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Samsung 214T - Worth it to repair?

Frick

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I bought this monitor for a few bucks quite some time ago with dead caps on the PSU and the "two seconds to black" syndrome (meaning it turns on screen gets black after a few seconds). Caps was replaced, but it was still not working, so I left it at that.

Now it turns out one set of the CCFL tubes is broken. Quite broken, so I assume someone's been poking around in there, causing trouble. I did plug in some lamps from another monitor when it was in parts, and that worked, but they didn't quite fit.


So the question is: Would you consider it worth the money to get a new set of lamps? This site has a set for a whopping $60 with shipping, TWO sets can be had on ebay for roughly €35ish. One of the reasons is that it's bound to be better than the monitor I have now, aaaaaand a larger combined working area is not to be sneezed at.

Yes I could scavange lamps from various monitors (a friend of mine is a good scavanger ;)), but if I'm gonna use it I want the backlight to be somewhat consistent.

So, what is your opinion?


Some specs:
21.3 inches
S-PVA panel, 1600x1200
8ms gtg
Contrast 900:1
Pivot, and S-VHS which I would find extremely useful

and so on

Thanks for looking!
 
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I think it's a bit much to fix an old small monitor. I bought my 24" benq for €40 second hand, so I think a good deal on a used monitor might be better. Still, if you like to fix things, €35 is a small price to pay for your hobby :)
 

Frick

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I think it's a bit much to fix an old small monitor. I bought my 24" benq for €40 second hand, so I think a good deal on a used monitor might be better. Still, if you like to fix things, €35 is a small price to pay for your hobby :)

Problem is there are no such good deal to be found. I payed about €35 with shipping for my current monitor, and the only reason it was so cheap is that the seller was new (swedish ebay) and it didn't have a stand. Also the past couple of years used monitors have gotten crazy expensive for some reason. Normal 19 inchers gets sold for €30-40, HD monitors are rarely seen at all and if they are they go for €90 and upwards. And I live in a small place in northern sweden, most of the good trading goes on locally in metropolises :)rolleyes:) in the south. I see nice items sometimes, but plenty of people don't want to ship the monitors.

Also, this is supposed to have a decent image quality, the only general problem is inconsistent backlight, which would be solved with new lamps (and a recapped PSU, it seems that was a MAJOR issue with this thing).
 
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I would have fixed it, a 1600 x 1200 monitor is just ridiculously expensive new, and getting a working monitor for 35€ is not bad (and it is for 35€, unless you can get the money you spent on it up to this point back)
 
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Get some suitably sized LED strips and replace all the CCFLs with those. Embed an adapter inside of a suitable voltage good enough to drive the LEDs and you should get the monitor better than new. ;)
 

Frick

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@Brusfantomet: Turns out it'll be closer to €50 (damn that shipping). But as I bought the monitor for less than €20 I would end up with more money if I ever sold it.

@itsakjt: Yeah been thinking about that as well. Will have to look around.
 
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Get some suitably sized LED strips and replace all the CCFLs with those. Embed an adapter inside of a suitable voltage good enough to drive the LEDs and you should get the monitor better than new. ;)

You shouldn't ignore the fact that color gamut and reproduction accuracy depend directly on the backlight. There are other factors, sure, but taking bog-standard "white" LEDs (which are actually blue LEDs with yellow filter coating) will net a color gamut and accuracy of a typical $350 Compaq laptop...

*shudder*
 
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You shouldn't ignore the fact that color gamut and reproduction accuracy depend directly on the backlight. There are other factors, sure, but taking bog-standard "white" LEDs (which are actually blue LEDs with yellow filter coating) will net a color gamut and accuracy of a typical $350 Compaq laptop...

*shudder*

Of course. Better the LEDs, better the backlight and hence color gamut and accuracy.
@Frick - You can also try to get a broken glass similar sized panel and salvage the CCFL units from there. ;)
 

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Hard option although i believe i am leaning more to no.. I have a 204B here and as long as your looking at it head on it's sweet all so have a cheap ASUS one here and it's no were near the quality ( just every things bad compared ) of the 204B and that cost then again $140 aint cheap for a display that cannot hit over 1440.
 

Frick

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Hard option although i believe i am leaning more to no.. I have a 204B here and as long as your looking at it head on it's sweet all so have a cheap ASUS one here and it's no were near the quality ( just every things bad compared ) of the 204B and that cost then again $140 aint cheap for a display that cannot hit over 1440.

Had it been a normal TN panel I would probably not have got it in the first place, but it's a PVA panel. I will probably buy some tubes when I can spare the money.
 
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