It's amazing the stupid things that fail on cheap TV's. I had a Sharp 19" TV here last year that I found roadside. Late 90's black box. The problem was the plastic pushbuttons on the front had broken. They were flimsy little plastic lever things, attached to a frame with thin plastic flexible linkages, that just push down on those board mount tactile switches in the front. The power and volume buttons were broken, and I noticed (after I got it home, of course) that the picture tube was badly scratched. I saved it though - three days later I found another very similar TV, with broken channel buttons and a broken power button, a good picture tube, and a non-functional chassis, in a banged up cabinet.
So, I combined the good parts, The cabinet, chassis and channel buttons from the first, and the picture tube and volume buttons from the second. The power button got replaced with a generic panel mount momentary pushbutton, mounted in a washer that I glued into the hole from inside the cabinet. I gave it to my friend's roommate, so she would have a TV. It gets used daily and it's still going strong, a year later.
Not many people would go to that much trouble though - and had I not found both sets in the trash within a week, it's no doubt that I would have returned the first from whence it came.
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Originally Posted by dr.ido
This applies to more than just TVs. My 20+ year old fridges with non-existant energy star ratings have outlasted and will continue to outlast the new 5 star models.
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Yes, this is definitely true. Those old refrigerators do work well. My friend has one. A 1972 GE refrigerator, in coppertone gold. It works great... except the seals around the doors are worn out. I went to/called every appliance store in town trying to buy replacements. They don't have them, and can't get them. And there isn't really a cross-reference for fridge seals. And short of making careful measurements and getting one custom made, this fridge will be out at the curb next summer. The humidity in the summer time causes the freezer to frost up extremely thickly within two weeks. It's not a problem in the winter...
-Ian