EEVblog #52 - Panasonic Plasma TV's Suck (and a Teardown)

[TrollingAround]

I love your T'shirt - from Mythbusters?



[Knaeckebrotsaege]

10:26 Those turquoise caps are Rubycon RX30 Industrial grade / high temperature caps, rated for 5000hours at 130°C (yes.. 130)

In other words: it doesn't matter that they're wedged in between the heatsinks. They obviously used really hich quality caps throughout the whole thing, unlike a lot of other brands like Samsung and LG, which keep using chinese garbage caps (Capxon, Samwha, Sam Young, Su'scon, ...) that fail after the warranty ran out to make Average joe go buy a new TV or whatever..

[pyroesp]

Hahaha, really interesting and funny video.

I liked the end !

[XTYNoLuck]

35 dislikes are probably from people who have some connection to "panasonic"

[wowerman]

i would do exactly same thing,mask it with some plastic strip

[yrly59e]

Don't see how its worse than Samsung plasmas blowing their power supply or the LG pop of death. I don't know if it is really planned, I think it is just poor design to speed up manufacturing. The manufacturing standards are about the same on all of them. I'm fixing a pop of death Maxent made by LG at the moment, Y-SUS board on this one, got two slightly domed caps on the PS I'll replace when its open. No name caps & heat is a bad thing. I'd honestly be surprised if any 2007 era Samsungs work now

[officersnout]

Calm down man!!!

[Tyster360]

Mythbusters T-shirt. Nice.

[FlashmoreGash]

Lay off any caffeine product!

[appleip]

just wondering how do u know its that chip and not the support circuity as my plasma broke with the same issue and i was told it needed a new screen then i took it to a joe smoes tv repair and 2 caps later its works great how ever mine is a dell that is made by samsung but just something to think about

[Perigon]

Sorry for your TV woes. I own a Panasonic plasma myself, from last year (a 3D set, no less). I'm very happy with it, hopefully it won't fail on me. It's on just about all the time when I'm home, so if nothing else it is certainly getting the hours put on it.

[thewii552]

best fix ever

[alekssina1]

Шибан смотаняк!!!

[kaxias]

Ahahah nicely mended!

[12344richard]

when i was watching your video i was think the samething put some black tape on the tv

[12344richard]

I would have bought a samsung

[larrybud]

@12344richard Unfortunately, Samsungs have a higher failure rate than Pannys.

[CassetteMaster]

I love Back to the Future! And I bet with the thing breaking that it was Planned Obsolescence.

[yeoldeengineer]

We've had a 42PV60 for like 5 years now, and it's been working fine. It is, however, one of the finest RFI sources on mediumwave and lower shortwave you can imagine. Apparently they got that fixed in later models with a panel redesign, dropping emissions by about 40 dB. Good ol' Mr. Faraday to the rescue, I suppose.

I guess I wouldn't get a plasma any more, since while the colors are nice, the flickering is a bit annoying. It would have to be a *nice* LCD unit with large viewing angle though.

[arrow1archer]

Actually when you bought your tv pioneer made the best plasmas but now panasonic do since they bought pioneers engineers

I own a new vista 65 inch 3d plasma and it's great

All because your plasma broke don't mean you need to hate on them

[Joh1Aerilon]

Loved how you "fixed" the TV. I got myself a Panasonic Plasma Viera and it presented the same issue (and got the same reply from the techs: replace the plasma screen) but sadly I can't fix it like you did. The black colum is right in the center of the screen.

And, of course, the Panasonic call center did the obvious: "this happens. We can't do anything if warranty is over".

Panasonic: Never Again!!

[EEVblog]

@Joh1Aerilon Bummer, Murphy's law. At least mine is still usable.

[HugMyNutz]

i love the end

[SparkySlow]

Thumbs up if you:

Press 1:13

Listen 3 more times

Leave this page.

[CDMCSD2]

The thing you see around the chip-contacts (Plasma chips) are there to make it difficult to

tap signals on the pins of the IC. This assures that high-tech guys have a difficult time capturing a movie which was not supposed to be copied by it's studio, since from those pins, you can actually capture the whole movie in excellent quality (thus bypassing HDCP protection)...

[CDMCSD2]

Analog devices chip is for decoding HDMI and more importantly, HDCP (brought to you by big-brothers in Warner Bros, Disney, RIAA, and so on...)

[Arnthorg]

Dave: Is that a light bulb there at 4:45? 

[joseph10704]

i would never ever buy a plasma just because of this reason they dont last long and really when it come to the end of the day we buy a tv for it to last for a long time not 2 year that just bullshit ,i hope u fixed the tv or better yet i hope u got a newer tv i would eather go for a LED samsung i would go for or LCD but NEVER NEVER plasma EVERRRRR !!!!!!!!! good luck buddy .

[SUPERBWON]

A model number would be a great help? Every models different.

[detectiveinspekta]

ROFL Very funny

[xexorz]

Man that sort of thing drives me nuts.

You're right about the location of the problem - it is at the ribbon or inside.

I'm sorta crazy and would likely have deconstructed the plasma assembly as to see if the ribbon cable was replaceable.

Worst case scenario you have yourself a boat load of parts to sell on ebay.

Thanks much for taking the time to share - I'm sorry for your loss!!

[tignesboy]

you can fix everything with duck tape

[trippplefive]

I used to recommend Panasonic to a lot of people...not anymore.

[davidsfc9]

It seems to be a worlwide cliché, that every EE engineer knows how to repair the tv's XD

[EEVblog]

@davidsfc9 I hate it! I did a drive time rant on this topic too.

[fingerboy18]

@EEVblog I agree. A girl once asked me to fix her laptop because it wouldn't turn on. NO, I can't fix your laptop that you probably spilled beer on!

[XTYNoLuck]

@davidsfc9 nope just they don't want the headache for your tv....or any one's for that matter, I should know...i live on repairing these under budget pieces of shit...don't get me wrong ...i like capitalism...fuck that, and fuck them who want a dollar more in there pocket, just to spend it on a hooker, and then they say they have an difficult family situation...fuck them...fucking animals...

[TheEPROM9]

I know how you feel when people ask you to fix stuff. While I'm not an electronics engineer, electronics is my hobby and I have been trained in computer repair as I am studying a computing course. The modern stuff is just not built to be fixed... so most of the time it is imposible to fix.

[TheEPROM9]

You can Imagen Panasonic sitting in their control room with evil smiles on there faces as the activate the self destruct chip when the worenty runs out with a big red button.

!

[TheEPROM9]

Stick to CRT, they refuse to die. The only way to kill them is destroy the tube and that's not easy un less you open it up. Shame the new stuff is built so badly, it had so much potential. Your new scope just proves no matter how much you spend, its all shit.

[spuzzdawg]

@TheEPROM9 I used to work at an electronics repair workshop. You wouldn't believe how many CRTs were thrown out. Often it was because the owner didn't want to pay for it to be fixed but there were many that just couldn't be fixed. For example, CRT manufacturers never used a standard set of flyback transformers so unless someone like HR makes the specific transformer you are looking for, the most common CRT fault just can't be fixed.

[amiloPA2548]

si zabil

[aoshima6566]

Love this guy! HEY he fixed it after all! just needed a little duck-tape!!!

[aoshima6566]

Love this guy!

[heroineworshipper]

Why would something as big & heavy as a plasma TV need flex cable mounted chips? It probably was a loose solder joint to the flex cable that a heat gun could have fixed. Enough temperature cycles could have done it.

[EEVblog]

@heroineworshipper No, a heat gun didn't fix it.

[heroineworshipper]

Managed to save a CRT once by just resoldering the flyback transformer. Obviously the wife is the one suffering, since EE's watch TV on computers.

[ciprianwiner]

tape will do it

[UTubeisSHIT523441]

In the service where I worked, we have many broken Panasonic plasmas and in all of them the screen have failed, so it was considered unworthy of repair. I smell they do this intentionally so the people would buy a new screen every 2 years.

Remember the times, when the TVs worked 20+ years? I still have an old cathode-tube TV and I am not exchanging it for a new plasma/LED, etc. at least for the time being..

[GPlay85]

You sound like the narrator from Milo and Otis. lol

[Lavinco]

Heat gun will fix the solder joints. That should lower your eyebrows and elevated voice at the end of each sentance to a less excited happy guy who has his tv working again.

[EEVblog]

@Lavinco Heat gun doesn't work. The elevated voice is called a High Rising Terminal, it's natural.

[scompo]

probably the glue is there becuse the bga it's disconnecting from the pads during their tets...

[fingerboy18]

Haha I love that comment. My motherboard fried, can you fix it? Haha

[Zantor135]

Just put the tape on both sides and top and bottom to mask the set then adjust the size of the picture to fit in the masking and you will have a working approx 36" TV.

[EEVblog]

@Zantor135 Size adjustments are too limited to do that well unfortunately.

[thomasey2]

cool

[williefleete]

epic ending

[RadioNex]

I'd say that you have nothing to lose. May be it is some filled with compound controller at flexible PCB failed, but it is more possible that it's because of contact loss due to overheating (damn Pb-free). Try to warm it up with air or IR heater. Don't forget to cover other places with aluminium foil...

[sparkybaz77]

Ha hargh! good ending!

[sparkybaz77]

Ask any TV guy, the best picture you can get is through a CRT.

[fluxoff]

Sorry, that was youtube.com/watch?v=0ykPsV2voY­U

[fluxoff]

Dave - did you try to "fix" it per video 0ykPsV2voYU ? I think this "fixed" a solder joint failure!

I've seen chip-on-flex fail elsewhere. I was able to repair by reflowing the solder with an SMT rework air gun. The goop around the row-driver chips is indeed for both dust and high voltage, as a dust particle bridging the ultra-fine-pitch HV drive IC pins would be a definitive Bad Thing.

[exnol]

lol...cool ending.

BTW Dave, the foam around the fans are probably to prevent air from getting in through the ventilators of the fan. The air should only enter through the bottom ventilators.

[DrMario2007baka]

And, with the built-in DVD player, it's another story.... T____T

But, still, you would still be able to use its input panel...

[DrMario2007baka]

If you, Dave, want to repair your TV, may I suggest you to look around on your motherboard for any of "zorched" parts around the power supply? It's the SMPS that usually fails first. I have LCD TV and is considering repairing it by hand in the future time. (BTW, be careful around Cathode rails of the Plasma display panel - they usually carry higher voltage - maybe 300VDC - that's fed through the pixel switch transistor arrays - something to keep in mind. LCD panel won't hurt you but Plasma can.)

[daxweb]

aahahahaha

you are fantastic Dave!

Rotfl with last scene!!!

[mavsfan1000]

All brands can fail you. Panasonic tv's have some of the best rates on consumer reports repair rate. If you want to give a brand a hard time, Samsung is one of the most untrustworthy. Just get the 3 year extended warranty by Squaretrade and problem fixed.

[brainslay3r]

Y-driver board, it's a $20 fix. Or put it on ebay, you'll get like $100 or more.

[johnmartin1024]

If you haven't shit canned the TV already, you could look on eBay or elsewhere for same/similar model and swap parts with it just to verify exactly what the problem is. Only danger is if it involves something that is or will short internally and take out a good component/board. If your TV is in danger to going to the landfill, I'll bet you can find other owners that would sell you their defective TV for a song just to get some money out of it. Just a thought.

[rollo131]

I'd like to see the HDMI mother/daughterboards

[pinkprince3000]

Well You Know Plasma TV Are Never Good LCD & Led FTW

[kingofpunk1977]

You bought that in 2008?? It looks like a 2005 model . A Grey import

[averagemale2000]

top notch video, nice to get a professional analysis of a such a complex peace of equipment... black tape to the rescue, ha ha, good stuff man

[Membrane556]

I do see two big design flaws in that TV.

There is nothing protecting the column driver cable from rubbing on the metal chassis and no strain relief on the driver chip carrier on the connector end to kept the cable from bending too sharply which it appears to have done.

[Zagroseckt]

Bufferboard seems to be on the frits.

normly has to do with a cap going out causing an oselation in some of the ic's heating them up till they fry.

and i find more shops saying the screen faild and it's just the bufferboards.

[amdnovello]

Maybe too complicated? Bye. You made me laugh lol

[amdnovello]

I was wondering why didnt you try to fix the problem inside that column drivers? Maybe too comp

[Thetruthishere11]

Hey Dave. open that ribbon wire that controls the column and remove the chip.

Make another video trying to repair it. If it's indeed the chip then you can repair it.

It's reallly stupid that they made it so hard to repair.

A fix should be attempted! Ask panasonic to replace the part or buy one off ebay.

[redwolf4k]

This is a XX60u model?? I have a 42" version of this bad boy that shut itself off one night, and simply won't power up. No diag blinking power led or anything....suspect the P-board, or power supply board...

[Jasonm1976]

funny but you should try the black chips to the right and side of the plug they are known for solder issues and sometimes when you resolder them the tv will come back to life. it works for other tv's with black bars in the video. sometimes they are on the milar but on this tv they are on the board above.

[Jasonm1976]

They maybe on the back of the board above the ribbon for that one. if you look the rest of the chips have two each on each side. but the end only shows the ones on the right. so they should be on the left side of the connector and most likely on the back of the board.

[kktech04]

he he he... black electrical tape... and fixed it... good one !

[zker666]

Ending was epic!

[tripjet999]

Crikey!

[Dema428]

Fixed it!

You'r really cool man=)

[ChannelFluR0]

Your vids are the best, You see all these people from the States etc. and they cant laugh @ good old Aussie humor *thumbs up to dave*

[maxandcato]

plasma tvs just fuckin suck

[Zed1967]

I get people asking me to fix their electronic/electrical things too but the most unusual request was a woman who asked me if I could fix her vibrator because it had stopped working, the internal battery connector was corroded but after cleaning with some emery cloth her twat rattle fired up nicely again. :)

[lrd9999]

Panasonic has some interesting technology, but their quality sucks. Also, if you need any support on anything, they treat you like a vagrant. I avoid them, except for stuff that is too simple to fail. I hear the same about Samsung. There aren't many decent electronics brands left.

[Akashdeep17]

fixed it panasonic

*middle finger up*

hahah

[artifactingreality]

loved the ending.

[dannybambino]

Dave, wouldn't the 2 bars failing after removing the ribbon look the same? I think it could be the board above the ribbon.

[rs232boy]

A friend of mine had a similar problem. The TV was a cheap one, but inside looked very similar to this panasonic. The local service wanted 600$ to fix it. So we just downloaded a service manual and found that the Y board was dead. I was lucky to get one online (just by googling for the part number) for 150$ and the TV was fixed :D

Thanks for sharing your experience !

[TheWelly888]

Dave - thanks for the excellent tip on "repairing" that fault! I'll remember that for when I'm asked to fix the same problem on a plasma jobbie! :-)

[AdvancedYouser]

loved the end :D

[neutron7]

I think those white ICs are the ones which detect your warranty has expired and break the TV for you. (licensed from sony, or is that apple?)

[demjp8RqDA]

I was going to suggest that I'd just put a piece of black tape over the bright bit. And since my TV is hooked to a Linux box, I could just tweak the X config to change the resolution so it didn't try to use the right side of the screen.

[KonChul]

Panasonic sucks at everything! Long story short I had both a VCR and a 32" widescreen tv break down of that crap brand! The vcr started chewing the vhs tape when you rewinded them. And the widescreen 32" just got fucked up by itself. Scart ports and s-video port stoped working by itself for no reason. And the remote stoped half working as well. I dug up my old 1980 old JVC vcr and that works fine still to this day. And the tv, is now a 52" LG. Fuck Panasonic and their cheap manufactured products

[gmcjetpilot]

I don't think it is the plasma screen, I think the problem is with the flux capacitor.

[gmcjetpilot]

Panasonic is the best plasma? Toshiba and Sony are safer bets. I got 5 year warranty for less then $100 on my 32" LCD, Bravia Sony.

[cr99991]

Great ending!

[foulmouthc1]

so you wax lyrical about the engineering of your tv which is broken, amazed at theres no bodges inside and then you bodge it yourself with electrical tape. Its not logical captain??

[EEVblog]

It's called humor.

[foulmouthc1]

Humour

[stallioness]

how do u overide a parental lock without the code?

[SciStarborne]

Duct tape saves the day!

[eydryan]

this was fun :)

voted for you in the wired geeks thing mate but you're pretty much outclassed. by the girls i mean, didn't really give a damn about the blokes.

keep making this great show!

[number7redking]

the main thing is they run off 115V not 230V.

[djlobb]

@number7redking

So?? What, you think Panasonic would allow reselling in Australia without using a 230/240v power supply or even a switching PSU like 115-240v? that's stupid..

[FlyingMantisGT]

Very elegant, Dave! Nice one!

[TauntOfCuscany]

Luckily it was the column on the side of the plasma. It wouldn't be that nice if a column in the middle of the picture failed ;)

[uncleshart]

Thanks for moving around in the video but is there any way for you to have all the equipment behind you moving around too so my plasma doesn't burn in? XD

[eydryan]

you won't get burn in from 15 minutes of video... plus, compression isn't perfect, those pixels do move a tiny little bit, especially in luminosity

[djlobb]

@eydryan

Oh i'm not too certain on that, I had my brothers TV hooked up to my laptop to view a Bluray movie on it, and in the main menu there wasn't alot of movement, and when I unplugged the lapotop because we didn't end up watching it out in the loungeroom, there was a light shadow of the picture on the screen for almost an hour afterwards, the menu wasn't even on the screen for longer than 15mins. I was happy paying 1grand more for a supperiour TV technology if it means peace of mind.

[eydryan]

well then no offense but that's a lousy TV...

A friend of mine has this gigantic Sony Bravia and has had no problems with burn-in in the 2-3 years she's had it.

[uncleshart]

The reason I don't like lcd is because of the uneven backlight and crummy blacks

[djlobb]

@uncleshart

how old u talkin? Even before LED lighting the newer LCD TV's look supperb, I have an oldish 2008 Samsung FulHD LCD with the antiglare coating and it has nice blacks and the backlighting is fine. These LEDs look amazing tho....

[hardwares1]

check your flux capacitors...use a cheap DMM -or- a fluke 'clone' of one ;-)

[igob8a]

Panasonics are trash.

Samsung LCDs ftw

[timberman78]

What's Dave's accent? is this UK English or Australian?

[EEVblog]

Australian mate.

[conoba]

While are the driver chips on the plastic connector ribbon?

I bet it is a mechanical failure of the die bonds.

Does anyone have a guess why they did not mount it on the glas?

[JINXZER]

Samsung LED DLP is the way to go.

[djlobb]

@JINXZER

LED LCD? No such thing as LED DLP friend.

[JOCKATEO]

i don,t think the screen is the problem it one of the boards

[JOCKATEO]

thats looks like ydrv buffer board the cable that connects to the screen can come loose look at them

[MonkeyFCoconut]

This is the main reason you should always burn-in your electronics when you get them. Basically, if it's going to fail due to a faulty part... it's going to happen within the first 90 days of use... IF YOU USE IT. So, do some home HALT testing on it and just turn it on and leave it on 24/7 for a couple weeks. I have the same TV, and have the extended warranty, and it's lived well past the extended warranty period. It's on just about ALL of the time too :) Nice fix at the end! Great videos!

[Albinorama]

Dave at 12:25 , great postulate!.

[RSKueffner]

Fantastic ending!

[wessouthern]

Nothing I hate more then some high priced gear going out.

[amazingdany]

Tell me about it, especially if you slaved really hard at work to buy it and it gives up the ghost after 14 months, and oh too bad so sad, manufacturer's warranty conveniently finished.

GRRRR.

The lesson I learned was to pay with your credit card as it will give you an extra year or two of warranty without depleting your wallet even more.

[GalaticTG]

gen an OLED display instead :)

[DXR13KE]

Now i know how to fix that particular problem, thank you!

[brail207]

With the black tape you used to fix the plasma the TV is going to last another 15 years, just live with it, in 10 years you can online custom order an OLED TV thats 3mm thick it will arrive in the post in a tube you will stick it on the wall and it will find your home Wifi connection and download it's latest firmware and set itself up to your region, ok so we just have to work out how to get power to this 3mm stick on the wall TV but we have at least 10 years to work it out

[scancool]

Mate you are good, but you complain too much is there anything you like??

[tesla500]

Classic ending, loved it!

I think the grey stuff around the row driver chips is there to stop dust or contamination from causing arc over, I believe those drivers output around 150 to 200V.

[sepertude]

@tesla500 Yes, you are right. Pins are very close to each other and peak voltages goes up to 180V.

[0LoneTech]

I must admit I used the exact same fix technique on a LED matrix display I built once. An accident during construction killed one column, so we just swapped that module out to the edge and called it 34x8 instead of 35x8.

[kdarrah1234]

600 bucks for an oxygen sensor?? that's how I fixed my "check engine light" problem,

[freemind321]

LMAO nice ending

[GRIM2594]

LOL @ 13:20

[ihatespam1977]

The reason nobody can find a tech anymore to fix their TV is because its slave labor! Warranty service is subcontracted out to a bunch of bottom feeder "tech" companies who then hire a technician to work for them as an part time independent contractor until that technician realizes that after all the business expenses he'll make more money flipping burgers. Techs usually wind up getting paid on a flat rate per call basis like $30.00 with no mileage compensation for the first 35 miles.

[onlywhenprovoked]

great ending.

[Eviltwin3940]

Excellent repair job. (:

[mashed107]

Multiple channel drivers do have a tendency of getting extremely hot if driving low impedance loads. Maybe that grey stuff is a thermal compound of sorts?

[jaspers22]

K. I. S. S.  ... one of the best ways I have seen it applied!

KUDOS MAN!

[First2ner]

lol nice fix

[smadmead1]

Nice shirt! Mythbusters quote!