So, for the second time in my life I have short circuited an electrical appliance. Years ago I managed to ruin a laptop by accidentally touching the usb socket with the power cable plug. Today I managed to do the same to the smart telly by trying to connect the hdmi cable from a DVD player.
I don’t know what is happening but it’s the second device in two days that has unexpectedly ended it’s power transmission. On Thursday the old cd playing sound system just stopped switching on. There’s nothing wrong with the electricity supply to everything else and it didn’t trip the switch so must be just bad luck.
I have found out that there is no way to fix this once it happens. But any advice from those who have more knowledge of electronics than I do, or just an explanation of why it happens would be helpful so that I can avoid it going forward.
In another life as a technician, lighter fluid was cheap and a great contact cleaner in the days before the stuff that destroyed the ozone layer. Do you remember the old TVs with a turret tuner? Inside the set they were a mass of contacts.
A friend of mine did the usual - splashed a bit of lighter fluid about and wiped the contacts with a rag. He must have been too quick or too enthusiastic with the fluid which usually evaporated in quick time.
Anyway when he turned on the TV to test it, it erupted in flames. A spark must have ignited the fluid - Now that was a repair gone wrong.
On getting home I popped it into the slot in the meter and pressed the appropriate button to receive the gas. There was a funny beeping sound. Oh dear… I’d inserted my debit card by mistake which was somewhat disconcerting! No worries, after a quick visit to the convenience shop over the road I was relieved to find it was still working… PHEW!!!
Trying to work out how you did this Annie?, if you tried to plug in a power cord into a usb outlet it shouldn’t cause any damage as the power end should be insulated, of course, turning the power off before plugging/unplugging , will be the better option…
It seems as if contact isn’t being properly made between the HDMI plug on the on the ends of the lead and HDMI socket on the TV or DVD player. The first thing to try is using another lead. Make sure it is engaging without force and then pressed home firmly.
It could be that contacts need cleaning but I feel that would be quite rare with HDMI plugs and sockets and probably best not to use lighter fluid. It could be dust in the socket. Contact cleaning may not remove dust. A gentle dust with a small dry paint brush should be OK if it is that. I keep an air duster can for that kind of thing (available from Amazon)
I turned the telly sideways to plug in the HDMI as it’s standing diagonally on a chest of drawers. The HDMI socket was at the far end so had to turn it a bit more. Both the dvd player & telly were plugged in and the last move was to connect the HDMI. The telly was on & I could hear it but when the HDMI connected it switched off.
I have just tested the power cable on another appliance & it works fine. I tried another cable on the telly & it still doesn’t work.
Note to self - switch things off before connecting anything.
The power on the telly is off completely but it’s very possible that there may have been dust in the HDMI socket as it hasn’t been used for years - could that have made a safety system kick in and shut the telly down completely? I have come across electric blankets that have such a safety feature so you have to throw them out when they stop working, but didn’t know smart telly’s had it too.
I wonder if there is a geek school of electronics where students want to learn why this sort of thing happens. It’s not worth paying a leccy fixer + VAT when I can get a replacement for £150. All this just for the sake of binge watching the White Lotus on DVD as it’s not on Netflix!
