Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

[Tedybear]

Need a huge hand with this.

I did a post about this set having a 'minor' issue, and it's slowly grown. Oh the picture is still great on 95% of the screen. But check out the photo of the screen.

At first I figured it was just a minor annoyance, but the wife is now seeing it and starting to get concerned. Why? Because it grew!! It started off as a 1/4" at the top...and like a tiny wedge vanished about 1/4 of the way from the right top corner.

Now it's grown quite a bit as you can see from the pictures.

Now the two known issues that a DLP TV set has--and Samsung had the Light Tunnel issue to the point they got sued and forced to repair.


Light Tunnel Collapse: Mirrors in the light tunnel (4 of them from what I understand) have weak adhesive and the mirrors 'fall' causing black dark shades in the picture.

DLP chip getting sticky mirrors: Causes the white 'squares' aka, stuck pixels. We can safely say that's not it. Because while watching the TV shows--the image isn't "Stuck", it's fully apparent---but when it hits that wedge? It's like the brightness and contrast for that one sliver area got x5 or more!!


The bulb was just replaced with 17 hours on it. (Factory bulb, not a china knock off).

We just cleaned it up from all the dust. Found some hinkeys on the color wheel, cleaned with 90proof and a micro fiber towel. (about as lint free as we have on hand) Color wheel? Kinda wondering...It's blasting a beam of pure light down that tunnel o' love....Smacking the reflection mirror...hits the dlp chip...it beams it to an optic projection lens.. Pretty sure I have the basic operation down. But this beats the *&^ out of me..

A bad light tunnel should be 'blocking' the light beam causing the dark shaded bars/picture. What would cause the exact opposite?


Has anyone seen this before? Asking for some aid on this, as this is a totally new one for me.

Thanks in advance!!

S-

edit: had to kick on email notification. oppsie

[Tedybear]

Re: Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

Had a brain fart on this one.

Now hear me out. Unless this is something else that someone has seen?

I'm wondering if the light tunnel could be collapsed to the point that all we have of a NORMAL bright picture would be that sliver in the corner. And the rest of the mirrors are that bad...that the rest of the picture is just one HUGE dark shade!

Or am I being to idealistic and it's not going to be that simple?

Ah well. I'm home tomorrow and will take another stab at looking at it. Just need some IDEAS of what I'm looking for!!!

Thanks!!

S-

[Tedybear]

Re: Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

Bump.

Need ideas. Has anyone seen this before?

[Tedybear]

Re: Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

Fixed it this morning. One more off the repair list.

S-

[tom66]

Re: Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

Care to share how you fixed it?
Don't think that because no one posted we don't care - it's simply a case of not knowing!
Sharing the repair will help others in the future.

[Tedybear]

Re: Samsung HLS5087 Major sliver of light in picture

Care to share how you fixed it?
Don't think that because no one posted we don't care - it's simply a case of not knowing!
Sharing the repair will help others in the future.

The mirror in the light tunnel did something that did not meet the normal fail. It became dislodged and only allowed a tiny slot for the max light to travel through. The rest of the light beam that did make it through--was severely muted and dim.

I was expecting the dark shade. The mirror failed so badly-the dark shade sucked down over 98% of the screen.


This is the first time we have owned a DLP set. So we figured it was usual to have a bright clear picture within the viewing angle the manuals suggested--which we had.

Once I glued the mirror back into it's correct space, and realigned the light tunnel slightly. We have a super bright crisp picture--from just about any angle.

The glue is a temp repair. This light tunnel is still being sold at several parts dealer, including Samsung (oddly enough they want $30-$40 more then the indie shops). We have a very slight 1/2 dark bar on the right side. Hard to notice, but I suspect my repair didn't align the mirror 100%. (And adjusting it was a huge PITA, Samsung didn't leave much cable to work with)

I know also I was not the first in that light tunnel. It had one mirror with a very thin narrow double sided tape holding it together. That might have been a repair shop patch job--it only appears on one mirror.

I peeked at the various parts as well. All capacitors in excellent shape physically inspection of course. (I will need to upgrade my testing stuff if I go back into trying to repair these things. Right now it's just a hobby...)

The color wheel is going to need replacement eventually. It has a very slight drag (very hard to notice...but it's there) So we'll invest in the parts over my next few paychecks. Light tunnel first--as I'm sure the super glue won't last forever. And then the color wheel last.

I'm looking into picking up another one of these DLP sets hopefully in the future. That picture actually blows the flat panel ones out of the water. (at least the ones in my current price range)

S-


Edit: For the ones that shrugged the shoulders and didn't know? Doesn't hurt to say "Wow..that's interesting, and something we've not seen before". It was only my late Uncle's work in optical design for TI back in the day that gave me a kick in the rear end to figure this out....I looked up the theory of operation on youtube and then things started to make sense.