The back up camera on our 2012 car was flickering as I backed out of the driveway this morning. Instinctively, I gave it a gentle pound and like magic the screen started working as expected.
I vaguely remember this being a common practice to fix the screen tv screen when I was younger in the late 80s early 90s.
I’m curious what actually happens when you whack a TV or a screen to “fix” it.
In: Engineering
On the inside of old TVs were little electronic circuit boards and wires, when they would get old sometimes those wires and the circuit boards wouldn’t have good connections anymore, by hitting the TV the wires would jump a little bit sometimes making them connect like normal again.
When plug-in valves were still being used things got very warm in the back of the set. This could cause the valve legs to creep up in their sockets because of expansion and contraction. A good thump could reseat them properly. And, if nothing else, just shaking the dust off things like variable capacitors could have miraculous effects.
Sometimes wires come loose and knocking and helps them line back up again.
I believe it was an iPad 2 that had a screen start having issues with colors and flickering. I searched online and found that the problem was a cable that connected the board to the screen. The solution was finding a hard surface, folding a towel a couple layers thick on it, and then slamming the iPad down. Someone walked into my office while I was fixing the iPad and was very curious about why I was throwing it on the desk. It worked
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