While building things like the Beep It or a Plasma Speaker is fun, the result isn't always the most useful or practical.  That's why it's always great to be able to put some of my EE skills to a use most people can appreciate.  

When my dad was offered a broken Sony Trinitron(Sony KV-30HS420), I was very excited to attempt a repair to revive an otherwise perfectly good HD TV.  The guy giving the TV to my dad found an online guide that offered a possible way to fix the 6 or 7 blinking LED error code the TV was experiencing. http://k0lee.com/2011/05/fixing-a-sony-wega-with-6-or-7-blink-code/ The link comes from Lee Devlin, and his site reminded me a lot of my own, with a great collection of guides on a variety of technology.  I'm happy to report that his repair instructions were spot on, and the pictures in the guide proved very helpful. Ordering the chips needed for the repair went great.  The online store was located in Evansville, Indiana and the order shipped quickly.

After receiving the chips, it was a simple case of opening the TV, removing the board, unsoldering the chips, soldering in new sockets and replacing the chips.  The whole process took about an hour and the hardest part was moving the 150 lb TV on and off of it's stand. If you run into a small error with some of your own gadgets, I encourage you to do some research online and put some simple repair skills to use.  By finding guides like Lee's or some of the information I hope this site offers, it should be easy to keep your old electronics alive.