After seeing this, I did try it on a nearly identical TV (Sharp LC-70LE745U) just an hour ago. This TV had spend some years outside, in a covered patio, and it's got vertical lines. I baked the board. Still has vertical lines. Oh well. Every site I saw that discussed this made mention of it being a last resort. This is the last step before the dumpster, so why not?

As for the electrical components...I think some of the components in your car probably live a much worse life than a board in an oven for 8 minutes. Fuel injectors, coil packs, oxygen sensors. They last for years and years.

Devil's advocate time; one expects that the manufacturer of a product for a car would take environmental extremes into account and require tougher tolerances.

Oh well.

One might. One might also be disappointed by such assumptions. And, engineers can make mistakes.

One more thing to consider: getting up to 150 degrees in a car, over and over, is not the same to solder as getting it up to 250 degrees for a minute. In some things, duration is a factor. In some other things, the exact state is the issue and it doesn't matter how long it's in that state.

I'm reminded of a movie, I think called Mixed Nuts, where they could not decide on the amount of time to cook the Thanksgiving Turkey. They did some funky math and got six hours at 350 down to a bit under 200 degrees... for sixteen hours. It's not the same!

That, Ernie, would result in potentially fatal turkey. Don't try it at home.

If we want to look at the auto perspective, there are few electronic devices mounted in the engine bay. The ones that are, usually have heavy insulation/shielding and are mounted 'around' the engine bay (where they rarely see heat over 200-250°F).
Injectors and other devices that are mounted on the engine itself (or near the exhaust manifold) are relays that are encased in epoxy. And can take several hundred degrees of heat.


Back to the board in the oven. Capacitors, IC chips, and other components that are rated to withstand temperatures of up to 90°C (194°F); will absolutely take damage at the 200°C (392°F) temperature the idiot in the article is trying to get people to do. Which by the way - the idiot couldn't even convert °C to °F correctly.
Anyone that knows how to solder (and has been taught how to properly) knows what happens if you put to much heat onto a component to long.

I also love how in the article, he says solder joints will "degrade" over time. No dumb-ass, no they don't. Solder joints can crack from stress, heat & cold, and other environmental factors. But it doesn't just degrade on its own.
I could find no name attached to this totally BS and bogus 'internet' article. Maybe it was another 13 year old troll, that loves watching people get suckered into doing stuff.

Well Brad Humphrey, you have to realize that I need a new board anyway. So there's no harm in trying it. It was in there for 8 minutes. I'll see how long it lasts.

True. But the additional damage done to the board should show itself soon. I'm kind of surprised it came back on to work at all.
Bets on how long it stays working? Week, month?

If it actually goes a year, I'm going to throw my hands up and just say "screw it all". Because it would defy ever logic that defines electronic circuits. And you know crazy crap like that always happens when someone has made such a fuss about it - :(

Brad, your opening sentence describes the procedure to a tee. The fact that the television will work for a short period of time does not ensure that it will last. The poster accurately predicted that he would have to replace the board anyway, so I would agree with him that he had nothing to lose. Especially as a hobbyist. Picture Mike's repair shop having to install an oven to fix Sharp TVs... But the fact that it's working out is purely coincidental. It probably created a thermal event that altered some component temporarily.

In fact the melting point for 60/40 solder is 370 degrees. So, a soldering iron is going to be running considerably higher than that. You will not fix a single solder joint at 250°, period, end of statement.

I believe that was well demonstrated in the movie.

Still working!

That's pretty cool. I ended up buying a replacement board for mine and that didn't work. I guess I'll toss it in the oven and see if that helps.

LOL, that's awesome. I hope it stays working for you.
It just doesn't make any sense thou :) That board should be dying... dead.

Mike, you should absolutely put your board in the oven. I want to see if Dan's was just a fluke or if there is a pattern to this :)

Will do. I'll let you know what happens.

I've never tried the oven but with the old XBOX360's and with some old HP laptops they were known to have, mostly video chip solder connection issues. They could be brought back to life, at least for a while, by taking the heat sinks off and covering as many components as possible with aluminum foil and reheating the solder connections around the main chip with one of the very small (pen sized) butane torches. The HP laptop I did it to worked for over a year, the XBOX I was not so lucky with, LOL! You can search and find all kinds of threads on both. BTW: the solder used on most, I can't remember the term, but basically surface mount electronics, has a very low melting point, it not like regular solder that you normally use (which is part of the reason for the failures to start with).

Just noticed some lines again a couple weeks ago. Next day they were gone and haven't seen them since. Touch wood. So the fix seems to have lasted quite a while!