So a few days ago we featured a video that Dave Jones did about how he fixed his plasma TV. Well he didn’t really fix it as many of our commenters pointed out, in the end the clever fix was to mask the problem to make it mostly usable again. Johannes mentioned in the EEVblog comments that he saw this video. It is a much superior solution since Dave only masks the issue, in this video you can clearly see that it’s no more invasive (don’t need to take off the cover). And it brings the picture quality back to the original state. Tools are minimal and you probably already have a baseball bat in your closet.
Just in case someone stumbles on this article looking for a way to actually fix their plasma TV, please don’t fix your TV with a baseball bat unless it is non reparable. In that case whack away to get your frustrations out!
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I kinda doubted that it would work after the several attempts. How often do you think he does that?
How many people here actually do have a baseball bat in their closet.?
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LMAO….i seriously had a different image in my head before the vid. I’m not amazed that it worked, since you can do the same with dead LCD pixels. I’m more amazed at the fact that the screen would take direct hits like that — REPEATEDLY! seriously though, totally awesome fix. It goes to proove to your silly woman friend that beating electronics DOES fix them and make them work better.
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Oh yeah i fix my radio like that all the time. Beating stuff up dose fix
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I have been hitting my old CRT TV for about a decade now 🙂 Works every time!
However I have some acctually useful information:
I have repaired and messed with alot of old gameboys, the really old grey brick ones, and they had a similar problem. The solution was to heat the ribbon cable where it connects to the LCD screen for a moment or two, you could use a soldering iron and it never melted it, I think it was just a loose connection and heating it fixes it!
One thing though; With the gameboys you tended to see more damage before you saw less, but keep on heating and all the lines of blank pixels should come back! But don’t heat it too much or you just break it lots and lots more 😛
Who knows if this will work for modern LCDs!? Maybe we should get that other angry australian guy to have a go 🙂
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Hahaha…i love how he slams it in the wall multiple times and that fix’s it. I think he was just sick of hearing that woman in the background.
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Back in the 70’s in broadcast TV engineering we had official terms for the technique displayed.
Lighter assertions of the service instrument was called a ‘Technical Tap’, and more aggressive diagnostic procedures were called ‘Percussive Maintenance’.
If the device didn’t ‘come good’ during these procedures then it was definitely heading out the door at the end of the maintenance session.
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The redneck scuffle in the background was the best part…
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Percussive Maintainance – A minute to learn, a lifetime to master 😀
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ohh yeah reminds me old soviet tv-is we were doing like that on every soviet equipment no matter it was radio, tv or a car engine
and mostly it worked
my friend had a soviet tv which if you kicked from up it would change channel if you kicked from side it would change volume
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Sometimes it’s just plain embarassing to be an Australian..!! Trust me – we’re not all that feral with our feral GF’s in the back ground swearing and carrying on…
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As soon as I saw the bat having an effect, I would pop the cover and try running the set without the cover.
And tap it with a lighter object around the edges. In percussive maintainance, the area that acts up with the lightest tap is near the symptom area.
You need to take special care with connectors on the edge of the board since they will be sensitive no matter where on the board you tap.
I use a glass swizzle stick and tap very lightly. You might even need to tap it more lightly yet and just press your probe against the suspected area.
The bat works, but I have no confidence that the problem won’t recur. It does appear to be centered on the cable connections to that segment of the display. Solutions, if you’re lucky, involve reseating the connector. If you’re unlucky, the solder to the connector may be cold and need to be reflowed which is a job.
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Science FTW!