Suppose for a moment that you've been bestowed upon an archaic TV by your parents (or grandparents), maybe not exactly a CRT or a rear projection TV but nevertheless, it is an older model LCD TV. Or maybe even possibly a Plasma TV (circa 2004 and older) and it was broken to begin with but you being the excellent DIYer that you are, you decided that when you had the time to fix it, this TV could be given new life once again. PLOP! Into the garage it goes! (or wherever you have plenty of space to store stuff). Now, fast forward a few years. You just bought that fancy 4K Ultra HD Smart TV at BestBuy or your local electronics store and perhaps you had simply forgotten about that TV sitting in storage. Suppose now that throughout the years, you've taken apart the TV in the garage and have tested all the circuit boards to narrow down to one problematic board. Suppose again that you know that these other boards are functional but that one board that you need, no one seems to have it, and since you already have a new TV, you no longer see the sense in keeping the TV around for much longer. These parts would be such a waste to just have them recycled or toss out in the trash bin only to later end up in a landfill. 

"What can I do about it?" you ask yourself. There are a few things that you can do.

Donate the TV to your local TV repair shop 

This should really be the first thing to shoots to the top of your mind. Donating that TV to your local TV repair shop serves one of a number of things. First of all, it allows the shop to re-use the parts and components to help another person fix their TV. Second of all, you'll be doing a great service to both the shop and your neighbors. On top of that, nothing gets wasted so these parts and components won't end up in the landfill. It's win-win for everyone involved. Let's face it, sometimes, there isn't an electronics recycler near your area and that's just a fact of life. Maybe you live in a rural area and the nearest electronics recycler is 30+ miles away and you can't really justify driving that far out to the city while wasting all that precious gas in your truck and more importantly, your time, just to have that dinosaur of a TV recycled properly. In this case, it just makes sense to hand it off to your local electronics repair shop and be done with it. 

Sell it your neighbors

Sure, perhaps you don't have the time to fix that TV but maybe your DIYer neighbors do and they could possibly make use of that broken TV and fix it on their own. Maybe your neighbors just don't have money to buy a new TV and wouldn't mind tinkering with your "hand-me-down" TV from your parents and/or grandparents. Of course, you'd want to give them an incentive to take it off your hands so you sell the whole TV at a dirt cheap price. Anywhere between $10-$25 would be reasonable but that would depend on how old the TV is. In addition, you don't have to worry about taking the TV anywhere and wasting gas or your time. You'd just have your neighbors drop by and pick it up themselves. It's as easy as passing the word around when you're at the diner, let's just say, having breakfast with your co-workers or friends. And then they could pass the word around. Surely, someone in your TV has some use for that broken TV.

Sell it on Ebay or Craigslist or some other auction website 

This one is certainly an option but we don't generally recommend it. It could take weeks, if not months, before anyone would be willing to buy that broken TV, if you're planning to sell the TV as a whole, or parting it out piece by piece. Let's face it. No one but the most savvy DIYer would risk buying a circuit board from your TV unless they knew exactly what was wrong with your TV to begin with and even then, it's still a shot in the dark because on their end, you could be lying for all they know. And that's a BIG RISK for the buyer. They could be buying a dud for all they know and you're not exactly a repair shop who could guarantee that the part is, in fact, working. Maybe you just bench tested it to ensure continuity but continuity doesn't mean it works. It just means that. There is continuity. There could be other problems with the board that you may not be aware of because you don't have the proper electronics repair training and knowledge to know that. BUT! If you have a lot of time on your hands and you don't mind constantly putting up that Ebay listing or Craigslist ad every week for as long as it takes until it sells, you can certainly go this route. You may very well get back a good chunk of your money back by parting it out but it does require due diligence on your end, plus LOTS and LOTS of patience. And who has time for that? Yea, exactly. 

Ship the TV parts to TV Parts Guy 

Yes, we're serious. We are an active TV repair shop and a parts supplier. If nothing else, this is certainly an option. If time is a concern and you just don't want to hassle yourself with telling your friends and co-workers about selling your broken TV or spending that time trying to sell it on Ebay, you can just box up the parts and send it our way. Based on our estimates, FedEx would be the cheapest route (from the East Coast to the West Coast) averaging about $13-15 to ground ship a box of TV parts to us (excluding the TV screen and exterior casing). That would be about the same amount of money spent to pay for gas, if you decided to take your TV to the nearest electronics recycler and back home. Why not save yourself the trip, the gas, and time and just spend a moment of your time to package each circuit board, put it in a box, and have FedEx pick up from your house and take care of the rest? Plus, once we get the parts, you can rest easy that we will recycle any non-usable parts properly so they don't end up in the landfill. We can always make use of the old parts and re-use good components for other electronics.

We are located at:

260 Paseo Tesoro, Walnut, CA 91789

Feel free to ship the parts to us any day of the week at your convenience.