How to Fix a Westinghouse LD-4680

Our friends were given a 46" LED LCD TV that didn't work. The previous owners were watching TV when it just turned off. It sounded like it was worth a shot to try and fix.

With the TV plugged in, there was no LED, no beep, no picture, no signs of life. 

When I unplugged the power supply from the TV, it measured 19V as it should. I grabbed an old 19V Dell laptop charger and plugged it in to the TV and the green light on the power supply turned off. I figured the TV was shorting out the power supply.

So I checked the internet and found that a common problem was the LED ribbon cables short out. I went straight for the common problem, hoping nothing else was wrong. This was one of those lucky cases. Here's how I did it.

Take the stand off the TV by removing the six screws. If you're following along, I hope you have enough sense to lay the TV flat before removing the stand.

Remove the back, by removing the screws around the perimeter and the two screws near the I/O ports. Slowly lift the back cover, being careful because the cable for the buttons is attached. You can peel off the tape and unplug the wire.

The five screws along the top row are machine thread screws. Also the two screws next to the inputs are machine threads.

Remove the small metal panel (centered between the two speakers) by removing four screws.

Remove the screw holding the remote sensor to the front bezel. Then remove the front bezel (the front frame around the entire TV).

Remove the 15 clips that secure the front glass in place.

Remove the screws that secure the plastic trim pieces on the sides and bottom.

After removing the bottom plastic strip, you can see the LED bars and the ribbon connectors on the edges, one on each side. The usual problem is a short between the ribbon cable and the aluminum light bar frame. 

I left the top plastic piece in there because I didn't want to deal with all the LCD panel connections. But I removed the side and bottom black plastic strips.

I lifted up the panel, including the plastic sheet at the bottom and unscrewed the LED light bars using a right angle screwdriver. I used the speakers as spacers to hold up the display panel.

You can disconnect the ribbon cable by flipping the socket's black lever up, then sliding the ribbon cable out of the slot. This style of connector is commonly used with this type of ribbon cable. I then cut and attached black electrical tape around the edge of the light bar.

Carefully re-insert the ribbon cable and flip the black lever closed to secure the ribbon cable in place. Then screw in the light bar and it should look like this. I had to peel the cable off the frame to get a little more slack to screw in the light bar.

Here's a quick power-on test before re-assembling the TV. It works, so it's going back together.

Here's the TV connected to a computer as a monitor. There are a few LEDs not working on the bottom left. It looks like a connection problem. I'm not very motivated to take it apart again. Allow yourself about two to three hours for this repair if you decide to try it.

Fixing My Car With a Little Help from Above

I've rebuild a couple power steering pumps because it's so much cheaper to buy the rebuild kit and it usually isn't hard. But this time, I probably should have bought the remanufactured pump instead. It would have been worth spending the extra $35.

My new-to-me 1999 Cougar had a leak, so I thought I'd fix it. It seemed like it had an oil leak coming from under the power steering pump. I took the belt off, and was having trouble getting the pulley off the pump because the engine mount was in the way. Time to get serious. I pulled out the coolant reservoir, jacked up the engine, removed the engine mount, power steering pulley, and the cover plate over the power steering pump.

Disconnecting the power steering hoses made a mess and I couldn't tell where the leak was anyway. So I put it back together. I made a bigger leak. This time it was running down the side of the engine and was obvious that the shorty pressure tube had a bad o-ring. No kudos to Ford engineers this time. Instead of being able to just put a new o-ring on, I had to buy a new $5 part for $25.

Teflon o-rings? Really, Ford? One-time use and that's it. Destroyed. They don't even fit right brand-new. Time for teflon tape instead. Apparently it works just as well.

After a few days, I was still smelling oil burning on the exhaust pipe. Since the power steering fluid level seemed a little lower than I remembered it, and the pump was wet with oil, I figured I'd rebuild it. It shouldn't be too hard.

This time I went straight for the coolant reservoir first, then the engine mount, and then the belt, pulley, and cover plate on the power steering pump. It was much easier this time. I figured I'd be done in an hour. My wife is used to my time estimates for working on cars. She doubles my estimate, and then adds another 50%. I figured that sounds better than saying she triples it.

After a quick look-over on the pump, it was obvious I had to remove the circular clip on the back of the pump. After a half-hour of trying to pick at it, I managed to rotate it and see the hole in the side. If I'd only read the instructions . . .

Poke the pick through the hole and voila! I popped the back cover off and proceeded to take it apart. Then I got to the little clip that holds the shaft on. I figured a pair of 45 degree needle nose pliers should do the trick. I heard the clip go bing! ting ting ting. [Don't ask me to do the sound again.] Okay, it must have landed somewhere on the other side of my table.

After looking around on the floor for a minute, I figured this was going to be a lost cause. I'd have to take a trip into town and waste two hours to buy a 25 cent clip, if they even had the right size. It was time to ask for help. Please, God, if it's your will, please help me find that clip. I opened my eyes and saw it sitting down inside a bracket on the lawn mower deck. Wow. I don't think I've ever seen such a speedy answer to prayer. 

I replaced the two o-rings inside the pump, the one on the back cover, the front seal, and aligned all the parts back together. It was kind of a pain getting the insides lined up and back together. I must have taken the back off at least four times trying to get it back together. The kit didn't have a replacement teflon ring for one of the plugs, so I used an o-ring. I think it's holding, but I'm not sure. I could have left it alone and been fine.

On the pressure hose, I didn't want to totally squash the new teflon o-ring, so I didn't tighten it all the way down. That was a mistake. Although it wasn't leaking when I put it back together, it was by the next day. I made another oil mess on my driveway. I tightened the pressure hose fitting until it stopped. Apparently the teflon ring isn't what holds the pressure in. Maybe it's just to keep dirt out.

Right now, electric power steering sounds really nice. There's no fluid to leak out. I still don't know if I fixed all the leaks.

How to Build a GPS Navigation PC in Linux

For this project, I used my old Acer Aspire One D257 netbook PC and a
GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS receiver (or see the GlobalSat web site)

The total cost was only about $35, just the cost of the GPS receiver.

Brief Overview

1. Install a Linux operating system.
2. Install gpsd, xgps, and Navit.
3. Copy /etc/navit.xml to ~/.navit/navit.xml
4. Download a map from openstreetmap. Copy to ~/.navit/maps/yourmap.bin
5. Edit ~/.navit/navit.xml 

Software Installation Details

Operating System
For the operating system, I installed the 64 bit version of Lubuntu by writing the .iso image onto a 2GB micro SD card using the USB image writer program that came with Linux Mint 17. Then I inserted the card into a USB card reader and booted the netbook PC from the USB port.

After I installed the Lubuntu version of Linux, I had to play around with the settings in the Lubuntu Software Center so that it would update the available package list. Even then, searches were still agonizingly slow.

GPS Software
Once the software center started working, I installed Navit navigation software.

Then I installed gpsd. It makes it easy to get the GPS receiver working. And it works well with Navit.

I also installed xgps to test the GPS receiver. If you type xgps in a terminal, it will give you the link to install it if you don't already have it.

To test the GPS receiver, the instructions that came with it said to use the following commands:

su root
 
stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 ispeed 4800 && cat < /dev/ttyUSB0

This didn't work out so well, or at all. It works if you split up the second command into two parts. Then you get to see gibberish. That's not a verification test in my opinion.

Here's how you test to see if the USB GPS receiver is working.

1. Install gpsd. If you don't already have it, type gpsd in a terminal, and it will tell you the command to install it. Then you can highlight it and middle-click it onto the command line.

2. Plug in the USB GPS receiver.

3. Run gpsd. But you need to specify where your GPS device is. If you just try the command gpsd without any command line arguments, you'll get this error:

gpsd:ERROR: can't run with neither control socket nor devices

So I used the following command to tell gpsd to look at USB port 0:

gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0

4. Run xgps. Once the red LED starts flashing on the BU-353-S4, it's locked onto your GPS location. You should see a list of satellites and a picture of the sky view. (I had to re-boot my desktop PC after installing the software before xgps showed satellites.) Since I don't want to publicly share my GPS location, here's a screenshot of the program without any satellite data, before I re-booted my computer:

Setup Navit

Download a map from the navit planet extractor. It uses maps from openstreetmap.org
Zoom in on the map area you want to download, then under map controls, click select. Then click on Get map! It will download the file to your Downloads folder.

Create a folder called maps in ~/.navit/
(The folder will be created after you run Navit for the first time.)
Rename your map file to something like UT.bin
Move your map file to ~/.navit/maps/

Edit navit.xml
Copy /etc/navit/navit.xml to ~/.navit/navit.xml
You can use this command:

cp /etc/navit/navit.xml ~/.navit/

Use gedit to edit ~/.navit/navit.xml

Search for openstreetmaps and it will find this section:

<!-- If you dont want to use the sample map, either set enabled="no" in the next line or remove the xml file from the maps directory -->
        <mapset enabled="yes">
            <xi:include href="$NAVIT_SHAREDIR/maps/*.xml"/>
        </mapset>

        <!-- Mapset template for openstreetmaps -->
        <mapset enabled="no">
            <map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="/media/mmc2/MapsNavit/osm_europe.bin"/>
        </mapset>

Change it to this (changed text is in bold).

<!-- If you dont want to use the sample map, either set enabled="no" in the next line or remove the xml file from the maps directory -->
        <mapset enabled="no">
            <xi:include href="$NAVIT_SHAREDIR/maps/*.xml"/>
        </mapset>

        <!-- Mapset template for openstreetmaps -->
        <mapset enabled="yes">
            <map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="~/.navit/maps/UT.bin"/>
        </mapset>

Save your changes to navit.xml.

Run Navit
You should be ready to run Navit now. If you have your GPS unit plugged in and xgps shows satellites and your location, Navit should start with your map loaded and your GPS location circled.

Click on the map and it will disappear and show you a menu.
To navigate, click on actions, then click on town.
Type in the town you want to navigate to. Click on the suggestion.
Then click on Streets. Type in the street name. Click on the suggestion.
Then click on House numbers and type in the house number. This step never works for me. So hit escape or click the green check mark to go back.

You can add it as a bookmark or set it as a destination. Adding it as a bookmark is good if you don't want to enter it every time. Since the house numbers feature isn't working for me, after I click "set as destination", it plots the route on the map, but ends up at the wrong place on the right street.

I haven't yet actually used it to navigate, so I'll probably update this post soon.