I have (or had) a Hitachi 32WD2TN since 1999, I’d only had some minor gripes:

1. It took ages to "boot up" when in Digital Terrestrial mode and sometimes just didn’t.<br />2. There was no capability to receive digital Teletext.<br />3. Whenever a pizza delivery bike went past, the digital picture turned into dancing Lego, forcing me to get a (vastly) more expensive aerial.

I finally mailed Hitachi (who were very helpful) and they arranged for an engineer to come around and upgrade the software in the TV for free to fix the start up problem and allow reception of Teletext.

However, when the engineer turned up he mentioned that he'd first have to check the TV's power switch - I'd missed out on a recall notice and that "they'd been known to burst into flames"!

No problem I thought…

Having determined that my power switch was in fact a small incendiary device he set about changing it – this is where the problems started. Hitachi had provided no information about how to do this and the design of the main PCB was such that the process was impossible without disconnecting huge numbers of wires and sawing through (or flexing to a worrying extent) the PCB and bit’s of plastic housing.

The replacement of the switch was a great success, however the TV was dead as the proverbial parrot and the now resides on the engineer’s bench awaiting resuscitation.

Having repaired and upgraded countless computers in my time, I can honestly say that that the inside of this TV was an engineering nightmare, patched wires on the circuit board, extra resisters soldered in all over, diagonally placed surface mount chips and crazy wiring connecting everything to everything, often from several corners.

Taking the TV away was no simpler: “maybe it just lifts of the stand”…

Like hell: The entire cabinet and sub-woofer speaker system had to be emptied and dismantled before the two retaining screws were found.

When the finally engineer left, he definitely had that “sometimes I hate this job” look on his face.

He was also none too optimistic about the repair either, telling me that once you disturb these huge PCBs dry joints crack all over the place. His parting comment was:<br />“Next time Hitachi give me one of these jobs – I think I’ll pass”.

I wonder now if I’ll ever see it (in one piece) again…

mail: slashdevslashnull@uk2.net

[ 02-08-2001: Message edited by: Paul S ]</p>

Just had a phone call from the engineer:

IT LIVES!

But will it ever play the piano again?

[Timh]

Yikes, and I thought Sony were bad.

Tim <img src="eek.gif" border="0">