Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

[Karthanon]

Received a freebie plasma which has the typical Samsung horizontal lines issue which people have been posting about for a few years now (pictures once I get home) - I opened up the set and didn't see any obviously blown caps or other burnt IC's (ie. on the Y-buffer board, as it's those Panasonic chips..) anywhere.
Will test voltages, but I'm hopeful that only a Y-buffer/Y-Mains board replacement could resurrect this television (although in doing a search on the badcaps forum almost all the tests have shown it to be a bad panel for these model of TV's).

Where's the cheapest and/or best place to buy a board besides Ebay? Google shows that http://www.tristatemodule.com has them and they're relatively cheap, but I don't know how reliable they are for parts - reviews are bit sparse.

Thanks!

[tom66]

Re: Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

Can you supply a picture of the fault?

Unfortunately these Samsung sets are well known to suffer from a fault where they get horizontal lines across the panel. This is a permanent panel defect (unrepairable, as far as I know, but I'm not sure if anyone has been able to fix it.)

[Karthanon]

Re: Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

I'll snag a picture once I get home after work. Thanks for the quick reply!

[Karthanon]

Re: Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

Can you supply a picture of the fault?

See attached.

[tom66]

Re: Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

Unfortunately, it is as I feared. The plasma panel appears to have failed. More specifically the glue Samsung use to attach the ribbons is not reliable on these models. Do you know if the lines appeared one-by-one?

[Karthanon]

Re: Samsung PN50C550 - horizontal lines

Unfortunately, I don't have any idea. /sigh Here I was hoping it would be a simple y-buffer replacement. Oh, well, back into the car it goes for a trip to the electronics recycle.

Thanks for the response!