Dudes,
About two years ago I had a very noticeable dust blob on my HD1000U that bothered me to no end. The unit was still under warranty, so I took it to a local authorized shop to have it cleaned. To make a long story short, the guy messed it up, the unit went back and forth three times to Mitsubishi in CA where they messed it up and I ended up getting an entirely new unit for the pain the put upon my ass.
Fast forward two months ago, and there again is another dust blob. This one was not nearly as noticeable as my last one, but just knowing it was there, I couldn't get past it. I wanted to send it in for cleaning as an absolute last resort, so I started to research doing it myself.
Special thanks to mmullaly and dae.edorian for posting there experiences with taking the unit apart and cleaning themselves. There was also a link: www.cine4home.com/index.htm posted by barryecohen that was extremely useful giving me an idea on what to expect once I opened the unit up.
So here it is. I would consider myself okay technically with taking computers and electronics apart. I was nervous to do this, but overall, it was pretty easy. Like others have said, just keep track of the screws and where they belong. I put them off on another table as I worked and labeled each type of screw.
First, here is the underside of the unit. There are six screws to remove off the bottom. You must also remove the screws on the rear of the unit to get the top casing off.
Here is the rear of the unit where the screws need to be removed:
Next, here is what it looks like once the cover is removed:
For these plate, you need to first remove the top plate on the side.....
and then remove the larger top plate in the center to get to the circuitboard.
Here are some shots of the connections and screws you need to remove off the circuit board.
Now, this is where I may have messed up a bit. Take a look at the orange ribbon in this pic. When jostling the circuit board off, this ribbon came out. With almost no force at all, it just slipped out, and not in the way it should. After shitting my pants, convinced I had ruined the entire unit, I kept going.
After the circuitboard is off - I actually just pulled it back not wanting any other ribbons/connections to come loose - you have to remove one final plate (not pictured) and then there is a plate over the optics that requires a very small phillips head to remove the two final screws (not pictured). After that, here are the optics.
I looked and looked for the dust blob, but saw nothing. I blasted about 4 or 5 shots of compressed air, put everything back together and hooked it back up. Fired up like a charm, none of my settings were gone, and after a quick adjustment to focus, she was kicking like chicken. I actually think this may have resulted in a jump in brightness, but that could all be in my head. Best part of all is the damn dust blob is totally gone. Gone also is the "snow" I would see on a black screen when I was inches from the screen.
There is a tad bit of bad news. I don't think my component connection works anymore. This may be from the slipping out of the orange ribbon. This is not an issue at all for me since I have everything (PS3, Xbox360, A2, and Cable) all feeding in to HDMI, but I thought it was definately worth mentioning for those it would affect.
That's it. I would totally do this again if I come across a dust blob, and I would recommend it to anyone that is comfortable with this kind of thing. It took about an hour. Most of the time was me taking pics and labeling screws, but I would suggest everyone do that anyway.
Here are the tools I used:
I hope this is helpful to others, and let me know if you have any other questions via pm or off this thread.
About two years ago I had a very noticeable dust blob on my HD1000U that bothered me to no end. The unit was still under warranty, so I took it to a local authorized shop to have it cleaned. To make a long story short, the guy messed it up, the unit went back and forth three times to Mitsubishi in CA where they messed it up and I ended up getting an entirely new unit for the pain the put upon my ass.
Fast forward two months ago, and there again is another dust blob. This one was not nearly as noticeable as my last one, but just knowing it was there, I couldn't get past it. I wanted to send it in for cleaning as an absolute last resort, so I started to research doing it myself.
Special thanks to mmullaly and dae.edorian for posting there experiences with taking the unit apart and cleaning themselves. There was also a link: www.cine4home.com/index.htm posted by barryecohen that was extremely useful giving me an idea on what to expect once I opened the unit up.
So here it is. I would consider myself okay technically with taking computers and electronics apart. I was nervous to do this, but overall, it was pretty easy. Like others have said, just keep track of the screws and where they belong. I put them off on another table as I worked and labeled each type of screw.
First, here is the underside of the unit. There are six screws to remove off the bottom. You must also remove the screws on the rear of the unit to get the top casing off.
Here is the rear of the unit where the screws need to be removed:
Next, here is what it looks like once the cover is removed:
For these plate, you need to first remove the top plate on the side.....
and then remove the larger top plate in the center to get to the circuitboard.
Here are some shots of the connections and screws you need to remove off the circuit board.
Now, this is where I may have messed up a bit. Take a look at the orange ribbon in this pic. When jostling the circuit board off, this ribbon came out. With almost no force at all, it just slipped out, and not in the way it should. After shitting my pants, convinced I had ruined the entire unit, I kept going.
After the circuitboard is off - I actually just pulled it back not wanting any other ribbons/connections to come loose - you have to remove one final plate (not pictured) and then there is a plate over the optics that requires a very small phillips head to remove the two final screws (not pictured). After that, here are the optics.
I looked and looked for the dust blob, but saw nothing. I blasted about 4 or 5 shots of compressed air, put everything back together and hooked it back up. Fired up like a charm, none of my settings were gone, and after a quick adjustment to focus, she was kicking like chicken. I actually think this may have resulted in a jump in brightness, but that could all be in my head. Best part of all is the damn dust blob is totally gone. Gone also is the "snow" I would see on a black screen when I was inches from the screen.
There is a tad bit of bad news. I don't think my component connection works anymore. This may be from the slipping out of the orange ribbon. This is not an issue at all for me since I have everything (PS3, Xbox360, A2, and Cable) all feeding in to HDMI, but I thought it was definately worth mentioning for those it would affect.
That's it. I would totally do this again if I come across a dust blob, and I would recommend it to anyone that is comfortable with this kind of thing. It took about an hour. Most of the time was me taking pics and labeling screws, but I would suggest everyone do that anyway.
Here are the tools I used:
I hope this is helpful to others, and let me know if you have any other questions via pm or off this thread.
