Problem with pretty simple SCR-dimmer

[Nigel Goodwin]

i'm curious too, to be honest ...

Don't either of you have access to google?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatung_Company

As tunedwolf has already explained, Tatung bought out Decca, and continued to design and build sets in the UK - some of the best sets of their era.

I continually showed any 'big wigs' from Japanese companies (such as Sony and Sharp) comparisons between their sets and the Decca designed Tatung ones - the Japanese sets always seemed to look 'unfinished', as if they threw the sets in production as soon as it worked, not waiting for a finished design. Tatung sets tended to be a single board, with hardly any wires at all - Japanese sets tended to use multiple boards, wires everywhere, and lot's of components bodged on the back of the boards to make them work. It was pretty obvious the Japanese were wasting huge amounts of labour manufacturing their sets due to poor design.

And while we're talking poorly made Japanese TV's, anyone remember Mitsubishi? - long defunct in the UK they were really badly made in the Japanese 'throw it all together' method

 

[fezder]

Haha, good point, google'll have answers

 

[tunedwolf]

I remember Mitsi' and their foray into the domestic brown goods market. I repaired quite a few of their portable VCR's, and the odd TV that would self destruct for no apparent reason. What a nightmare they were, there was a service kit for just about everything on them, right down to and including tuner drift

 

[tester272001]

Did you try the obvious and just re-solder all the joints ? Dimmers can carry a decent amount of heat sometimes resulting in a cold-ish solder joint.

 

[fezder]

Oh crap, that would have been also easy-to-do fix....seems good ideas come afterwards, thanks for tip!

 

[throbscottle]

Hey I replaced a BTB04 today with a BT137. Works fine, but now I am wondering if the gate driver is going to go bang! Good job it's not going be used for a while, I can get the proper triac in the meantime.