[Geoff Bourquin]

I almost always buy bare bulbs and use the old, OEM housing. I have encountered some aftermarket housings that don't seem to fit quite right.

On both of those models there is another potential problem. If the connector doesn't quite line up when the new lamp goes in it can push the connector apart in the TV. I have seen a couple dozen of these with that problem. Usually you can reassemble the connector in the TV and bend the clips back to hold it together. You can probably tell if this has happened by getting a flashlight and looking into the lamp socket. You'll need to remove the plastic back cover, and the metal cover that is under it to get at the back of the socket to fix it if it is sprung. Good luck.

If the new lamp wont fire up we can talk about the 3300uf electrolytics on the power supply board that quit and cause a no lamp problem, as well as the 1000/16s on the power, formatter, and DM boards, along with a few hundred surface mount caps that cause all sorts of problems from speckles to big static lines to you name it.

I have a WD52525 that is starting to show all sorts of small but annoying stuff on the screen, as well as needing to be rebooted a few times a week. I have not decided if I want to try to replace all of these SM caps or just junk it and patch up something else from my scrap pile


If you do a bulb swap be careful when you turn the nut on the back of the bulb. You can twist the lamp apart if you turn too hard. I put needlenose pliers just below the nut so the twist force is not applied to the ceramic "glue" that holds the lamp in the reflector.