We managed to avoid a $300+ repair recently by fixing the capacitors in our Philips 42″ plasma TV ourselves.  The unit is only about 3-4 years old and we were really disappointed it started having problems so quickly.  Sometimes it wouldn’t turn on, and would simply flash the red LED seven (7) times slowly.  I decided to do some research on the internet for possible home solutions for this plasma TV repair.




There’s actually a lot of information online about this problem, and how to do the fix.  Both my bad capacitors were 3300 mF / 10V / 105 degree centigrade rated.  They both were slightly bulged at the tops, with a small amount of black material coming through the top.  Every other capacitor on the board had a shiny, flat top.


Before you start the job, make sure you already have the replacement capacitors on hand.  I had to order mine online on eBay by searching, “3300 10v”.  Fry’s and some other specialty stores didn’t have the exact replacement.  I wanted to use an exact match, these are both radial, 12.5mm diameter by 20mm  height.



I also found it extremely helpful to research how to remove and replace capacitors.  If you need to be pointed in the right direction, this video will show you everything you need to know in 3 minutes.  Also, if you’re a little intimidated to do the repair still, here’s another YouTube video with the same model number.  Apparently this is a very common issue and if you can do minimal soldering, you should definitely try this repair first before consulting a professional. Here’s a link to a totally decent soldering iron that is appropriate for this type of repair, just make sure you buy some flux as well.

While waiting for the parts to show up, I tried assembling everything and then started getting 6 long red LED blinks, then 3 short rapid ones.  Turns out I forgot to plug in one of the cables which caused the different error code (the bottom plug in the picture I forgot to plug in, the new error code relates to something with the bottom flat plug).  Hope you have as much success as we did doing this repair yourself.

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