where the wires go, as long as they make an electrical circuit, eventually. That’s the basic principle of mathematics. Actually, I think it’s the basic principle of electricity. Or hang on…I’m not really sure. You can test to see if anything melts by once again wiring it up to the welder. The warmth this creates in the circuitry can also help to make more robust connections.
If you’re repairing a VCR, then place all the moving parts back into their former positions and place the circuit board where it was. Then put it inside the case. If you’re doing a TV, then make sure the CRT sits firmly and the remote sensor fits snugly into place in the outer casing.
Any obvious evidence of the repair (from marks made by the blockbuster and crowbar) can be easily covered up with our very own Harvard Componentsâ„¢ MagiGelâ„¢. Simply fill any large dents with this gel and it should harden. If it doesn’t, you probably spoke harshly to it before when you first opened the tin of MagiGel and commented about the smell. The MagiGel can be painted with ordinary acrylic paints.
Testing
Testing is a very important part of the process. Otherwise, you never know what’s going to happen when one day you sit down and hit the power button.
Remember the welder test I’ve mentioned several times already? You’ll want to do that with the whole TV or VCR assembled now. Wire up the two terminals of the welder onto the two slanted contacts on the electrical cable and turn the welder on. If no smoke comes out of the device, then well done.
Watch out!
Welders are powerful devices! Make sure you don’t accidentally have a stuffed bunny rabbit or something similar wired up the electrical circuit (how on earth you’d do that, I don’t know) because it will be burnt!
Now plug it into an ordinary electrical power socket on a wall. Your TV or VCR should now work. But remember, if it doesn’t, simply start again from the beginning of this guide.
