home stereo needs help
 

well a few months back my house was struck by lightning and messed up my surround sound its a sony dvd home theater system a 1000 watts it will turn on but will not switch the fm channel and no sound comes out of the speakers.. also my sony 32 inch flat screen will not turn on either.. ive called sony about both items and they will not replace either of them cause it was an act of god and i have a 1000 dollar deductible on insurance and we got this stuff on sale so it didnt even pay to claim it on insurance.. im trying to see if anyone knows anything about this type of stuff.. HELP ME!!! lol thanks!!

Either of those could be as simple as a damaged power supply (either the whole supply or some type of fuse), or the entire circuit. Hard to say unless you open it.

Didn't you have a surge protector on those components? They can only absorb so much energy before they too blow, but it's better than nothing.

well ive called around and everyone wants like $50 just to look at it thats not even to get the parts and replace it if needed.. i think its a total rip off!

is there a way i can test any of this myself? im somewhat handy when it comes to repairing things..

So basically you want someone to waste their time and look at it for free? Everybody has to make a living. Most shops will take the $50 and apply it to your repair bill. As far as taking it apart ang fixing it yourself if you can use an ohm meter you might be able to figure out what is wrong by doing a check on all the components in the powersupply, but in my experience most of the time if it's a lightning strike it's not just the powersupply that takes the hit and you might find something that is obviously wrong only to find 3 more things are damaged. You said that Sony wouldn't repair it, I would assume under warranty but if you have it repaired out of warranty you might have better luck.

Jeff

Bare in mind most places that charge the $50.00 will put it towards the repair, so it's not exactly a rip off cause they have to make somthing especially if you elect to not have repaired at their shop.

That's a typical price really. You have to realize they have to pay someone to take it apart and take the time to diagnose the damage. Besides, if places did the diagnostic thing for free and then you could just get the parts and do it yourself and they would be out. This way makes sense even though it does suck.

Testing circuitry can be tricky business unless you know exactly what you are going. I personally wouldn't do too much with the TV unless I knew it was a simple power supply problem. Receivers are a little easier to some degree because I know there are at least 3 power supplies and what each does. Even if the supply is damaged and you fix it, there might be other components downstream that toasted as well and you won't know it until you've already dumped some cash into it.

I hate to say it, but your best option is to shell out the $50 and see what they say. If they estimate over half the cost of a new one, you might as well just save up your pennies for a newer model. Don't forget, even if they give an estimate, the final price may be higher once they really see what is damaged.

If you still want to open them up, I would look for burnt components and any TVS devices (transorbs most likely - which can look like a large disc capacitor) and go from there. Each receiver and TV is different, so there is no way to say "transistor 2 and 4 are bad". Good luck whatever you decide.

well thanks!