Our Samsung TV has been on the fritz for about two months now. It had the habit of only working when it felt like it., and it mostly didn’t feel like it. I don’t miss it, except we watch the news for the weather in the early morning. We have now settled into The Escapee’s, North Ranch, between Wickenburg and Congress Arizona.

I cleared the deck for action and de-mounted the TV from its perch in the front of the coach. I proceeded to open it up and stirred the guts a little. Actually I unplugged each board in several places and checked for the required voltages. I had also watched a video about swapping capacitors on the power supply board. That guy had bulging capacitors, a sign that they are near the end of their life. I figured that if we had bulging capacitors we, Judy and I as a team, could de-solder and replace them. Judy holds the soldering iron and with my shaking hand I dab in the solder.

Our capacitors look bran new. Now what? Well I plugged everything back together and would you believe it, it started working again. The video suggested updating the tv’s firmware, so I watched more videos and got that done too. It played the full length of the Augusta Masters without dying of boredom, so I figure we are good to go.

The TV now occupying the Co-Pilot’s seat, and wires are dangling everywhere. In the morning we will mount the TV back over the windshield. I have to support the TV with cordage until I can get a half dozen screws through the mounting boards. Once I get it supported I will be assembling the cabinet around the TV. You see we used a big shoehorn to get this TV in the hole where the old CRT based analog TV sat. Our big mistake was making the hole a custom fit for the 26 inch Samsung UH27EH4000 model. They don’t make it any more and no other 27 inch TV will fit in the hole. Which brings me to the original thought for a blog today. “The redesign of the TV mount to fit a TV that is a half inch larger.” Now, at least for the time being, we are just fine with our Lazarus TV.

The TV has been mounted back in its station today. I checked out every function and it is good to go. I rather tuckered myself out getting the screws all tightened properly. You have to work at arms length over your head in a void space that is just a bit larger than the drill I was driving the screws with. Final seating was with the ¼ inch socket set but often times I had to improvise by taking the square drive bit in a ¼ inch open end-box end wrench and turning the whole wrench, bit and screw, 1/6th of a turn at a time. I don’t know how many times I caught myself unscrewing a screw I had been trying to tighten for 20 minutes.

And now, just as I am finishing this blog, it dawned on me that I had neglected to put back two screws that support the middle of the roller shade. There! That is done and now the job is done. Whether for a day, or a week or many years only time will tell.