Large lot of flatscreens

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and have read many of the threads about tvs, but have a question and would love any input. I have acces to about 400 broken flatscreen tvs. I myself have been depopulating circuit boards for gold plating, and other precious metals in hopes to recover it one day down the line. Would you guys who scrap for a living even mess with the lot, or would the boards untouched have any real value? The large majority of the tvs work by my understanding, but none have screens. What do you think would be the best course of action, or would most not even touch the job to begin with?

if they work, i would think the best thing to do is offer them to guys who do TV repairs. if that fails then only do u scrap them

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Originally Posted by WvOutlaw72

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and have read many of the threads about tvs, but have a question and would love any input. I have acces to about 400 broken flatscreen tvs. I myself have been depopulating circuit boards for gold plating, and other precious metals in hopes to recover it one day down the line. Would you guys who scrap for a living even mess with the lot, or would the boards untouched have any real value? The large majority of the tvs work by my understanding, but none have screens. What do you think would be the best course of action, or would most not even touch the job to begin with?

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In my state throwing away TVs is illegal, the must be sent to somewhere to be "recycled". This also means that scrapyards near me cannot take them either, and at least the ones Ive been to actually enforce that and not let you put the tv in the scrap pile if they see it. So I do not take TVs as there is no where for me to get rid of them after getting the valuable out.

These types of policies I feel like only encourage public dumping and makes things worse, but that is just how it is by me. So I dont touch TVs with a 10ft pole.

In other parts of the country where you are allowed to just landfill the remnants, you may be able to make some money, Id feel bad sending that much stuff to the landfill though.


Really though, if you have a way to get rid of the leftover plastics and non-metal screen parts, you could get the circuit boards, wires, speakers, metal frame, etc out of the tvs and probably make decent money. For me though figuring out what to do with the plastics and the screen part is too much of a pain to be worth it for me.

I second msmoorad's suggestion. As scrap the boards inside tvs do absolutely have value. There should be at least two mid-grade boards inside and one power board. On older flatscreens more, on newer sometimes the power board is combined with the logic board. The mounting chassis inside is often cast aluminum and the frame holding the screen sometimes is aluminum as well.

Also Hello! Welcome to the forum from Las Vegas!

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I will have to look into my local laws, and regulations about tvs. This amount of material could very well keep me busy for awhile, as I do depopulate boards as a hobby, but I understand thats a lot of leftover bits that would need discarded.

Do whatever you can to re-use, re-sell, repurpose. If you are solely taking the TVs to recycle for money, you are wasting your time. TIME IS VALUABLE.

I would run away from them as quickly as possibly. I'm not saying that's what you should do though.

Personally ... i wouldn't touch them but to each their own.

Some of the flatscreens i've seen coming in were simply damaged in transit. The do need to be handled carefully. It's very easy to break the screen. The circuit boards are perfectly good since they've never been used.

There's a market for those circuit boards. They seem to list for around thirty dollars or so when you're looking for them on ebay. Figure three boards per unit and that's a potential of 90.00$ each.

That's quite a bit more than the few dollars in scrap value that you would get out of them.

here in South Africa theres lots of guys advertising on Facebook Marketplace that they buy boards from flatscreen TVs. it doesnt matter if the screen is cracked bcos they use the boards to repair other TVs with good screens but bad boards.

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Originally Posted by msmoorad

here in South Africa theres lots of guys advertising on Facebook Marketplace that they buy boards from flatscreen TVs. it doesnt matter if the screen is cracked bcos they use the boards to repair other TVs with good screens but bad boards.

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With the USA and our "throw away" culture, I feel like people dont really repair things like TVs any more. TVs are so cheap now that you'd probably spend just as much in repairs as to just get a new TV.

on walmarts website, you can get a brand new 32" TV shipped to your house for $100, a 43" TV for $200.

And since nowhere TAKES tvs by me for free, there is always a bunch of them listed for free by me in perfect working condition just cause people may get new ones and not know what to do with the old ones.... and even then they dont always get taken. Literally cant give TVs or computer monitors away by me.

BUT there is definitely still a market for the boards on eBay and such, especially if they are name brand. Still, does not work out for me though with all the left overs, but worth a try if you've got a disposal method.

I've had fairly good luck repairing quality wide screen tv's for my own personal use. The power boards tend to blow capacitors around here because the electricity frequently tricks in and out during storms.

Anyhow ... thirty bucks spent for a TV that retails for over 600.00$ works for me. A penny saved is a penny earned.

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Originally Posted by kss

With the USA and our "throw away" culture, I feel like people dont really repair things like TVs any more. TVs are so cheap now that you'd probably spend just as much in repairs as to just get a new TV.

on walmarts website, you can get a brand new 32" TV shipped to your house for $100, a 43" TV for $200.

And since nowhere TAKES tvs by me for free, there is always a bunch of them listed for free by me in perfect working condition just cause people may get new ones and not know what to do with the old ones.... and even then they dont always get taken. Literally cant give TVs or computer monitors away by me.

BUT there is definitely still a market for the boards on eBay and such, especially if they are name brand. Still, does not work out for me though with all the left overs, but worth a try if you've got a disposal method.

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I've been wondering what the deal is with the screens themselves. They just seem to be individual sheets of plastic layered over one another. Is there anything about the sheets that is a hazard ?

Have to ask .... because i honestly don't know K.

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Originally Posted by hills

I've been wondering what the deal is with the screens themselves. They just seem to be individual sheets of plastic layered over one another. Is there anything about the sheets that is a hazard ?

Have to ask .... because i honestly don't know K.

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I also do not know. I have take fully apart a couple too and yea it literally just looks like a sheet of plastic, with a crunchy plasticy LCD/glass type thing behind it. Not sure if there is actually any hazards in it or not... by dont mess with them too much anyways so not too concerned.... I know older TVs contain mercury, so there was an environmental thing with not wanting to put them in the landfill, but I think newer TVs it more just the bulk of them... but theres probably something bad in them... seems to be something bad in almost everything.

You will probably be okay as long as you wear proper PPE (gloves/mask/glasses etc) and don't ingest the glass/plastic

Perhaps when I die I can turn my body over to science like the football players so they can determine how much heavy metal is lingering in my body

LCD had glass tube light bulbs where as the LED has tiny LED lights. The LED lights are not a problem but the LCD glass tubes do contain mercury so are a concern.

To my knowledge all the tv's in last few years are all LED so as far as mercury there in not the same problems as the LCD screens have.

For me the issue was getting rid of the plastics since my county stopped taking in most plastics for recycling. This left one option put them in the trash.

When I was working with LED tv's I payed my picker $5 each and the ones with cracked screens I sold the boards on ebay. The ones with good screens but broken I troubleshoot and repaired when warranted. Often repair was replacing a few capacitors. Troubleshooting, repair and advice on where to purchase parts are available on youtube. The ones I repaired I kept or gave to relatives and neighbors. I got tired of it and frankly there's just not a lot of profit in it. 73, Mike

While selling on ebay, Should I just lot all the boards from the working tvs together or do you guys sell each set individually to someone hoping to fix the same tv? Because honestly, that seems like a ton of work.

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Originally Posted by WvOutlaw72

While selling on ebay, Should I just lot all the boards from the working tvs together or do you guys sell each set individually to someone hoping to fix the same tv? Because honestly, that seems like a ton of work.

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Yea its a lot of work. Imagine if you had a broken tv and wanted to buy an inexpensive part that works. What do you want to see in the listing? I used the photo of the tv working with the broken screen. I had a photo of the back of the tv in close up so you could easily read the part number etc of the tv. I provided photos of the board front back and again close ups of the part numbers on the board as well.

I enjoy working on electronics, retired US Marine avionics/maintenance on helos. 30 year licensed ham radio operator, ke4ilg. I also sold used computer components on eBay along with the tv boards. So yea there is a lot involved but there is a much greater profit per board or component selling on eBay. Then again instead of doing that if you can acquire more material, break it down and ship to a buyer then likely this will produce the most dollars in your pocket.

You are the only one who can decide for you which way you should go. 73, Mike

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Originally Posted by WvOutlaw72

While selling on ebay, Should I just lot all the boards from the working tvs together or do you guys sell each set individually to someone hoping to fix the same tv? Because honestly, that seems like a ton of work.

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Definitely sell individual lots on TV boards. The money is in the main boards. Power boards are the next ones, followed by the T-con boards. I sold a main board from a TV a while back for $240 used. A few of those sales and you're doing very well. With the direction TV's are moving, they're starting to phase out the T-Con boards (making them so they're not replaceable). I do see the demand for TV boards dropping quite a bit on the smaller units, but 50"+ units are still a decent amount to buy new. One of the thing's you'll need to learn if you don't know already is reading DC pinouts on boards with a volt meter. In the event that you can't get a unit to turn on, you can at least test the power board with a test points to see if at least one board can be salvaged.