29 thoughts on “Eevblog #52 – panasonic plasma tv’s suck and a teardown”
Do you still have that? today there are more information and techniques related to attempt the repair of that cof, ribbons, even without specialized machines. anyway, seems to me like you also have an issue in the area of the board that manage that cof .
i like you dave but, its like saying hakko suck because they made the fr-810…. if you go to real top of the range panasonic (viera vt30) now its an another day…. me and some friends have one for more than 13 years and run all days since i bought it and its been abuse and never had any issue and its build like a dream… every compagnies do shit… but we cannot say that a specific brand suck because of a model that have a problem… your title leave the message that panasonic suck at plasma… but panasonic is the top of the top of the line in plasma… far better than sony xbr….
Funny I am watching this on my 8 year old Panasonic plasma, and I have a 10 year old one out in my garage (-10F in the winter and up to 90F in the summer). Both have always worked perfectly.
got my panesonic 42" viera set just like yours from thrift store for $25. Still works 100% Yes plasma is out of fashion, but still great tv. It has aged much better than samsung lcd tv from same era – lcd tv shows reddish cast with age, while panesonic plasma tv retains original colors
you're unit failed, that does not mean the majority of panasonic TVs are garbage like yours. we still maintan panasonic plasmas even today outlasting THE TRUE GARBAGE LCD TVs.
bought my Panasonic Plasma in 2010. Working nicely till today. Using it with my PC. Still better as the most LCDs, LED. Better colors, contrast and black.
I bought a Pioneer KURO Elite plasma when they came out, I didn't have any issues with it other than the white levels being inaccurate. That is totally normal for plasma technology though, they simply CANNOT physically display "TRUE white'… BUT, they DO have excellent color and black levels which is nice. I was looking to replace mine in 2010 when I found a TV that actually SURPASSED my KURO Elite! I was over at a friend's house who is a professional isf calibrator and he had just purchased a new tv he was working on. To my shock when he was finished calibrating the tv we watched "Dark Knight" on blu ray and the picture was RICHER in color depth than my KURO Elite and it had "TRUE white levels"! Further, the black levels were ON PAR with my plasma! In fact, I actually THOUGHT it was a newer gen plasma! When I asked him what tv this was, he replied "LG's top of the line LH90 LED LCD series". I said "BS! LCD's DO NOT produce pictures like that… They CAN'T!". He grabbed his remote for his ceiling fan light and turned the dimmer slider up and I looked at the model which read "LG55LH90". I was FLOORED… You see, I had this cocky elite "plasma club" attitude where I thought ALL LCDs suck and can't compete with plasma. I learned a valuable lesson in humility that day when my TV ate dirt behind the glory of the latest LED LCD generation tv. I made arrangements that NIGHT to put my tv up for sale on ebay and started looking around for that new model LG. Within 3 weeks I had sold the KURO Elite, for 1,800 no less, and had the LH90 delivered to my door 8 days later… Now out of the BOX the colors were on the VIVID setting and were overly bright, inaccurate and oversaturated, all tvs are out of the box though… I called my friend over, the isf guy, and agreed to pay him $300 to calibrate it correctly…. When he was finished that tv dropped my jaw and I have never since regretted my purchase! 8.5 years later and the TV I got STILL is going super strong with ZERO problems and no burn in, dead pixels or anything…. A perfect tv. In 8.5 years I have seen a neighbor of mine go through 2 Panasonic plasma tv's and one Samsung plasma tv… the Samsung plasma he still has and it has a horizontal black line going through it with some serious color banding a well! I still have yet to see a tv nowadays, other than OLED, which would prompt me to want to replace mine. OLED has SERIOUS burn in issues though so until they work out those kinks I'm going to stay put and see how long time takes to shut my beast down… I'm telling you, the LGLH90 series is hands down the BEST overall tv I have EVER owned, and that is coming from a serious old time plasma lover…. Well, not anymore I should say, I'm sold.
2 things: 1. I think you got a defective screen there, it might not be the driver chips. 2. I think I know why it was flickering when you unplugged that wire, something to do with the black and white fuzzies when not plugged in to cable, and the side things working trying to make the image come up, and both somehow make a image, LCDs usually have just column wires, some have tabs on the side with no power going to them I don't know why.
You were just unfortunate it happened to you. i own a panasonic st60a going into its 4th year it still beats alots of the new Lcds brands on market for screen uniformity and black level. Not interested in upgrading to oled just yet.
Panasonic stopped making their own TV's here in Thailand last year and are instead started sourcing cheap Chinese TV's and putting their brand name on them. In these days of "sourcing" instead of "making" a so called "good" brand name can mean nothing.
I hate LCD screens and over the past 14 years bought countless monitors and tvs. Nearly all of them had dead pixels, terrrible backlight bleed, ununiform colours and the only two that worked properly broke within a year. One was a 4k lcd which had incredible picture quality and blacks so deep people thought it was OLED.
When it broke 3 weeks after purchase I decided to get a panasonic plasma. I was lucky and found a boxed new one for sale (plasmas are nolonger manufactured thank god). Now I know plasmas have their issues but I was apauled at the image quality. My lcd produced far richer blacks and brightness was terrible too. I didnt use tape to rectify my problem I smashed it to peices with a hammer.
I wish manufacturers would stop trying to keep lcd alive by adding stupid gimicks like 3D or local dimming and curves. Stop fannying around and start producing more OLED panels. Everyone who knows about display technology knows OLED is superior in evey respect.
The insides of the Panasonic gear is top notch. There's no con from the company. Unless something has changed over the recent year. I know that Panasonic had their own plasma steppers (you know, the machines to manufacture the plasma screens), most other manufacturers probably use Samsung screens, including Sony. I mean, there's whole philosophy clash between Tokyo based Sony and Osaka based Matsushita Electric, Sony being into business and big numbers, Matsushita being into quality. Where did it all go? I guess Samsung and GoldStar (today Lucky GoldStar or LG) eventually came on top, starting from cheapest possible junk back in the '80s, selling those below cost of production just to capture the market share, now, bingo! Samsung and LG are top brannds in TV's. What did the world came to… Foxconn TV?
I've got a Philips one here that takes ~30s to boot. Which is a slower startup than my granny's TV in the 1970ies, and that had tubes. What were they thinking?
Anything missing off the video input board cause some companies omit parts pieces and components to cut cost but if the consumer can just buy those parts and solder them back in would you or could you change a say Emerson plasma to a Samsung since there manufactured by the same company. like missing vga port but has all the components but missing the port.
Anything missing off the video input board cause some companies omit parts pieces and components to cut cost but if the consumer can just buy those parts and solder them back in would you or could you change a say Emerson plasma to a Samsung since there manufactured by the same company. like missing vga port but has all the components but missing the port.
Too bad you couldn't connect another set of 2 bands into that original connector, then if you saw the output on another 2 blocks that would prove the problem was with the flat flex chip, well unless there is something electrically more complex.
I ended up with one of these free with a bad segment, just occasionally..
I figure out the board needed, obtain them from ebay, take everything shown off the chassis to get to the driver boards, replaced them, and brick. Never made it past the safety checks so it never powered up again.
Maybe removing all the wires and boards and finding that one cable that's not quite seated out of 120+. . Or the ebay board was bad. No convenient swapping for test, it's highly embedded.
Later, moving the dead hulk munged the screen so no need to give another try. I'm out two ebay boards which I guess I can extract the lot now and let someone else give a go on theirs.
Do you still have that? today there are more information and techniques related to attempt the repair of that cof, ribbons, even without specialized machines. anyway, seems to me like you also have an issue in the area of the board that manage that cof .
i like you dave but, its like saying hakko suck because they made the fr-810…. if you go to real top of the range panasonic (viera vt30) now its an another day…. me and some friends have one for more than 13 years and run all days since i bought it and its been abuse and never had any issue and its build like a dream… every compagnies do shit… but we cannot say that a specific brand suck because of a model that have a problem… your title leave the message that panasonic suck at plasma… but panasonic is the top of the top of the line in plasma… far better than sony xbr….
Funny I am watching this on my 8 year old Panasonic plasma, and I have a 10 year old one out in my garage (-10F in the winter and up to 90F in the summer). Both have always worked perfectly.
got my panesonic 42" viera set just like yours from thrift store for $25. Still works 100% Yes plasma is out of fashion, but still great tv. It has aged much better than samsung lcd tv from same era – lcd tv shows reddish cast with age, while panesonic plasma tv retains original colors
you're unit failed, that does not mean the majority of panasonic TVs are garbage like yours. we still maintan panasonic plasmas even today outlasting THE TRUE GARBAGE LCD TVs.
bought my Panasonic Plasma in 2010. Working nicely till today. Using it with my PC. Still better as the most LCDs, LED. Better colors, contrast and black.
well I hope my 50" Panasonic plasma won't die, because I still haven't found yet an HD replacement with such a contrast ratio.
its always the panel or the mainboard
and expensive parts i threw alot of them away parts to expensive
I bought a Pioneer KURO Elite plasma when they came out, I didn't have any issues with it other than the white levels being inaccurate. That is totally normal for plasma technology though, they simply CANNOT physically display "TRUE white'… BUT, they DO have excellent color and black levels which is nice. I was looking to replace mine in 2010 when I found a TV that actually SURPASSED my KURO Elite! I was over at a friend's house who is a professional isf calibrator and he had just purchased a new tv he was working on. To my shock when he was finished calibrating the tv we watched "Dark Knight" on blu ray and the picture was RICHER in color depth than my KURO Elite and it had "TRUE white levels"! Further, the black levels were ON PAR with my plasma! In fact, I actually THOUGHT it was a newer gen plasma! When I asked him what tv this was, he replied "LG's top of the line LH90 LED LCD series". I said "BS! LCD's DO NOT produce pictures like that… They CAN'T!". He grabbed his remote for his ceiling fan light and turned the dimmer slider up and I looked at the model which read "LG55LH90". I was FLOORED… You see, I had this cocky elite "plasma club" attitude where I thought ALL LCDs suck and can't compete with plasma. I learned a valuable lesson in humility that day when my TV ate dirt behind the glory of the latest LED LCD generation tv. I made arrangements that NIGHT to put my tv up for sale on ebay and started looking around for that new model LG. Within 3 weeks I had sold the KURO Elite, for 1,800 no less, and had the LH90 delivered to my door 8 days later… Now out of the BOX the colors were on the VIVID setting and were overly bright, inaccurate and oversaturated, all tvs are out of the box though… I called my friend over, the isf guy, and agreed to pay him $300 to calibrate it correctly…. When he was finished that tv dropped my jaw and I have never since regretted my purchase! 8.5 years later and the TV I got STILL is going super strong with ZERO problems and no burn in, dead pixels or anything…. A perfect tv. In 8.5 years I have seen a neighbor of mine go through 2 Panasonic plasma tv's and one Samsung plasma tv… the Samsung plasma he still has and it has a horizontal black line going through it with some serious color banding a well! I still have yet to see a tv nowadays, other than OLED, which would prompt me to want to replace mine. OLED has SERIOUS burn in issues though so until they work out those kinks I'm going to stay put and see how long time takes to shut my beast down… I'm telling you, the LGLH90 series is hands down the BEST overall tv I have EVER owned, and that is coming from a serious old time plasma lover…. Well, not anymore I should say, I'm sold.
LOL! the actual repair. :-)))
our 42” Panasonic TV top of the line is 11 yrs old going great, perfect.
i have the 56"/58" model and its still kickin after 10yrs
Rubycon and Nichicon caps … no CapXon caps like in our Samsung Plasma!
2 things: 1. I think you got a defective screen there, it might not be the driver chips. 2. I think I know why it was flickering when you unplugged that wire, something to do with the black and white fuzzies when not plugged in to cable, and the side things working trying to make the image come up, and both somehow make a image, LCDs usually have just column wires, some have tabs on the side with no power going to them I don't know why.
Mine works since 2010.
LMAO More people need to see this one 🙂
You were just unfortunate it happened to you. i own a panasonic st60a going into its 4th year it still beats alots of the new Lcds brands on market for screen uniformity and black level. Not interested in upgrading to oled just yet.
Panasonic stopped making their own TV's here in Thailand last year and are instead started sourcing cheap Chinese TV's and putting their brand name on them. In these days of "sourcing" instead of "making" a so called "good" brand name can mean nothing.
I hate LCD screens and over the past 14 years bought countless monitors and tvs. Nearly all of them had dead pixels, terrrible backlight bleed, ununiform colours and the only two that worked properly broke within a year. One was a 4k lcd which had incredible picture quality and blacks so deep people thought it was OLED.
When it broke 3 weeks after purchase I decided to get a panasonic plasma. I was lucky and found a boxed new one for sale (plasmas are nolonger manufactured thank god).
Now I know plasmas have their issues but I was apauled at the image quality. My lcd produced far richer blacks and brightness was terrible too. I didnt use tape to rectify my problem I smashed it to peices with a hammer.
I wish manufacturers would stop trying to keep lcd alive by adding stupid gimicks like 3D or local dimming and curves. Stop fannying around and start producing more OLED panels. Everyone who knows about display technology knows OLED is superior in evey respect.
The insides of the Panasonic gear is top notch. There's no con from the company. Unless something has changed over the recent year. I know that Panasonic had their own plasma steppers (you know, the machines to manufacture the plasma screens), most other manufacturers probably use Samsung screens, including Sony. I mean, there's whole philosophy clash between Tokyo based Sony and Osaka based Matsushita Electric, Sony being into business and big numbers, Matsushita being into quality. Where did it all go? I guess Samsung and GoldStar (today Lucky GoldStar or LG) eventually came on top, starting from cheapest possible junk back in the '80s, selling those below cost of production just to capture the market share, now, bingo! Samsung and LG are top brannds in TV's. What did the world came to… Foxconn TV?
I've got a Philips one here that takes ~30s to boot. Which is a slower startup than my granny's TV in the 1970ies, and that had tubes. What were they thinking?
Marty used JVC cam. =)
Anything missing off the video input board cause some companies omit parts pieces and components to cut cost but if the consumer can just buy those parts and solder them back in would you or could you change a say Emerson plasma to a Samsung since there manufactured by the same company. like missing vga port but has all the components but missing the port.
Anything missing off the video input board cause some companies omit parts pieces and components to cut cost but if the consumer can just buy those parts and solder them back in would you or could you change a say Emerson plasma to a Samsung since there manufactured by the same company. like missing vga port but has all the components but missing the port.
Too bad you couldn't connect another set of 2 bands into that original connector, then if you saw the output on another 2 blocks that would prove the problem was with the flat flex chip, well unless there is something electrically more complex.
This guy is a div he cant be that good at electronics design if he says these suck !
Plasma are the best !
A Tech Tries To Fix One:
I ended up with one of these free with a bad segment, just occasionally..
I figure out the board needed, obtain them from ebay, take everything shown off the chassis to get to the driver boards, replaced them, and brick. Never made it past the safety checks so it never powered up again.
Maybe removing all the wires and boards and finding that one cable that's not quite seated out of 120+. . Or the ebay board was bad. No convenient swapping for test, it's highly embedded.
Later, moving the dead hulk munged the screen so no need to give another try.
I'm out two ebay boards which I guess I can extract the lot now and let someone else give a go on theirs.