42" Hewlett Packard Plasma TV powers up but doesn't give a picture

[dr.ido]

These old 42" Plasma sets rarely make more than $80 - $100 here.

LG Plasmas (and many other brands use LG panels) of this generation and earlier often have tired/worn out panels. You will still get a picture, but there will be random red dots everywhere that are very noticeable on dark scenes. Sometimes you can tweak them a bit and get a usable picture, sometimes there is no happy medium - Adjust far enough that the red go away (or at least are minimal) and you get dark dots on bright scenes.

IPM replacement is not easy. It's a multilayer board and the ground pins will soak up all the heat without budging. Preheating the board and low temp solder help.

I don't spend any money or much time on these kind of sets anymore - they're just not worth it. If I don't have a good used board available (that I pulled myself from another junked set, not from ebay) I don't bother.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

These old 42" Plasma sets rarely make more than $80 - $100 here.

LG Plasmas (and many other brands use LG panels) of this generation and earlier often have tired/worn out panels. You will still get a picture, but there will be random red dots everywhere that are very noticeable on dark scenes. Sometimes you can tweak them a bit and get a usable picture, sometimes there is no happy medium - Adjust far enough that the red go away (or at least are minimal) and you get dark dots on bright scenes.

IPM replacement is not easy. It's a multilayer board and the ground pins will soak up all the heat without budging. Preheating the board and low temp solder help.

I don't spend any money or much time on these kind of sets anymore - they're just not worth it. If I don't have a good used board available (that I pulled myself from another junked set, not from ebay) I don't bother.

I see, well I'll see what I can do with this unit anyways ('m not going to be selling it on here anyhow, I'll be selling it locally as I wouldn't trust shipping this TV with as big as it is.) I may even just keep it as a spare, as my LCD TV I have in my Bedroom that I got from my aunt has some dead pixels in it but otherwise good sound and picture so I could use this in place of my current unit once it goes bad completely.

[jr_tech]

A little over a month ago, you faced the same dilemma with a Westinghouse 32 " set, where the cost of boards and other parts approached or surpassed the value of the set.... how did that work out for you?

jr

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

A little over a month ago, you faced the same dilemma with a Westinghouse 32 " set, where the cost of boards and other parts approached or surpassed the value of the set.... how did that work out for you?

jr

Well I'm just going to pitch that westinghouse tv unless I can find a replacement board for the TV for super cheap on ebay, which it wasn't that the parts were extremely expensive it was that they didn't have any of the boards for sale on ebay at the time and I didn't want to invest in an ESR meter to try and figure out which caps in the power supply/inverter board were bad because yes a bare naked ESR Meter is only $15 on ebay, what scared me the most about those meters is that I could accidently short it out. Anyways, if this would of been a CRT TV it would of been more worth fixing I think, it seems that the flatpanel TVs tend to be like brand new cars where they lose half their value immediately after you buy it, whereas CRT TVs seemed to of kept more of their value over time.

And the biggest problem is that with these flat panels is that its hard to know whether or not they'll be worth fixing or not unless you take them apart and get a good look at the insides and when I see a Flat Panel in the salvage bin at work its not like they're gonna let me take the TV apart to see if its got blown capacitors in the power supply before I buy it off the salvage to see if I want to buy it or not, that's kind of what the repair business is all about, though isn't it, you're taking a chance that something may or may not be worth fixing to sell, its not just flat panel TVs that are that way, but also the old CRT TVs are that way as well and so are the old radios, when you buy something that's in unknown working order to fix it up and resell it, you're taking a chance that it may turn out to be a piece of junk that's not worth your time.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

I didn't want to invest in an ESR meter to try and figure out which caps in the power supply/inverter board were bad because yes a bare naked ESR Meter is only $15 on ebay, what scared me the most about those meters is that I could accidently short it out.

If that is your main concern, for only a few dollars more, you can get one in a fairly basic looking plastic box:

https://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Poc...ords=esr+meter

Or a nicer looking box wih some handy short clip leads:

https://www.amazon.com/Huhushop-Tran...ords=esr+meter

Either one of these, properly used, should substantially improve your chances of finding bad caps on these sets... bulged and oozing appearance does *not* tell the whole story.

just my 2 cents,
jr

[andy]

000

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by andy

Bad caps typically have 10-100 times the normal ESR. A cap that's just a little high in ESR usually won't stop something from working, but it may be a sign that it's close to the end of its life.

Be sure to keep this in mind... the chart that I linked to above is typical for new caps, some increase is normal over useful life. Caps that have 10 times or more than typical new value are suspect.
I have even seen new (cheap) caps that were about 2 times the value stated on the chart and they seemed to work ok, while higher quality brands usually beat the chart number by a significant margin.

jr

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Be sure to keep this in mind... the chart that I linked to above is typical for new caps, some increase is normal over useful life. Caps that have 10 times or more than typical new value are suspect.
I have even seen new (cheap) caps that were about 2 times the value stated on the chart and they seemed to work ok, while higher quality brands usually beat the chart number by a significant margin.

jr

The capacitors I checked measured over 8-10 Ohms some even over 30-50 ohms, the ones that measured only .05-.75 ohms I basically said was good. although since there aren't that many capacitors in the power supply circuit on the Westinghouse TV, I figured I'll just replace all of the capacitors and be done with it. I plan on replacing them with Nichicon caps (the originals were Nippon Chemicon caps.) I put in an order without actually submitting the order and it will be about $15 to get all of the caps ordered for the Westinghouse TV and that price includes shipping.

[Captainclock]

Hello everyone, I just did a search for the Y-Sustain board I need for this TV (The HP Plasma) and there are a couple on there with buy it now or best offer prices, with one going for $62 buy it now price or best offer and another one going for $74 buy it now or best offer and yet another one going for $94 buy it now or best offer, and I'm guessing that all of these prices are way too high for what they ought to be, so with that in mind what would be a good price to offer if I was to use the "best offer" option to try and get the board? I was thinking $25-$30 or so, and yes all three of these boards are reported as being functioning boards by the sellers who said that they came out of TVs with broken screens but otherwise were fully functioning because they removed the boards from the broken TVs and tested them out in a good TV, and I was thinking $25-$30 because of the fact that they can't guarantee the board's longevity since it is a board that is known to malfunction after a while, depending on how hard the TV is used.

What do you guys think? Any input and suggestions would be appreciated.

[CoogarXR]

You aren't going to get a working board for $30. If you could get one for even $50 I'd be surprised. It's a high demand board since there are so many TVs that use it.

Don't forget, you might be able to recoup some of your money by selling the bad board as a core. At least that's what I used to do, I don't know if they still have any value.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by CoogarXR

You aren't going to get a working board for $30. If you could get one for even $50 I'd be surprised. It's a high demand board since there are so many TVs that use it.

Don't forget, you might be able to recoup some of your money by selling the bad board as a core. At least that's what I used to do, I don't know if they still have any value.

I guess I'll go for the cheapest one for sale on ebay and then just resell the old board and see how I come out. I might even just offer them $50 and see if they bite since its not too far off of their original asking price of $62, I'll have to wait until I get paid tomorrow to do anything though.

[dr.ido]

Here are some pic of tired panels in LG plasmas. These are 42V7s, one generation before the 42X3 in your HP set. I've had many 42X3s in the same condition.

One of these was working as found, but likely dumped due to the dots. The other needed a Y-Sustain (which I had on hand) which got the set going again, but it doesn't produce a watchable picture (at least for me, I've seen people tolerate worse). You can see someone watched a lot of FOX sports.

The dots vary with scene content and vary over time. They do seem to get better (but never go away completely) when the set is left on for a while.

There is a degree of adjustment on the Y-sustain board, and sometimes they can be tweaked to produce a better picture; With these two adjusting gave you a choice or bright dots or dark dots - no happy medium.

I have read that the dots can be caused by bad caps on the sustain boards, but I have tried recapping them in the past and it did not improve the picture.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

Here are some pic of tired panels in LG plasmas. These are 42V7s, one generation before the 42X3 in your HP set. I've had many 42X3s in the same condition.

One of these was working as found, but likely dumped due to the dots. The other needed a Y-Sustain (which I had on hand) which got the set going again, but it doesn't produce a watchable picture (at least for me, I've seen people tolerate worse). You can see someone watched a lot of FOX sports.

The dots vary with scene content and vary over time. They do seem to get better (but never go away completely) when the set is left on for a while.

There is a degree of adjustment on the Y-sustain board, and sometimes they can be tweaked to produce a better picture; With these two adjusting gave you a choice or bright dots or dark dots - no happy medium.

I have read that the dots can be caused by bad caps on the sustain boards, but I have tried recapping them in the past and it did not improve the picture.

The pictures of those "dot" issues don't look that bad to me, I was expecting dots the size of dead pixels in an LCD TV but those "dots" are barely noticeable, I had to look really hard at those pictures to even see the "dots" you were talking about. I haven't checked eBay recently to see if there are anymore Y-Sustain boards for sale that are under $80 or not (as I would like to try and keep the repair costs on this TV down as much as possible so I can try and make at least a little money off of this TV when I go to resell it.

[dr.ido]

The dots are the size of individual pixels. The white picture with the FOX sports logo is supposed to be a full white screen - The colored pixels shouldn't be there and represent pixels that are not lighting, or not lighting fully. On the black picture with the FOX sports logo it should be a completely black screen, the lit pixels should not be lit.

I sold one of these for $60 after other buyers rejected it at $80. Some people don't notice the dots, or are willing to live with them if the price is low enough.

Stick it on the shelf for a while until another set you can get a board from turns up for the right price.