Is this inductor ok?

Question

I was cleaning a 10+ year old LCD TV with a damp rag and noticed an ozone-like smell. I assumed a chip was frying or something was arcing. I unplugged it, gave the power supply some time to discharge, opened it up, then plugged it in and turned it on, hoping to see something obviously bad, but I didn't. This is on the logic board, not the power supply.

It could be any component nearby, but I didn't like the look of this inductor, especially the first picture. There wasn't much dust on the board, but the inductor looked a little melted or gunky.

Maybe it's been like this for a long time, but I thought I could smell it several feet away after I first noticed. The plastic still smells, but a lot of electronics emit low amounts of ozone, so maybe it's just been baking in it for a decade.

Answer 1

It's fine. The orange stuff is solder flux, a residue also seen on other components.

The smell might be confused with common electrical smells such as phenol or burnt epoxy, though they're quite different when compared directly.

If it is a burnt-epoxy smell, it could be as innocent as PCB laminate outgassing, or as dramatic as cratered components.

There probably isn't anything high voltage inside there, anyway; not that would yield more ozone than combustion, anyway. That is -- give or take CCFL backlights, which might be here or there in ca. 2013 units, I'm not sure. It would be a fairly unusual failure to get HV leakage there, though I don't know the chances of that as I don't repair TVs.