hey guys been following this thread for a bit and have the pt-50lcx64 with the same symptoms..clicking noises for a bit followed by lamp indicator flashing once every 5 sec, and decided i was gonna give the ballast repair kit a try. well I had everything pulled out and decided to put it back together to see if it was the thermal fuse by bypassing the actual fuse, well tv fired right up! Im gonna swing by frys to see if they have that fuse available or maybe just order another, but so far so good. I read above somewhere where one person did the same, so for anyone else reading this its work a try! thanks for all the great info, adv tomwill for all the pics ad knowledge too.

So...I may have screwed up big time. I busted the P1305 wiring part off the board.

Can anyone tell me one of 2 things?

- Can the "nubs" left on it be soldered back to the board and still work?
- Any clue where I would buy a new one of them?

thanks...

Just wanted to thank everyone here for this great thread! Sharing my story as I was definitely happy to read others' that had happy endings... :-)

I blew 2 bulbs in the first 9000 hours with this TV and recently hit the dreaded 5-seconds-between-lamp-blinks with autoshutdown after an hour or so of watching. Restarting the TV immediately would result in faster failure, but leaving it alone for an hour or so would give me another hour of watching.

So, I bought the ballast repair kit from PartsStore.com (they took 4 weeks to deliver after continually pushing back the date, but at least they didn't cancel my order like the other place I went) and took apart the TV. I had a devil of a time desoldering the components (hint: probably should have used a vacuum desolderer rather than desolder braid) but I managed to do so without mangling the board too bad. (I've never desoldered before, nor soldered anything I care about). I soldered all of the new components on except for the one transistor (of the three identical ones) since that looked extremely difficult and I didn't like the odds of finding a bad one. Reassembled everything, and was amazed that the TV turned on again.

Alas, same symptoms. Checked the thermal fuse (on the off chance that maybe it could go bad only under load-- probably impossible) and it was fine. Only then did I think to look up how old the bulb was... turns out that the bulb was 2.5 years old, and hence was due for replacement if following the same schedule as the old ones failing. I didn't start with the bulb because the last two "popped" while this one seemed to only fail after a long warmup. So, ordered replacement bulb from DiscountMerchant.com (happy to see that these bulbs keep getting cheaper; 1st was 300, 2nd was 180, 3rd was 120) and put it in.

So far, everything's going great-- TV runs fine for as long as I watch it, despite my amateur ballast surgery.

Thanks again for all of the advice and step-by-step tutorials!

-Eric

Thank you brogers for the very useful detailed information you posted here.
I have a PT50LC13, which was showing that it was in need of a lamp replacement for more than a couple of months now. Finally I ordered a new lamp online. But before the new lamp arrived, the TV all of a sudden went dead! I took the old lamp out and it sure looked pretty bad and dead. I replaced it with the new lamp when it arrived. To my surprise, TV is still dead :(
Power light goes from blinking green to blinking red and then the lamp indicator starts blinking like once every 3-4 seconds. The power led's blinking in red almost goes on for ever without TV turning off completely, while the fan continues to work in the background.
The new lamp looks fine to me.....Would ballast be the next thing to check? Could the old lamp and ballast have gone bad simultaneously????
Any ideas or hints would definitely help and will be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

My PC50LC13 started turning itself off after a few minutes and showing a series of flashing LEDs that indicated a ballast problem. We've been replacing bulbs every few hundred hours for the last year.

I've just done the entire replacement of six parts, including the power MOSFET transistor that replaces one of the four on the vertical heat-sink. I chose the one that seemed easiest to get at (but none are really easy because of the position of the mounting screw).

And after spending some time putting things back together, it worked for several hours before shut down. If I unplug the TV for a few minutes, it will again work for a few hours. Now, for an electronic fix, this seems weird. I expected it to eithercompletely fix the issue or not. Also, I'm not absolutely sure about this but it seems to work longer at normal resolution and a shorter period of time in HD or when soing a lot of channel surfing. I'm just guessing that there conditions impose a bigger load on the ballast.

Anyway, after consulting with two family experts, we are thinking that the four transistors are either working in parallel or that there is redundant circuitry. Except for the bulb and ballast problems (which I also assume are related), this has been a great set with a great picture.Therefore, I've decided to order three more of the transistor and replace the rest.

Stay tuned for the results.

For those of you who are so inclined or have an electronics guru with whom to consult, here;s the schematic:

tsn.pasc.panasonic.com/viewing/NA/PT-50LC13-K/SVC/sc5_ball.pdf

I'm new here but have been consulting this forum for a few months, Thanks tfor all of the excellent contributions, without which I couldn't have gotten to this point.

Very interesting schematic. I am also having the works for a small amount (less when hot), then off with red flashes, but if set is unplugged, it works again and does same failure eventually. Have seen it run for a long time when cold.

I "wonder" if I pull the L_Fail wire, would the set work forever? Maybe a fire hazard? Right now it is a paperweight, since I do not want to needlessly buy another bulb.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. I have found it most helpful in trying to get my panny back to life with some success. I have replaced the full kit and all 4 FETs after reading this forum. Alas what has happened now is that instead of being completely dead it will turn on with a buzzing sound as some have mentioned and will stay on for about 3 -5 minutes with the 5 to 1 power / lamp red lights. I do notice that before it turns off that the buzzing sound gets louder and more rapid.

I have a brand new lamp although it is a phillips and now I will attempt to get a panasonic brand just to rule that out.. that is until I saw that they are 250 bucks.. Like most on here it is coming to the point where it is time to junk it rather than throw good after bad..

It is too bad these lamps are as expensive just to see if that is what is wrong.. when for a few hundred more I can have a new TV.

I will continue to diagnose and try to figure out what could be the problem and if I do I will post the results.

I've read some of the posted up here and seem like my projector need to replace the ballast then...I searched online for the ballast repair kit for my panasonic LCD projector PT-L735u but couldn't find it. Can somebody help me ?

I've followed this thread for a while given that I have a PT60LC13, which I bought used from someone that had it serviced under warranty and then was worried too much about it to be happy with it (face it people, things break from time to time). Anyway the bulb life has been excellent .. 8000 hrs between replacements, and even though I have the repair kit I haven't needed it.

BUT HERE'S SOMETHING IMPORTANT I'VE FOUND THAT NOBODY HAS TALKED ABOUT SO I WANTED TO POST IT ..
When you change the bulb CLEAN the lens! It's right where the lamp goes and man was it filthy! I do NOT run my TV at max brightness (I think this may contribute to the short life some people get with bulbs) but I do keep that lens cleaned.

I'm sure in some high tech world there is special cleaner. I used Windex and cleaned it thoroughly with a fine cloth. Do this and I don't think you'll need max brightness and thus your bulbs might last longer.

have been reading these posts since dec 13/10 and can only say wow I can't believe my tv is actually working. Thanks to all. Quick story, tv 5 years old just put 2nd bulb in 10 months ago and went to turn on the tv one morning and nothing but the green light for 140 second then flashing red 1 every 5 sec error 5 in the manual. Ordered a phillips bulb only and replaced into an extra enclosure i had but still no go. Thought maybe a faulty bulb but the other one i just took out looked as new so was wandering. For $ 21.00 thought it might be worth a shot to purchase the ballast upgrade kit, replace all but the transistor, took a couple of hours and fired right up. Before the new kit i could hear the ballast firing but must have been to weak of a spark. have testest both of my bulbs and work great. Job would have been maybe easier if i had a good solder removal tool. Take your time is not reaaly difficult but read up on solering techniques on u tube helps. anyway thanks to all

I tried to look at the chart but it is so small, it is a blur. I am trying to find out what the problem with my pos panasonic might be. I bought it July 09 and have had no problems until January 9, 2011. The lamp light went out. I purchased a new one and received it on January 20, 2011 and on January 25, 2011 my tv has stopped working again. It blinks really fast and won't come on then the lamp light is blinking but it has a brand new bulb in there. What should I do?

Having issue now also. Replaced the bulb and the tv comes on for about 10 seconds before it powers itself off. The temp light blinks every five seconds. Should I check the thermal sensor?

Having issue now also. Replaced the bulb and the tv comes on for about 10 seconds before it powers itself off. The temp light blinks every five seconds. Should I check the thermal sensor?

I have the same issue. TV will turn off after about 10 seconds. The power led will blink red every second and the temp light links every five seconds. Upgraded the ballast with the repair kit and still the same issue. Did checking the thermal sensor fix your problem?

I have the same issue too...

After upgrading the ballast and checking the thermal fuse without any success. I decided to replace the lamp and it worked. So hopefully this will help you guys.

Just ordered a lamp... hopefully this fixes it.

Im trying to completely remove the balast, does anyone know exactly how to do this, there are 2 wires that are holding me up, it looks like you would hae to disassemble alot of the tv, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Im trying to completely remove the balast, does anyone know exactly how to do this, there are 2 wires that are holding me up, it looks like you would hae to disassemble alot of the tv, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15020883&postcount=71

THANKS! ballast out, so much easier when i had some direction, no i just hope the ballast repair kit will fix the problem, thanks again!

I've had my PT-50LC13 since they first came out years ago. I appear to be having the dreaded ballast problem again (was replaced under warranty about 6 years ago). Symptoms now are the TV turns on and runs about 30 seconds and then shuts itself off. After that, the power light flashes red constantly and the lamp light flashes red about 1 time every 5 flashes on the power light.

Reading this forum, it sounds like the ballast problem. So I ordered a ballast kit and just finished replacing all of the kit items except for the black 3 prong transistor. The TV still acts exactly the same - shuts off and flashing lights.

So the question is this - is it worth me trying a new bulb now to see if that solves the problem? If the bulb was going bad but ballast was ok, would I still be having the same symptoms? The bulb is from 2005, so its definitely old but I haven't gotten any of the replacement messages popping up yet either.

I don't want to throw away money on this thing if its just a shot in the dark. But if I think there's a good chance this will solve it I might try it. Otherwise, I'll just buy a new set.

Dave

@Dave: It absolutely sounds like you should replace the bulb. Your symptoms are just like mine (see my earlier post in this thread @ 07-13-10, 10:30 AM). I've never had a bulb last six years, nor did I ever get a warning before the bulb started acting up.

Thanks Eric. Sounds like I'll be buying a bulb and seeing if this does the trick. Will let everyone know outcome shortly.
Dave

I need help with finding part # d1301 on a lseb3131a ballast board.can find all others and have replaced the code light have changed but tv still does not come on.

Hi guys
I'm new to this forum
My timer wont reset
I have problem with reseting my lamp

Ater i reset it and i get message lamp was reset to 0 problem comes back every time when i turn on my TV
Its not reseting my timer

When i went to service menu it shows me that i have over 500k hours on it which is imposibble because that equals to 62yrs

Anyone had prolem with reseting like that?

How to fix that

There is a link to a couple of manuals earlier in this post if it matches your model you can download one.Ithink the insructions are different for each model.

Here is my story. TV went out, a bunch of power button flashes then the lamp led flashed once every 5 seconds. BUT, when I tried to turn the TV back on it WILL light up for about 10 to 20 seconds, show content and then cut off again with the lamp led flashing. looked at the ballast and lamp from behind and the lamp fires off and the very first try every time, runs for 10-20 seconds and same thing.

Bought the repair kit mentioned here and replaced everything from the kit. Also bought a new bulb at the same time for good measure, didn't want a damaged bulb to potentially damage something else.

Now with the new bulb, I get absolutely nothing. The ballast tries to fire the bulb, as before, cycles about 6 times and then you get the flashing power light, followed by the lamp led.

I put the old bulb back in to try it out and it fires the bulb the very first time, with exactly the same original problem, 10 to 20 seconds then lights out.

With the new bulb, when the ballast fires you can see the sparks in the bulb every time it tries to fire but the bulb will not light.

I don't think I had a ballast issue in the first place but I don't mind that I replaced the ballast parts. I think I may have gotten a bad replacement bulb and just both bulbs are bad.

Anyone else have any thoughts before I buy another bulb?

I think you got a bad bulb ,alot of the cheaper bulbs did that in the other posts and they said they had to get an oem bullb .mine already had a $400 bulb so i just bought another tv these are not worth risking that much on.

I need some help. The ballst board is bad, Panasonic support did confirm that. I have a picture for about a minute and after that it turns off. I got a ballast replacement kit, however which part to replace? There is only one k2842 (i believe power transistor) in the kit but there are four on the board. How to tell which one should be replaced?

My board has 4 to,three have 3 pins on them and one only has 2 try replacing the one with 2.Alot of people got theirs fixed without those parts and some ordered 3 more parts from a supplier they are pretty cheap if you do a search for them.

Thank you gunman, here is some update. I did change all parts provided in ballast repair kit (a transistor you suggested). (By the way there was no visual damage to parts in the ballast board, fuse was ok). Now I can turn TV for 1 minute (same like previously) but this time power led and lamp LED are blinking red ;) I was able to get to service mode it says TV is 15K jours, lamp is 7K. However previous owner says that the first lamp was changed in 2007, and this one in 2010. He is not sure if the lamp counter has been reseted though. Image is maybe a little dim, hard to tell since it powers off after one minute. Should I "cheat" and try to reset the counter or you think it is really a problem with lamp? (But why did it show only ballast problem previously? Is it possible that in fact I did not fix the ballast at all?)

I would guess that the board is not repaired.All i can tell you is that mine done about the same as yours it was indicating that ballast board was bad and i called panasonic and they said it was after i told them the blinks i was getting.I put the kit in and tried it and the lamp ,temp lamp and power led were all blinking red.Look in this thread and find where they show you how to check your tempature fuse on mine it is in a holder just above the lamp ,this thread or one in it shows how to just jump over it to test.I would try this cause it is easy to do.A new board is about $280 and it could be in the main power board so i didn't go any further.

So I've got the PT60LC14 and replaced the lamp last year. Now, it will randomly shut off and the LED blinks yellow 2 times every 5 seconds and it won't turn back on for 10 minutes or so after the LED goes red then green. The manual says that means poor lamp connection. I checked all the connections and secured the + and - on the lamp...no change. Anybody have any wisdom to share? do I need the ballast repair kit? Thanks

Eric

I would try another bulb unless yours was a good oem replacement .people have had a lot of early failures with some of the bulbs.them you could do the ballast board kit.

OK, here's my short story.

I got my TV for free a couple of years ago, not working, and did my homework here. Thanks for the incredible contributions! You are all truly generous people. I only wish I could reciprocate.

So I installed the ballast repair kit, and it worked. It's been a couple of years since, and I replaced one bulb along the way.

But recently while watching the TV, the bulb loudly blew. OK, so I got a new OEM Philips bulb, but it won't work. The flashes indicate a ballast problem again.

Should I just get another kit and install it?

I guess you could try the kit again and then i would try to get the bulb you just bought replaced with another one. It don't seem the board would go bad at the same time a bulb blew up.

I have a PT-50LC13 that had all the symptoms of a ballast issue according to previous posts. I performed the install of the ballast repair kit + 3 additional transistors and now get a different symptom. The lamp powers up for about 5 seconds then shuts down. The TEMP indicator flashes 1 time then 3 times with 5 seconds in between then repeats the sequence. I pulled the Error Indicator Information from a previous post but it is not clear enough for me to read with confidence. Does anyone have ideas of next steps?

I would try another bulb unless yours was a good oem replacement .people have had a lot of early failures with some of the bulbs.them you could do the ballast board kit.

The TV will work fine for 10 or 15 minutes and then shut down. If the bulb was blown I can't imagine it would work temporarily, but I am by no means an expert. I'm doing the ballast kit today, but next I might explore some temperature related fixes (?overheating). I didn't notice the fan not working, but we will see. Not ready to scrap this thing yet.

I have the PT 50lc13 that I got for free a few weeks ago in unkown condition. I ran it fine for a few day with the exception of a large yellow like spot in the center of the screen. Fixed it with a used mirror/lens assembly off of ebay. After turning it back on the picture was great but the bulb turned off after about 5 min or so with the usually heard error 5 flashing code, now the bulb stays on for about 10sec before shutting off. Im awaiting delivery of a ballast repair kit but after ALOT of reading on here Im not fully confident that it will take care of the problem. I also ordered 4 more of the power transistors to get them all replaced along with the switching on on the other heat sink (will also assemble everything with heat sink compound). More reading reviles that others think a bad bulb will start drawing more current and cause and overload shutdown on the ballast so I also have a new bulb on order. Something I noticed in my trouble shooting is that when the bulb lights and starts warming up, the ballast starts buzzing right befor it shuts down (extra current be drawn?). Anyways Im hitting about my limit for how much I want to spend on this thing and I really hope this takes care of it. Ill let you all know how it goes.

So I had gotten all my parts in the mail minus the extra power transistors I ordered (slow boat from Hong Kong). I installed the new bulb and the repair kit, the only exception is that I installed the power transistor into location Q1304. Q1304 is the same component and after reviewing the schematic it shows it is much more critical than those in the DC/AC converter section, its heat sink is also much larger. So reassembled everything and IT WORKS! Ben running it for about three days now and everything appears so be good. Before resetting the lamp timer I checked it for the old bulb it it had 3,610 hrs on it with 7800 LON, the set total is 23,650. I don't know what was the actual fix for it but this combination worked for me. Hope this helps someone!

I have the PT-50LC13 and installed the parts in my kit with the exception of the fuse and black part. When I turned on the unit, I was pleased I got the picture. Then after about three minutes, it turned off and now the bulb won't fire up anymore. Is there something else I can check to see what the issue is? I saw an earlier post that had this same issue but there wasn't any reply to his issue that I could find. Any help you can give would be appreciated. Was thrilled to find this kit mentioned on the forum when I Googled for solutions but am stumped where to go with this now......debating whether to break it down again and replace the Q1304 transistor mentioned in the previous post but wanted to see if there's anything more practical.

Thanks!!:confused:

I wish I could lend some more info but I don't think my problem was the same as yours as my bulb always lit, but just would not say on for more than a min or so. I did some meter reading on some of the other components as I replaced them and they seemed OK as far as I could tell. I feel the success of my repair ether laid in the Q1304 or the new bulb. Best of luck!

Thank God other people have had similar problems and were able to fix it, I'm new to this forum but I'm hoping someone could help me out, I have a Panasonic PT-60LC14, the TV wont turn on for more than a couple seconds... then the temp light flashes once every 5 seconds. Someone told me it might be the ballasts? if anyone has any ideas , or had the same problem, I could really use the help

I just finished upgrading the components of the ballast board as previous post suggested. When I play a DVD through my component I can see the picture on the TV screen, but when I try to watch cable I get no picture. I can see the menu information with what shows are on and the times, just no actual show picture.
I have my cable DVR connected to the TV via an HDMI cable plugged into a DVI converter connector.
Any thoughts on where I should start my troubleshooting? I just hope I didn't damage any components inside the TV.

@vjsteele4: There's no way that you'd get picture in one case and not the other unless you broke the DVI connector inside the TV or something crazy. My first test would be the HDMI to DVI converter; have you ever used that successfully? My understanding of the formats is that HDMI supports content flags that prevent conversions of that nature.

Yes. I have used the DVI to HDMI connector. For some reason it is not working now. I connected my cable box to the tv via component cables and no problem I get a picture. The Hdmi cable is working bc I tried it on another tv. My guess is the DVI connector or I damaged some component when I repaired the tv.