A week ago I spotted a large LCD TV that someone had set out at the curb, and having revived more than one "dead" LCD display by replacing the caps in the switching power supply, I checked it out, saw that the screen looked intact, although it looked as if it had been sitting outside for a few years. There was dirt and cobwebs in the ventilation slots and the RCA connectors were actually rusted, but it had the magic date of 2007 on it, which is right in the cap cootie years so I figured I would take it home and see what happened if I plugged it in.
It had no problem powering up, showed a mostly red-tinged screen, then I tapped it on the top and the picture flickered to life showing a mostly clear image with some red tinting on the right hand side.
Encouraged, I watched some Amazon Prime for a while to see how it would hold up to heat stress, and it did okay. Let it sit overnight unplugged, came back to it with some DeOxit for all the video connectors and the control panel on the top. Went into the picture menu with the remote and did a reset and poof! suddenly it went postcard-perfect, yay, I got a free upgrade to a 46" TV from my current Samsung 40" (a $40 cap replacement rescue). Watched several hours of streaming HD on my "new" TV, marveling at the size and quality, wondering if it would hold out.
Nope, as it turned out, next day it had a red vertical bar down the right side, with "slow" pixels leaving trails. Took the back off, blew the cobwebs and dirt out, sprayed DeOxit Gold on every visible connector, removed the T-Con board, put heatsink compound on the chips, cleaned the ground pads, reinstalled it, and now had a white vertical bar down the right side.
Poking around with a non-conductive probe (chopstick) revealed pixel flashes when I would touch it to the LVDS cable going into the T-Con module from the main board, no problem anywhere else.
Since Internet wisdom says that the T-Con board is indicated in most cases of vertical bars, I ordered a $10 eBay replacement, figuring I had a 50-50 chance of getting another bad T-Con board, but at least it might be messed up in a different way and I would know that it was the problem.
T-Con board arrived today, so before doing anything I powered up the set, and whoa, now I have vertical lines all across the set. Swapped the boards and no change in that status. So I guess the problem is not a bad T-Con module and now I have a spare one in case the one in the set ever fritzes. Strange, because I have read the Sony T-Con Troubleshooting Manual, and it points to the T-Con board rather than source or gate drivers on the panels. Might be wishful thinking on my part.
I found this thread about panel bonding shims. Given that it seems to have sat outside for a few years, those bonds might have become compromised, if they were not already due to Windex abuse. Something must have caused the TV to be retired in the first place.
Since this is what I consider to be major surgery (although I do have the back off already, getting that bezel off seems like no fun), is there anything else I should check before ordering the silicone pads from Amazon and giving it a try? Do you think the shimming will help?
Behold the current state of my picture, and thank you in advance:
It had no problem powering up, showed a mostly red-tinged screen, then I tapped it on the top and the picture flickered to life showing a mostly clear image with some red tinting on the right hand side.
Encouraged, I watched some Amazon Prime for a while to see how it would hold up to heat stress, and it did okay. Let it sit overnight unplugged, came back to it with some DeOxit for all the video connectors and the control panel on the top. Went into the picture menu with the remote and did a reset and poof! suddenly it went postcard-perfect, yay, I got a free upgrade to a 46" TV from my current Samsung 40" (a $40 cap replacement rescue). Watched several hours of streaming HD on my "new" TV, marveling at the size and quality, wondering if it would hold out.
Nope, as it turned out, next day it had a red vertical bar down the right side, with "slow" pixels leaving trails. Took the back off, blew the cobwebs and dirt out, sprayed DeOxit Gold on every visible connector, removed the T-Con board, put heatsink compound on the chips, cleaned the ground pads, reinstalled it, and now had a white vertical bar down the right side.
Poking around with a non-conductive probe (chopstick) revealed pixel flashes when I would touch it to the LVDS cable going into the T-Con module from the main board, no problem anywhere else.
Since Internet wisdom says that the T-Con board is indicated in most cases of vertical bars, I ordered a $10 eBay replacement, figuring I had a 50-50 chance of getting another bad T-Con board, but at least it might be messed up in a different way and I would know that it was the problem.
T-Con board arrived today, so before doing anything I powered up the set, and whoa, now I have vertical lines all across the set. Swapped the boards and no change in that status. So I guess the problem is not a bad T-Con module and now I have a spare one in case the one in the set ever fritzes. Strange, because I have read the Sony T-Con Troubleshooting Manual, and it points to the T-Con board rather than source or gate drivers on the panels. Might be wishful thinking on my part.
I found this thread about panel bonding shims. Given that it seems to have sat outside for a few years, those bonds might have become compromised, if they were not already due to Windex abuse. Something must have caused the TV to be retired in the first place.
Since this is what I consider to be major surgery (although I do have the back off already, getting that bezel off seems like no fun), is there anything else I should check before ordering the silicone pads from Amazon and giving it a try? Do you think the shimming will help?
Behold the current state of my picture, and thank you in advance:
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