Problem with Panasonic PT-43LC14: Yellow tint covering most of screen. Convergence ok

Hi all, my girlfriend's parents just gave me their old Panasonic 43" projection HDTV. They replaced it because the colors are messed up. There is a yellow tint covering all but the upper right hand corner of the screen (which looks normal). They had someone come out to look at it and he told them the color engine (???) was bad and it would be $900 to replace. They had just replaced the bulb a few months previous and didn't want to spend any more money on it.

Anyway since they were going to just toss it I figured I'd take it and see if I can fix it. I'm comfortable taking apart and fixing electronics though I don't know much about projection TVs. I took several pictures so maybe someone here will know something. I'd be willing to spend a couple hundred to fix it but that's it.

more pics

I was able to find the service manual for the PT-43LC14-K for free. Is there any difference between the PT-43LC14 and PT-43LC14-K?

Tomwil, are you sure that's the part number for the 43" and not the 60"? The polarizer for the 50" is only $113 so i dunno why this would be more expensive. Perhaps it's more rare.

I think I'm going to go take it apart right now just to confirm that's the part that's broken. I'm assuming it'll look burned?

I don't have the parts section of the manual unfortunately so i'll take your word for it. I took the projection unit apart and one of the polarizers is definitely burned. The service manual does say that it's the blue in polarizer although it's not actually blue, it's a reddish pink. I guess that's normal?

I took several more pictures. My camera couldn't get a clear enough picture but there is definitely a fingerprint burned into the polarizer! I don't know if it was there from the factory or if some service person did it, but I believe this is the cause of the failure.

Thanks.

I put the TV back together and now it keeps telling me to Select language. I press 1 for english and nothing happens. All it'll let me do is turn it on and off. I was able to get into the service mode but I can't do anything useful. The remote is working. WTH did I do?

edit: Nevermind, i got it. Had something hooked up wrong.

So I decided to peel off the polarizer film from the glass. It's stuck on there with some heavy adhesive, so I soaked it in goo gone. I was going to try and move the film upward so that more of the transpart portion would be positioned over the LCD.

Anyway it appears the film has 2 layers and I was able to chip off most of the burned top layer. I scraped the rest off with a razor blade, then super glued the polarizer film back on. I kinda damaged it pretty bad with the razor blade so I figured it would look like crap. However I put everything back together and it looks WAY better. It went from unwatchable to bearable. Instead of being mostly yellow, it's now mostly normal with some small yellow blotches on the edges.

I attached some pics so you can tell the difference. (Sonic is actually blue!)

All of this has made me curious to see if I can replace the film for cheap instead of spending $200. I came across this site which sells small amounts of polarizer film for $6.50. The only problem is I don't know which one to get.

Click Post Reply and at the bottom of the message window there is something called Manage Attachments.

Yep, exact same problem.

It looks like you replaced the wrong polarizer. The one that's physically blue doesn't polarize blue light but red light. So you need the red polarizer.

Would anyone who replaced this part be willing to send me their old polarizer?