My grandfather drops by to say he was given a free 53" tv, turns out to be a Panasonic CRT projection tv model number pt53wx42f.

He doesnt want it so now its mine. The first thing that comes to my minds is OHH BOY RP project, but after looking on line it seems I could fix it my self as the TV is out of whack and its a common problem. HERE is the problem and a discussion of which I googled upon


Here is the manual

So the question is: Fix it and have a 1080i TV for the main TV, or just call it dead and make a PJ. I'm 1/2 thinking about trying to fix it and if I screw that up then using the guts for a RP PJ project.

Now by me building an RP I was going to use the cab + gut to add on to my comp desk and make the screen for my computer display.


ideas? opinions?

I say fix it. Of course if its a cheap easy fix. I really like my Dads. I guess it comes down to "do you have room" I have a small house and a lot of people have offered me ones but I pass them up because no place to put them.

Yeah I think your right, the kids are already wanting to play Zelda windwaker on it lol. They where with us when we went to look at it. Since its out of wack, my oldest exclaims "COOL! Its a 3D TV!"

it will interfere with the PJ because its a bit taller then the current tube TV and center now. Adjustments may be needed.

Click to view attachment

49.1 in. x 25.3 in. x 51.4 in. just found the measurements
W D H

Fix it. For under $75.00 for a 53" is a very good deal.

Victor

I've fixed seven rp's so far. Just about everyone in my family has high-def big screen TV now. The only thing I would suggest though is you check the convergence board first before buying the kit. The reason I say this is because on one of the TV's I acquired with the intent of repairing, when the convergence resistors checked out they burned a hole all the way through the board about the size of a pea making repair impossible. If the board is in good shape it's an easy repair and well worth the effort. IMO

oh wow, thanks for the heads up

Fix it...

update:

Well as I was picking up the TV, the story thinkens. He said he had a tech come out to "fix" the tv and the tech spent 3hrs trying to fix it. From the story I gathered he messed with the screen / focus knobs inside the front pannel and the end-user convergence settings.

Now, the guy said the pic was worse when he left and the tech to him to call an electrician.

OK so I pick up the TV, and after hear this I decide to try my hand. I do some snooping on line and fix the tech screen/focus knob turning (screen only for now) and get rid of the red push, then from knowlage gathered online (love that whole internet thing) I was able to enter service mode in the TV firmware. As of now I have been able to correct the "3d" effect and to get rid of the bowtie warping. All with a remote control.

so you are telling me you got Free TV that was not really broken. SWEET SCORE

update 8pm est

Well it seemed so at first, it definitely wasn't as screwed as it first seemed however, after messing with it some more I can see where the circuits will need replacing which I bet is why they made the service call to begin with.

so I guess I just skillfully cobed it.

The Camera make its look worse, but you can see the unevenness of it. that's WORLD better then it was.

Click to view attachment

Your convergence doesn't look all that bad. As for being uneven, what I do is I have a 4 foot T-square that I duck tape in position and using that I very carefully square up the green lines one at a time and then align the red and blue with the green.

Besides the only time you'll even notice it being uneven is when you are watching something in a lettebox format. Anything that has a little overscan won't look uneven at all.

Thats a great tip thatnks

I thought about doing that, though trying to line up the lines went well with out it - some are not releasing the curve - this is mostlyat the fare corners where I cant seem to get them square.

I keep reading this RPTV thread and now somebody gave me an okay condition 51" Magnavox it definitely has convergence issues. I don't have the original remote so I cant seem to get into the "special settings But anyway I guess what I am wondering is if you are having any more problems with it? I replaced 4 burned resistors. They were toasted I was hoping that would have solved it but nope. I can not get the red cross hairs convergence to move at all to the left or right. It moves up and down just fine. I can barley make out the blue cross hairs they sure are blurry. Got any ideas or should I just pitch it. Oh yeah it is HD so that a plus (the only reason I even grabbed it in the first place)

Sorry I have been absent - life threw a curve ball.

I haven't replaced them yet, money for the kit was eaten in the budget. It needs then because I have to reset it from time to time - and the blue / red signals are ..warped at the edges and the geometry wont correct right. The green just does screwy things as well.

Did you replace the IC's?

No I was being a cheapskate and was hoping that the IC were still good. Oh well it was a cheap try

Well I was watching the tv last night and - it did the dead IC thing. soo... now its fix it or make a rp/pj mwaahahahahaha.... yeah fix it I know.

Uh yeah for $60 or under go for it!

I shoud have such problems...

Ah well, I'm doing fine with my 22" 1080p monitor and a TV tuner box.

Well... It's not a free 53" TV, but I did get something kind of cool today.

A client of mine gave me hos old Dell Latitude D800. It's not much of a computer, though it's not BAD. 1.6GHz Pentium D. No hard drive, but I've got a spare that'll work just fine. Popped it in, did a base install of Windoze.

Hmmm... Nice display... Sharp WUXGA

Now THAT has me thinkin' I still need a controller for the LCD, but that's got the WUXGA LCD right here in my hands...

I'm thinkin that it may be time to finally go 1080p for my pro lens build...

AWESOME!!!

free wuxga, + working laptop. nice score.

Not completely "free" -- it cost me a couple hours' labour.

I think I'm going to keep it as a laptop though, and not strip it down for the WUXGA panel. My daughter wants a laptop BADLY, so I'll give her one. This has exactly the same CPU speed as my existing laptop, but a much nicer screen, so I'll install it for my use, and give her my existing laptop (With a 15" XGA screen) after I get all of my data off of it. (Not much, it has a virtual Windows XP machine on it so that it can run iTunes, and has my music on it. The rest could just be reinstalled quick enough.)

Well I just bought the kit, so we shall see.

well i found a bad resistor - to late it seems. haven't had much time of late - but i'm just going to replace them all if need be. The magic smoke is still in there so thats good. ;D

That's good.
Once you let the blue smoke out your done.

Well it took a 40watt iron to de-soldier the resistors. It keept blowing them however I found a post somewhere that a techy type rptv guru said take out the IC's and turn on the set - reset all the adjustments and put them back in. Sure enough it worked like a charm. TV is done and working great.

So you are telling me that you only had to replace the resistor?

Nope, I replaced both IC's but a resistor kept blowing. So I took that Ic out and reset all the convergance adjustments and put the Ic back in and a new resistor. Tv worked swell with out the IC in as the circuit the resistor was on wasn't getting any juce. TV works great nowa. Pita to set the geometry but doable.