How to turn a broken T.V. into an amazing light! 

We currently have no idea when that may happen, my friend's shop was infested with mold and right now he is kind of on hiatus do to that. He has yet to find a new location :(

The Samsung TVs are great for modifying, I had the same results with them as well where they just worked without any need for additional wiring. I have used some of the plastic sheets that came with the TVs for diffusing the light as well, usually on the older CCLF ones because the metal frame holds them in a bit better. I have found that over time many of the plastic sheets will start to sink down and droop over time which is a tad annoying. All in all they are some really good lights to have and absolutely worth the conversion. You simply can't beat the performance for the price if they come from a broken TV some one tossed out.

I'll pass along your appreciation for the music to the artist! Thanks for dropping by.

Sure is, that's why I show how to tie in the 3.3 and 5v into the PWM feed for the back light. Many people have had issues with trying to use their TVs with the logic board for the very same reason. But when you get them running right they are great lights.

Standby mode is built into the logic board. I remove those completely. If you are having issues with it staying on at that point please check the comments for solutions on how to run a PSU with the safety protection time out.

If only I could grow a majestic beard too lol

You're not a kidding, lights of equal performance are often time MORE expensive, it's kind of strange to see. It's been a huge help to many friends and other shops alike.

now I'm gonna grab every tv ppl toss out in the trash hahaha! tysm!

Glad to hear that!

😺🥰💯👍🏼

Yes you can run the LEDs without the power board. The safest method is to use lower voltage DC and group the LED strips in a parallel configuration. This means placing all positives together and all negatives together from each LED strip. While some basic soldering and modification will be required it's still not to difficult. Once you have them wired in parallel, count the LEDs in a strip and then multiply this amount by 3 to find your voltage requirements IE 7 LEDsx3=21v. Once you have your voltage then consider each strip to consume about .3-5 amps so multiply the total number of strips by .5 IE 8 strips x.5=4A. Get yourself a suitable AC adapter or PSU to run them. IE if 21v @4A is needed then get a 24v PSU that is adjustable ( most metal box do it yourself PSUs will have an adjustment pot by the terminals ). The other not so safe way is to make a magnetic reactive supply. That method can directly drive LEDs in large TVs using a transformer like a magnetically controlled choke. If you are interested in this method and are ok with mains voltage projects let me know. It's cheap, relatively quick, but also higher risk.

You need to pull out the main board and manually wire in a turn on signal or figure out how to bypass the smart section if it's combination board.

In the future I hope it's long and grey or white so it goes with the wizard outfits I plan on wearing.

Zenodilodon lol

12v probably won't be enough. Take the amount of the leds in the chain and multiply by 3 that's the voltage you will be close to needing. Often they try to use higher voltage for the whole string. I never did get to the full modding video with my friend. There are many many ways but they can be tricky as well. You may also be able to hack a driver from a cheap LED buld to run all the strips in series. Best of luck!

@@Zenodilodon Wow! I'll give it a try. Thank you so much!👍

Are you making your T.V. into a light? If so it's best to remove the main board if possible ( some are combined boards ) and just directly rewire the PSU pin header as needed.

It's the GeoForms screen saver by nVidia I don't see it listed under their screen savers anymore but the demo may still have that function. www.nvidia.com/coolstuff/demos#!/geoforms

Hooray for pyrotechnics!

The fear keeps you alive!

This is a very trial by test kind of thing, most of them are usually a pull up signal on the PS ON and backlight/PWM pins on the power supply board. However many power supplies can have different markings and power on connections. Most of them are labeled and pretty easy to get started with a few guesses. The ones with labels like 12v/24v are for power output when the power supply is activated.

@@Zenodilodon and here I was hoping for a compiled list of pinout sources. Either way, thanks for the method pointer.

@@VenomsDelight lol, I would also like a complete list of sources too. That would make things so much easier for me as well!

Electric bill?.. It's all grown up and is Electric William now.

Er, never had this comment before. Thanks? lol Zeno here has a wonderful lady already.

Audio mixing is tough when you're half deaf... But I am getting better!

I just watched your video about magnetic reluctance. Needless to say at least I used more than 0 words.

Please check your last comment for typos. I am confused " Depositors/Ally ". if each strip has 23 then yes it would be 23x3v ( 70v ish ) That's a difficult voltage range. Most PSUs won't generally go that high and a magnetic reactive set up isn't really able to drop that kind of voltage. You may want to check out some of the capacitor dropper videos. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--n22cqZkxNQ.html

You should be able to. You will need to have a pretty good understanding of electronics to do it though. You will need to make a PWM/duty cycle generator such as a 555 timer. Once you have a circuit that can make the desired signal you will need to connect up the output of that PWM/D signal generator to the PWM/enable pins of the TV PSU for the backlight control. This isn't a very simple task though, if you're new to electronics this will take a few nights of pondering and work to get it to function as desired.

@@Zenodilodon cool thanks

Tamed hair is the first step to wearing a business suite. Not for me!

It's funny because it's true.

You can do a simple test to find out. LEDs are often controlled with PWM so if you spin around something like a string with a small weight on it you can see if the string's motion looks solid or if you see multiple strings such as if the PWM is running and acting like a strobe light. If the string looks constant then it should be fully on.

Some boards are set up to go through a power check when plugged in and require the pins for the back light to be connected a few seconds after the PSU is on otherwise the lights turn off after a second.

Ideas come with knowledge and skill. It's quite hard for me to give you ideas, but if you're interested in learning about electronics there is a decent PSU and other parts that can be salvaged or re-used. If it's 2012 era it might have CCFL for the back light which makes for good high voltage projects. Sounds like though if there are problems with the TV in general that the main board friend, you might be able to find replacements for that. Aside from those options I don't really know what to say, learn from it or find some one who likes electronics locally and see if they can use it.

120 watts at max brightness, they can be dimmed. Also compered to shop lights of the same size it's pretty efficient. Keep in mind this is much brighter than normal 8-20 watt bulbs used in homes so this is far more suited for garage/shop/industrial/photography use where you simply need the brightness. At lower PWM modes it really only hits about 30W though.

Actually I have a whole bin here of these Cree strips that I knock the phosphor tops right off off and I get some crazy bright dark blue light strips from those. otherwise I would rather purchase 3w 405nm led beads, you can get them at a pretty good price and have a bunch of near UV LED lighting, it's just more efficient to go that route for the power/heat and stuff. The options are endless really.

@@Zenodilodon Word!!! Sounds like you're in the know! I just did the fakie black-light thingy with my kids because I make black-light paintings and it was a fun project. I'm most def checking all the fancy doohickeys you talked about though cuz lots of cheap black-lights sounds Dope AF, Thanks for your time Homie!! Much Love!!! ✌️

I have a TV similar to that for my workbench, I had to set up the PWM on a switch to ground to shut it off and turn it back on. Some TVs have a type of fail safe where if the backlight comes on right away the PSU knows the logic board is disconnected and then it shuts off.

hahahahaha

Glad to hear of your success, Enjoy your new light for many many years!

Hmm, you say they where working before? hmm do you have access to anything like a multi-meter? You can also send pictures to my email ( listed in the about section ) and i can see what the configuration is. Some TVs are all in one boards which don't have the same wiring. The TVs with a combination PSU and logic board are pretty much impossible to hack easily. You can run some tests with a multi-meter to see if you may have a failed LED.

@@Zenodilodon It's working again! I am a total noob at this stuff, but I watched some more videos and learned some more stuff now. I also stripped it down to the leds. I will leave out the thickest piece that is cracked on one side. It has a lot of undamaged surface area so it can still be used for something. I will put back in the mostly translucent layers (2). Or maybe I will leave out one of the layers. They are so cool!! Thanks for replying, I appreciate it dude!

@@dianamcole Hey we all start off as total no00bs with this stuff but I tell you it gets more fun the more you get into it. Glad you're getting more life from those parts! I use those LEDs for various projects, they have a pretty good CRI overall and are nice and bright. Some of the layers from the TVs are like prisms, I keep them and put them over posters and stuff. I also cut sections out and make LED flowers out of the prismatic material and they look awesome!

I have one here that I use for my shop light, it also times out if the light is switched on at the same time as the PSU, however it works fine if you turn the PSU on then turn the light on. If you are struggling to figure out the pin out it's easiest to look for the capacitors for the 12-24v output and ignore them. This leaves you with the 3.3/5v output for the standby power. From there you can pretty much attach any wire to the stand by ones the PSU is activated through a 10 k resistor. The one I use for a shop light for my videos is set up with 3 switches on a longer network cable to the PSU, one switch is PSU on, the other 2 are for backlight on and to change brightness from 50% to 100%.

@@Zenodilodon Thank you for the response I appreciate your help!

You should be able to pump in your own PWM signal into the LED driver that's on the TV already if it has PWM pins. The LEDs run at like 3.3-3.5v each, though there are some higher voltage dual chip LEDs in the ( rarely so ). If you use a PSU with a somewhat adjustable PSU you should be able to find a suitable voltage range to work with. There are also some LED specific PWM controllers which may be cheaper, many can run up to 24v and can handle quite a few amps ( Also RF remote controlled versions ). If you have questions feel free to ask away and I will try to help you out.

​@@Zenodilodon ​ I'm playing with a couple different options here, so I'll give a little more background... I was first inspired by this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rG3rOdFUcTg.html ... but on a much smaller scale. I have about a 7' by 4' workspace in my office where I build model planes and such, thought that lighting the entire ceiling above that space would be epic and fun. No shadows, and just cool. And I already have LED strips and a 30amp 12v power supply. I picked up the speed controller (because best I can tell it's the same thing as a PWM dimmer and handles a lot more power). The method @coltography used in that video didn't work well for me. I only had about 3.5" of vertical space, so my LED strips are much more poorly diffused, and even if I double the number of LED strips, I still get a very unpleasantly striped ceiling. So, I started looking for better diffusers to no avail, thought about alternatives like Endlighten Acrylic, which I found absurdly expensive... And that eventually lead me to the TV parts idea. And when I realized I can't just throw my 12v LED strips in there and expect the same even backlight results, that's where I found you! The current plan is to use the diffuser materials from 3x 55" TVs (I have one so far) and fit them in like ceiling tiles. Current options I am debating between: 1) Give up, be ordinary, install the recessed LED lights I also have on hand. Probably the most logical choice, just not nearly as fun! 2) Use the TV power supplies, as you've suggested. These seem to be the best drivers for long-term stable LED use. The one I've got so far has all 50 LEDs wired in series and seems to be current regulated. The challenge is figuring out the power up and PWM functions for 3 separate boards, and I feel like the likelihood of getting a single switch and single dimmer control to work for all three is low, or at least really complex. 3) Rewire the LEDs to work on my 12V power supply. I don't mind a little soldering, but this does also take some time. The question I have is whether I underpower the LEDs slightly by going with 4x LEDs per series, or go with 3x LEDs and a resistor. Reading online, it sounds like not using a resister is highly frowned upon, but I'm not sure what the benefit would be of all the extra work.

@@Zenodilodon I found some answers to #3 on StackExchange and it sounds like for a high-power situation, my simple 12V supply is not going to be the best option. So, I'm back to option #2 and having a hard time figuring out the power on sequence. I have the following terminals, with the associated standby voltages: GND SW ANA/PWM BR I VAMP (19v) NC STB (0v) 12V (9v) Jumping NC with 12V seems to get something turned on as the 12V terminal raises to 12v. But it doesn't power up the STB rail (I think it's supposed to be 3.3v). I can't seem to jump any other combination of things to get the lights to turn on. Once I get the board fully powered on, any guidance on using the PWM terminal? Pot across PWM and some voltage rail? Or will it need pulse signal? For what it may be worth, it's a Sharp LC-55Q7030U and the power supply is labeled Hisense RSAG7.820.7748/ROH model 222177. And it works fine with the control board attached... before I hacked the connecting cable for my testing :-)

Sounds like your PWM input signal is floating, check the PWM/brightness wire and try connecting this to a 3.3 or 5 volt output on the PSU board with a 1k resistor in the connection.

My friend and i where going to do a whole video on the PSUs and making alternative power supplies but his shop was closed due to mold ingress. I may have to eventually do a follow up on this myself. It's kind of baffling how many people have struggles with getting these to run. I understand it can look tricky/intimidating if someone has never done this mod before but it's usually just 4 wires, I don't know how much more simple I can say find these wires, now twist them together which in most cases work. Maybe you can give me a little insight on what to cover in that sense because at this point it's second nature to me. it's one of those strange " It's hard to play piano badly if your good at it " situations.

Thanks for the kind words!

Check for 12V, the PSU may be an always on version, if there is no power try connecting STB to ground or SW. If that give you power then connect 2 equal resistors (5-20k) in series between ground and 12v. Connect the BR to the middle point between the 2 resistors (+6v at middle connection ) to adjust/initiate brightness. This is just a guess as every TV is different. If you use a 10 resistor on the wires you can freely connect and test without damage or harm.

@@Zenodilodon Thanks for the quick reply! I do have voltage measured b/n 12V and ground. It’s not lighting up so I tried connecting BRI to STB. Any other ideas on next steps?

Tracing to the 2nd auxiliary board, the labels are different. AMP = AMPVCV_18V STB = P_ON SW = BL_ON BWI = PWM_REF

@@w.k.g.6982 If you already have 12v then make the resistor divider and connect the SBT, SW, and BWI to the middle point as described above. Those 3 should be what needs a pull up voltage to function. They may need to be connected in a certain order otherwise the light might deactivate and go into fault mode. Once again this is just a guess, there are many configurations and it can take a few minutes of trial and error.

The camera makes it much closer to the blue than it it in real life. Blue can be a mild eye strain if you're staring into it for long periods of time but overall these are much closer to daylight in color balance. Blue itself is more known for causing things like circadian rhythm disruption to a degree but overall I have not noticed any side effects if any to using these as work lights.

@@Zenodilodon by the way what wire am i supposed to take out from the TV I'm little confused here just opened a tv all i see is boards and wire

@@bipultamang7061 if there was anything else in there other than boards and wires I'd be very curious as to what TV you had lol. Remove the logic board and all the wires and things going to it accept the wires going to the PSU ( Unless it's ccfl than leave the inverter board connected to the PSU as well ) you will find labeled pins on the PSU and many comments below address helpful answers to various questions.

Count the LEDs on the strip and multiply by 3. That's the voltage you need for a strip. most take around 20v, however the amount of LEDs on a strip can vary significantly.

@@Zenodilodon I'm at 27v then.....There goes my plan to just power it with a portable phone charger. Damn.

@@anonymousaerostatic6590 Use a cheapo DC to DC converter to step up the voltage. Note that you will need a bit of current to step it up so if you can find a 3-5 amp capable battery you might be ok. Making a 12v battery pack driven one would also be pretty easy with a DC to DC converter.

Not directly, no most phones and tablets have a boost circuit inside which raised the screen back-light voltage. It's hit or miss with what you end up being able to do with what.

Zenodilodon i didn't try to make one i just repair smartphones and i saw most of the back-lit displays have separate small ribon cable to power that back LEDs 👍

Zenodilodon btw those led panels looks like morden art. very cool 😂

I have yet to find a TV that could not be modified into a light. as long as both the LEDs and the PSU both work it should be convertible.

Apologies, I missed " how " I do not know every single TV layout. Much like myself you will have to work by trial and error until you find the correct wires to jump to one another.

@@Zenodilodon I have it working now. Two leds were blown. Replace them and it works now.

In my occupation everything is lit.

Can I not splice the wire running from the PSB (power supply board) and connect a third wire and running to the other side thats coming off the PSB that use to connect the tv mother board like driver on, power on, or 3.5 v ?

@@justadakota2513 there are many types of wiring connections you may try. many of them have already been answered in the comments. Look through and check them out. There is also a bunch of lines on some boards that are in the video and some of them may work. This usually involves the turning the PSU on with the standby rail and then also connecting the standby/3.3v rail to the back light brightness and enable wires.

@@Zenodilodon Right I got you and I've read through all the comments and watched the video a probably a dozen times but im still not getting it to stay on

Going from the power supply to the driver I have 14 wires 1-5 24v 6-10 ground 11 NC 12 Driver ON 13 A Dim 14 P dim Also coming off the other side of the power supply are 18 wires that used to go to the tv mother board and they are 6 grounds 3 12v's 3 24v's 2 3.5v's 1 A dim 1 P dim 1 driver ON and 1 power on wire

@@justadakota2513 Hmm vary strange, most of them just need the wires from 3.3/standby connected to PS on, BL enable, and pwm. You may have to try this all when the main board is powered up, it could also be a case of a fail state detection and the psu needs to be on and reset to run correctly. You can pretty much connect the 3.3 volt standby to any wire that is not ground or another voltage rail without much concern over damaging anything and experiment that way. You can also place a 1kohm resistor on any/all wires you want to connect to the 3.3 standby and that will also keep any risks of damaging the PSU down. I have yet to find a TV that doesn't power up without the mainboard although some can be tricky with sequence of start up. Feel free to mess around with wires, it's all pretty safe and the chance of anything releasing magic smoke is minimal as long as you don't connect standby to ground or other voltage rails. Sometimes ya just have to get in the belly of the beast and see what ticks.

The LEDs are white only in LED TVs and the color is controlled by the RGB pixels in the LCD glass. I did post up a video on putting in RGB LEDs in a TV but there is not a way to make white TV LEDs another color other then by using colored filters.

@@Zenodilodon Gotcha. To be honest, I don't really understand how to wire it so that the power can be activated. Any advice other than getting smart really quick?

@@insidemybasement1557 If you have a meter use it to find the stand by power. This will be any ground wire and what ever wire on the PSU has voltage ( plugged in but powered off ). This will be typically 3.3 or 5 volts. It's a pretty good method to tape off any other wires with + volts listed ( IE +12v +24v) All other wires should be signal wires on te PSU for initiation and brightness. Find a 5k resistor and attach it to the standby power wire you have located with your meter and start attaching the other non-voltage rail wires to the other end of the resistor. This should start pulling up and needed signals to the high position and activate the PSU and lighting.

Yeah, sound mixing has been an issue for me since I have bad hearing. I have learned from this and basically turn the music down until I barely hear it in videos now vs the voice. I have been using Peace EQ for PC which helps on other videos when I have this same problem. There are also many comments on this video with many questions addressed, look through those and if you still have a question feel free to ask!

Are you trying this kind of conversion, if so what are the pins on the PSU header?

@@Zenodilodon Uh yeah I'm trying to use the power supply board without the systemboard/power switch. So basically trying to cross the PINS for always on when connected to outlet. Pin1: 3.3V Standby Pin2: AC-DET Pin3: PS-ON Pin4: 12V-AU Pin5: GND Pin6: GND Pin7: GND Pin8: 12V REG Pin9: 12V REG Pin10: BL-ERR Pin11: LED-ON Pin12: LED-BRIGHTNESS Pin13: Not Used Pin14: 12V T CON Pin15: T CON_ON

@@joshcouture3244 Some TVs need a manual reset and won't power up directly. Connect PS-ON, LED-ON and LED-brightness together. Connect to 3.3v standby while plugged in this should turn on the light. If it does not come on again when unplugged and plugged back in a switch will be needed between 3.3v and the other wires. The BL-error MAY need to be connected to 3.3v OR ground. Honestly if you just ignore the 12v stuff and don't connect 3.3v to ground you can pretty much just connect pins 1,3,10,11,12 and mess around with combinations until something works. You can't do anything to break the board unless you connect 12v to ground and even that would just kick it off and a cold restart will bring it back to testing/wiring attempts. That is the most useful information to have I think. Just go at it until you get it. it's how i learned. No worries on screwing up really.

@@Zenodilodon WOW, ok so it was as simple as PS-ON, LED-ON, LED-BRIGHTNESS and 3.3V all together. That was it. Yeah I had been trying some combinations but I think I was making it more complicated by adding in more than it needed. Thanks so much!

@@joshcouture3244 Glad you got it running!

There is a lot on answers on how to run PSUs in the comments on this video, please read though some of those. I do not know every exact model but most of the basics have been covered.

yeah cool thank well if i send you a picture of the diagram could you tell me wich wire put togheter i just put a usb key and push input the tv read the key so it dont turn off lolll ok thanks peace

@@gotmyownback2.0all-dress16 You can, but I might call you lazy if I have to figure it out for you.

hahahaha TRUE so the usb key work well and i keep the remote too like that im gonna keep like that peace mano !!!

@@gotmyownback2.0all-dress16 lol, well you know where to find me if that stops working. Just some advice, you can pretty much play around with connecting wires together as long as they are not out wires for the voltage rails. Using a 1 k resistor keeps chances of damaging short out down too. The PSUs are pretty darn hard to mess up so don't feel like your working with anything delicate if you try figuring out the connections.