Flyback Sparking

rdhanded2

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Donor 2012
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My buddy dropped his Golden Tee classics cab off for me to check out. The screen looks fine, turns right on, but the flyback makes occasional popping sounds and you can see small blue sparks occasionally. He had this stored in his garage, but it was not being played. It sat inside in the heat for about 36 hours before I plugged it in. Could this be moisture from being in his garage? What should I do to correct it? Any ideas are appreciated.
 
We need the model number and pics of the monitor before we can go much further. But shooting from the hip I'd say you have a pinhole or cracks in the body of the flyback, and it's occasionally grounding to a nearby piece of metal.

If you can get a replacement flyback, recommend replacement.
 
With the back off of the cab and in as close to total darkness as you can get turn on the machine and stand behind it. Do you see any sparking?

My guess is you have a K7000 in there and the flyback is cracked allowing an intermittant discharge of the flyback to the chassis frame. If this is the case the fly needs to be replaced.
 
Well it has been on for an hour+ and no sparks now. Could it have just been moisture? Like I said, he stored it in his garage, and it gets humid here.
 
Alright, flyback is ordered. I can see the small pinhole in it causing it. For shits and giggles I put some hot glue on it and it has completely stopped sparking. Is it safe to use it a bit until I get the flyback? I only ask because I am having people over and I know they will want to play it.
 
Alright, flyback is ordered. I can see the small pinhole in it causing it. For shits and giggles I put some hot glue on it and it has completely stopped sparking. Is it safe to use it a bit until I get the flyback? I only ask because I am having people over and I know they will want to play it.

Not with hot glue, I wouldn't. If you sealed it up with 2 part epoxy, I'd be OK with it. Hot glue probably won't hold well enough to contain the discharge.
 
gluing/epoxy will buy you time but when it decided to blow its gonna take out more stuff with it. SO it comes down to wether you are willing to risk it or not.
 
Guess I have been lucky with flybacks. Over the years, I have had probably a dozen go out, some totally smoked and one or two holding an arc to the frame, but none of them ever damaged anything else on the chassis. fwiw, the early run of K7000s all had crappy flybacks. Several of mine all blew a hole in the flyback in the exact same spot on the top.
 
sparky

From your first description i was 99% that is was moisture,dust,etc..., I have seen this hundreds of times, but if you saw a small hole and sparks from it, then replace it. I have seen in the past many flybacks with defects in plastic that look like pin holes but were not.
Clean tube very good and keep anode cover on so water cannot go into anode hole.
I would look at the flyback to see sparks only. Do not adjust with power on as i have had a couple of flybacks arc through the flyback, then through my hand to the monitor frame, and of course alot of it also went throgh my chest. Kind of look like lightning from a star wars sith and it hurt like hell. Thank God i wore my brown pants!
 
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Because of how he had stored it, I originally assumed it was just from being in a garage. That was not the case though, and the flyback is bad.
 
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