Fans

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by kf4rca

Has anybody ever thought of installing fans on the rear of a flat screen? Something just to get the air moving. Might prolong the life of the caps, etc.

Early plasmas all had them. As they switched from mosfets to IGBTs they ran cooler and the fans went away. I used to add them to most LG plasmas as they ran scalding hot even when they were running properly. As plasma displays got older, the plasma panel started drawing more current and the sustain boards ran hotter.

Most modern TVs suffer LED failures these days. When LCD TVs first came out, they used CCFL tube back lighting. Typical hours is 80K or more. We changed a few tubes here and there and some inverter transformers.

When LED TVs were introduced, we assumed back light repairs would go away, but we soon found out that LED back lighting can fail in as little as 1000 hours.

Forget the fan. If you want to extend the life of a modern LED TV, go into the menu, find the back light adjustment and set it to half of what it is now. You will get 5X the life out of the back lights that way.

John