Plasma - collectible?

[mftalbot]

Given that Plasma will no longer be available very soon, any thoughts on the wisdom of buying one and putting it away to increase in value?

[walterbeers]

Personally I like the plasma picture better than the LCD/LED screens. It seems to be closer to the image on a CRT type TV, and to me it's easier on my eyes to watch. I wish they would continue to make plasma TV sets. Doubt they will be collectible or increase in value much, at least for now. Maybe 20 years from now, those that survive not having the screen broken or having a bad screen will be sought after. But even then, standard LCD/LED sets will become obsolete as 3D and the 4K super HD is the next big thing hitting the market today already. But guess I'm weird, I still like turning on my old 1959 CTC9, and watch the news when I'm tinkering in my shop area in the basement.

[ChrisW6ATV]

I would certainly not buy a new plasma TV set now, hoping for it to increase in value over that price. The only plasma sets likely to have any collector value will be the early ones, made before 2004, I would guess.

[Eric H]

I thought Samsung was going to continue making Plasma sets?

I bought a second Panasonic Plasma in January when they announced they were quitting production, I didn't buy it with an eye to future value though, I use it every day because it has an even better picture than the older set but I'm keeping the older one for a spare.

The legendary Pioneer Kuros can still command a good price today, not a price higher than it was when new but higher than any other used set.

Doubtful there would be any profit made by buying and storing a set for future sale, for one thing 4k is coming in and the Plasmas are all 2k so in 5 or 10 years they may be considered obsolete, or there may be something new that is even better, too many variables to know for sure.

[dr.ido]

I kinda of wish I kept the 42" 1080p Panasonic plasma I had a while ago. 42" is about the biggest screen I can accommodate in my small room and the picture was better than I had seen on any LCD set. I still had lingering doubts about burn in (a couple of channels I watch a lot have persistent logos that did burn into an older plasma I had) and doubted I could justify the running costs at >500W considering our ever climbing power costs.

While I think some of the early >$10k plasma sets could be as rare as early color sets and there may be some enthusiast interest (I've been collecting some smaller early flat panels - I can't be the only one) I doubt that will translate into $$$, at least not for some time.

I think most of the early generation plasmas were bought by commercial users and run into the ground. Almost every pre-2002 panel I have seen has had some degree of screen burn. Even if you can tolerate the screen burn there is a point where the panels get too "tired" and they seem to draw more current. At this point some will shutdown, some will take out the sustain board.

This may make keeping them running into the future harder than early CRT sets. At least it is possible to rebuild a CRT - I don't think it's even possible for a plasma panel.

I'd still like to find some of the early/oddball Plasmas to play with (but I don't pay much for them). Anything smaller than 42" is uncommon -

LG China made the 32" PDP32F1 panel for "emerging" markets - it found it's way into some offbrand sets sold here, but they have a truly awful picture. Fixed a few, but by the time these shit their power supplies the panels are already tired.

I've seen a JVC 35" - don't know who actually made the panel. Tried googling it at the time, but it was as if it didn't exist.

Hitachi made 32" and 37" panels that were used in their own sets and also by Philips. I've fixed a few of these - though everyone I've found since deciding I wanted one has had a tired panel.

Hitachi also made a 25" 1280 x 1024 panel that was used in a PC monitor. I've never seen even a picture of one, but the service manual was included in a collection of manuals I downloaded.

I've yet to see any 4:3 plasma here, though I know Pioneer made at least a couple of them.

Going back even further there's the IBM 3290 Plasma terminal, ~20" monochrome 160x62 character text terminal. Saw one at an auction once, didn't grab it as I had no way to drive it - kinda of wish I did now.

[andy]

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[kx250rider]

I've started to save them; I have a dozen early Sony plasma sets, and just picked up a Panasonic 42" plasma (can't remember the model, but it's a 2002 model with no HDMI or DVI). I think they're definitely going to be a collector set, but the cash value will not be there for a LONG time. Like Eric did, I bought 2 Panasonic 65" plasma sets (sorry Eric, I hope I didn't ace you out; I bought the last one at Costco in your area in January). Then in March, I found a Samsung 43" on Walmart.com for a ridiculous clearance price, and bought one of those ($299). It's still in the box, and I'm keeping it for a spare later on at that price.

Charles

[yrly]

I have an NEC 42" probably 2000 era that has no burn in but the sustain board blew, haven't located one but I don't frequently look for it either.

I also have the fabled Gateway P42M102 (rebadged Sampo using LG panel and sustain boards, but Sampo sound, mainboard and power supply) that I garbage picked nearly 2 years ago. Which was notoriously an unreliable model. It will be two years on July 4th that I repaired it. This model was circa 2003 or so. No burn in here either, still looks pretty decent. Lots of caps placed in locations where they'd get hot. If these were fan cooled there would be lots left.

Everything else plasma I have is newer, Zenith 50" (LG), Pioneer 50", Samsung 42".

I do have a broken Maxent I have not yet fixed but have the parts for.

I'd imagine early off brand start ups would be most collectible going forward.

As far as Samsung and LG still making plasma, the 2014 Samsung sets are showing up at Sears locally already 51" 1080p. LG supposedly will continue but haven't seen anything.

[dr.ido]

I found the old thread where andy posted his Fujitsu PDS-2173. It's amazing. If you've got a higher res version of the PCB shot I'd like to see it. It appears from the picture that the panel cannot be detached from the PCB that contains the buffers, sustain, well everything but the power supply. I would have expected a $9995 display to be more serviceable than that.

I had a Fujitsu PDS-4214 from 99/2000. It had one of the best SD pictures I've ever seen on a flat panel. The individual sub pixels had colored filters that were visible even when it was off (when looking at the bare panel), probably was inefficient, but it seemed to improve the color. At first power on after fixing the power supply about half the pixels were out, but leaving it on full white test pattern for a day or so the gradually came back to life. Sold it, regretted it so I picked up a 2001ish model with with 1024x1024 Alis panel (yet to do anything with that one).

Sets using the LG PDP32F1 were sold here under the GVA, AWA, Maxess and Vivo brands. All in the same case, using the same panel + psu/sustain board set (though there were a couple of revisions) with one of 2 signal boards (with or without DVB tuner). Even the good ones looked grainy/dithered. The not so good ones were prone to either random bright red/green pixels on dark backgrounds or random dark pixels on bright scenes. Some could be tweaked, though often there would be no happy medium. Some revision had no adjustments to tweak. You got something better in the Vizio, it's 1024 x 720 (according to google). These were all 852 x 480.

Had a early 50in Pioneer that was so far gone you could read the burnt in text when it was off. Squealed like a pig while trying to display a green/blue picture on what was left of the panel.

Had a few Hitachi 32", the same panel was used in the 32" Philips. One that frustrated me a bit too much ended up fried on neon sign transformer - http://youtu.be/HxNd97PIar0. Maybe I should do another junk panel now that I have a better camera.

[dr.ido]

Here's a 2004ish Hitachi 32PD5000. This one isn't mine. I saw it while on another job and took a couple of quick pics. This one still has a perfect panel in it. If I'm lucky the power supply will crap out and I can claim it

852 x 1024 resolution - The only panel I can think of with greater vertical resolution than horizontal. Probably due to scaling down the 1024 x 1024 panels used in the 37" and 42" models.

The removable input pack on this one has an Analog TV tuner, a couple of component/AV inputs and a SCART RGB input. Some versions had no tuner. Some versions have no input pack at all, just the DVI input. These were supplied with an outboard AV/tuner box.

[andy]

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[dr.ido]

So the replacement panel you ordered came with the board attached? Or is there a procedure to attach the ribbon cables? I have seen someone successfully bond the ribbons to the PCB on a LCD panel using some kind of conductive tape, but my attempts so far have failed.

Before replacing the SMD caps were they completely dead or did they make something of a picture?

I've had a few 2002-2004ish Hitachi/Fujitsu panels that displayed a picture with dark "shadows". I don't have a picture handy, but it looks completely different to the typical panel/sustain board faults in LG and Samsungs.

In some units this would come and go, in others it was always there. In one unit I recapped the sustain boards, but the shadows remained. I've since condemned a couple of others with this problem as bad/tired panels, but I wonder if I've missed something.

[andy]

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[walterbeers]

I don't know about them being collectible, but I have a Panasonic Viera plasma
TH-50PX80U and it has the best picture ever. 50 Inch. Seems to me that it has a picture that sort of rivals that of a CRT set. Also I feel, that plasma TVs are more comfortable on the eyes to watch. Of course that's just me! I'm not going to get rid of it unless the screen goes bad. Replacement circuit boards can always be found, even used ones on
e-bay, cheap.

[mpatoray]

At a local art museum they have a very early smart board (electronic white board) connected to a circa 2000 Fujitsu Plasma panel. It still works but you can tell it is getting a bit tired, since it is powered on 6 hours a day.

But if you want to see some REALLY tired sets, they have a Video Art display from 1994 that uses 20(I think) 10" white plastic Panasonic TVS. The TV's are driven by 2 laserdisc players(industrial Pioneer with RS-232) running a continuous look on the players. (the RS-232 controls are used to make sure both LDP's are running in sync, it is also used to control an RF switch sending the 2 different signals to the TV's)