Overheard a customer say their TV flickers when the AC kicks on

I was at a parts counter yesterday and this guy was telling the clerk his 65 inch screen flickers every time his AC compressor starts up. Something clicked in my head - I've seen that same issue three times this year alone. It's usually a bad capacitor in the power supply letting voltage dips through from high startup loads. I went back through my repair log and every single one was fixed by replacing the main filter caps. Have any of you noticed a pattern with compressor noise and TV flickers in your shops?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrew_sanchez941mo ago

Wait isnt that usually more of a loose neutral issue?

martinez.karen1mo ago

Yeah but heres something nobody ever brings up - have you checked the load side of that circuit? Ive seen clean neutrals cause flickering and weird voltage drops when theres a big motor load sharing that same branch. Actually ran into this last week where they had a AC unit and a fridge on the same 15 amp circuit and the neutral was fine but the inrush current from the compressor was making the lights pulse. Loose neutral kinda became the easy blame.