Sony GWIII Owners thread - Page 123

I've got a Sony KDF-42WE655 that's experiencing the blue blob in the left corner of the screen. Sony is unwilling to do anything and the repair by a local tech is around $1,000 to replace the optical block. Is there any other option short of just junking it?

Go back a page or two. I posted about extended warranties from Ge appliances. Go to geappliances.com and look under services and support then extended warranties. I wasn't going to pay $1000 to fix my $2500 tv that I paid all most $500 for a 4 year warranty for circuit city that expired just before the tv crapped out. I got the offer for $275 from GE for an extended warranty in the mail. That made it worth it to try and fix it and squeeze a few more years out of it. The repair guy is coming Thursday to install the optical block. $275 parts and labor is a good deal for me. Plug in your tv info for the estimate for the warranty it might be worth it. It will be more than my mail offer, but should be worth it to squeeze some more life out of your tv.

Please let us know how this goes.

Can you ask if the warranty covers the lamp?

Is the guy a authorised Sony repair guy?

This may be another option, thanks

Well the repair guy just left and it took him an hour to replace the light block and a comp. module that came with it. It looks simply "marvelous". It looks like GE contracts with different tv repair services that are available in your area. Mine is New England television service. Web site-newenglandtelevisionservice.com. Look at the site and they cover a large area in Pa and and all of Ct. They also serve as the repair guys for Best Buy, Sears, Walmart, Sams Club and a couple others. The warranty covers the lamp to. I am very very satisified with the service and the warranty. I lucked out getting the warranty flier in the mail for $275 just when my tv crapped out. For me GEappliances.com with their extended warranties was a god send. Keep in mind that my warranty found me in the mail through circuit city after they pooped out. So if you go for the warranty directly from the GE site it will be more. If you spent the kind of money like I did for the tv when it was new then an extended warranty for $500 or less that includes parts and labor may well be worth it to squeeze some more life out of the tv.

The problem with my KF50WE620 (canadian version 2004) is different than what most people describe. I have blue blobs, lines, and blurs but none are permanent. It behaves much more like a temporary burn-in problem.
For example, if I tune to a financial channel with lots of lines and bars, then switch to a different channel the lines and bars will persist for 20 minutes to an hour.
If I turn the TV off and it cools all blue goes away.

Any chance I can clean something in the optical block to make it all go away?

What you are seeing is the early stages of the problem everyone is having.

The blobs and dots will become more and permanent as time goes on.

I have not found a cleaning method that works.

replacement of the ob seems the only fix.

Thanks for the feedback.
Certainly it's the OB problem. I've had this problem since May and it is getting worse. I also have 2 blue pixels that are permanent, but these are much less noticeable.

I am getting a new LCD at a significantly reduced price from Sony as a result of this problem, but now I have this 50" paperweight that I'm trying to figure out what to do with.

If I can even fix it a little bit I can give it to a relative who can use it for gaming or as a kid's TV, otherwise I have to haul it to the dump.

I have a KDF-E50A10 purchased in January of 2006. Blue haze issue popped up about 2 weeks ago, and was diagnosed today with the now infamous OB defect. Sony as we know is not extending the warranty for these models. Best I could get from them is about a $500 discount on the 52" Bravia S LCD's. But, at still just over a grand for one of the lower series 09 models, I may be inclined to move to the Panny plasmas. Just hard to justify giving Sony additional business at this point.

My kdf-42we655 has developed a horizontal, very straight blue line near the bottom letterbox area about 1/2 inch wide. It doesn't appear until the set is warmed up. Its on its original optical block (5yrs) so of course I am suspecting that. But the set seems to be a lot quieter regarding fan noise. There is a slight draft from the rear still but still seems quieter than I remember.

Are there fans on the OB on this set that may have failed? Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanx, john

I have been maintaining a relatively comprehensive informational web site on Sony LCD RPTV optical block problems for the past few years. I recently made a significant update of the content, so I wanted to remind people to visit, if you are interested.

Yes I have been to your site. Thanks for doing that for everyone.

Last night I noticed some light blue blobs starting to appear and recede so I think I am victim to the OB problem.

Had the set since Dec2004, checked the hours on the bulb (still on the original bulb) and shocked to find over 11000 hours on it. So I don't know if I am one of the lucky ones whose OB lasted that long.

Now looking to see where I should source a new OB, I plan to install it myself.

Question is should I have it rebuilt for about $300 or go with a new Sony part for $700? If I can get another 11K hours out of my rebuilt one I'd be happy.

-john

I know there has been some discussion here about obtaining separate parts rather than the whole optical block. It certainly seems like it should be possible, since companies like TriState Module presumably replace the damaged parts as part of their rebuilding process (for which they seem to charge ~$300 for parts and labor). However, I don't think that anybody who has figured out exactly which parts are needed (and where to get them) has made that information public.

It is also still a bit unclear to me whether it is a filter, the LCD panel itself, or whether the specific types of visual anomalies arise due to degradation of different parts. For example, the blue haze (diffuse light blue color) is certainly not pixel-based, and you can see temporary burned-in images that diffuse over time. In contrast, the blue star pattern (dots) seem to be pixel-based. In addition, the blue blobs may be distinct from the blue haze, as they are seemingly much brighter and more concentrated.

Beyond these observations, some people have said that swapping out filters gets rid of the problems, while others have taken pictures of their LCD panels with visible damage to them. Perhaps the haze, and maybe the blobs, arise from damaged filters, and perhaps the star patterns arise from damaged LCD panels?


Thanks for your comment. I recently read a post by you (or somebody else with a similar model) making the comment about the blue LCD being furthest from the projection lamp, and I also read the judge's Opinion and Order on the SXRD lawsuit in which he cited the UV light as a problem. That led me to change my web site to include the possibilities of heat, certain wavelengths of light, or both being involved.

What seems very clear is that there is some latent defect or defects in Grand WEGA TVs that become evident after a certain number of hours of usage (~6,000-9,000). The specific mechanism of degradation of the optical block components that occurs as a result of these defects would be interesting to know from a technological standpoint, but probably only Sony knows the answer right now, and they are not sharing that information. It will probably take a lawsuit with subpoenas for engineering documents to illuminate things.

look here for filter info

http://www.manufacturers.com.tw/show...a=8604-3-4-0-0

I would guess B505 for the blue.
Borosilicate

I was not able to find a US supplier, that is from China.

I was looking into this awhile ago but got distracted.

Another link to the site direct.
http://rocoes.com.tw/2008e/optical/dichroic.htm

For those of you who have dismantled your optical blocks, I was wondering whether you can describe the parts inside. I have been looking through some of Sony's patents, and there are figures that describe optical blocks. However, I am not sure whether any of them reflect the ones that were put into actual TVs. Below are links to four Sony patents that I assembled from the US Patent and Trademark web site:
Sony US Patent 5,757,443
Sony US Patent 6,057,894
Sony US Patent 7,123,334
Sony US Patent 7,535,543

Interestingly, these patents go into great detail about how deterioration of the parts due to heat and dust in the light path are the major issues that afflict projection optical parts. The patents include techniques like heat-dissipating glass plates, metal radiation absorbers, and heat sinks (tubes and Peltier devices), as well as contiguous connections between parts in the light path with heat-conducting glass to both reduce the effects of dust and improve cooling.

Either Sony did not implement the technologies in their own patents, or the technologies in these patents were woefully inadequate to prevent the problems they were designed to address. In either case, Sony clearly did not do sufficient testing prior to subjecting its customers to these defective behemoths.

I welcome any opinions about the above patents or the following schematics as they relate to the parts and construction (which parts are directly connected/sealed to each other) on actual optical blocks.

Here is a sample schematic of an optical block that I annotated:


Here is a sample schematic of just the LCD panels plus the dichroic prism (combines the three colors into the final image) parts of the optical block. This version adds heat-dissipating glass plates and sealed, heat-conducting surfaces between the LCD panels and the dichroic prism:


And here is a sample schematic representing a closer view of an LCD panel:

I will try to remove my ob again.

I beleive an important issue could be the material that the dichroic filters are made of.

As you can see in the link I posted in post number 3675 there are 3 different substrate materials that the filters can be made from. Glass, tempered glass
and borosilicate. They have different temperature ratings and I am sure different costs.

Does anyone out there have a method of determaining what material these filters are made of ?

tdma

I don't think any of the patents I posted from Sony specifically state the type of glass to be used other than heat-dissipating. However, at least one patent from another company that is cited in the Sony patents states that "borosilicate" should be used rather than conventional "soda-lime" glass due to its thermal properties. Also, the temperatures of the parts can apparently reach hundreds of degrees Celsius, and the use of glass with fans and heat sinks can decrease this substantially. Therefore, I would guess that you would have to use the borosilicate parts.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to tell the difference between regular and borosilicate glass in the parts, but I would assume that, if Sony included glass in the optical blocks, it must be borosilicate. My question is how much glass did they use to help cool the parts (other than "not enough").

Wow! That is probably a lot of useful information. I am going to take some time to try to digest it. Looking at Sony's patent schematics that I annotated, do you think you can identify all of the parts that are present and determine which ones are bonded directly to each other in the various optical blocks? Also, can you identify the specific procedure done on the specific part that fixed the various problems (e.g., blue blob vs. blue haze vs. dot pattern, etc.)?

Where was the powder on this model?


Where are the optical filter(s) located relative to the other parts?


I assume it was the wiping of the LCD panels with the Q-tips that cleaned up the picture? Was anything visible on them? Are you saying that cleaning the surface of the LCD panels (on those that you were able to clean) fixed the problem on all of the TVs? What was the nature of the problem on these TVs (blue blobs, blue haze, both, etc.)?


On the newer model LCD panels, what do you mean when you say there were more "surfaces" to clean (sounds like there were 4 surfaces rather than 2)? What is the structure of the LCD panels that make it necessary to have a very small item to clean them?


What color and shape are the discolorations on these A10 models?


There is some evidence that smaller LCD panels (with the same number of pixels as larger ones) could have smaller "spaces" between the pixels. Thus, when enlarged/projected onto a screen, they would have less "screen door" effect. I think the downside, though, is that you might have even higher heat levels on a smaller surface.

Are there any patent numbers printed directly on the optical block or associated parts? By the way, nice job on fixing the stuck pixels. It will be interesting to see whether it stays fixed.

I removed my post because it has been suggested to me that I am inviting people to start tearing into the TV sets and possibly resulting in personal injury or damage to property such as fire. Thanks, JJB

Could you send a personal message to me instead?

By the way, if anybody chooses to try to clean parts inside their optical block, it would probably be best to use high-quality lens paper and lens cleaning solution designed for high-end optics. Harsher household cleaning items may or may not help in the short-term, but there is a good possibility they will cause additional damage that could manifest itself long-term. In addition, the temperatures can apparently get extremely high inside the optical block (some parts may reach hundreds of degrees Celsius), so it could be dangerous to make any alterations, whether purposeful or accidental.

So has anybody been sucessful getting Sony to replace the OB as a result of a warped lamp door?

There are some models that have extended warranty specificly for warped
lamp housings. Check the Sony web site about your specific model #.

Here is a link to check.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/new...55&news_id=261

I have fixed every tv I had with discoloring from cleaning them. Models 1x KDF-50WE655, 2x KDF-42WE610 1x KDF-42WE655. The only one that is still bad is the KDF-60WF955 only because of a few bad blue pixels. The color is good now.
The other models are built differently. Models KDE-42A10, KDE-46A10, KDE-50A10 actualy burned a hole thru the blue color correcting light filter on each tv. These TVs are much harder to dissasemble and the damage from the lamp is extreme. If Sony was trying to make improvments as these TVs progressed the realy did a bad job. The best design is the first model made. They did improve the lamp door problem but made the light transport much worse on the KDE-xxA10. I just got a SXRD 60A2020. I realy want to use this as my main TV so I pray they made an improvement on light filter design so I can get it working good again but I doubt it. I will post what I find.
As for the sets with the burned filter, I need to find replacement light filters and they are a different color from the KDFxxWE610/655 models. There are less reflectors and less light bending in the KDE so it requires a different color. I would hate to junk these just because of this small part that is simple to replace if it can be found.
JJB

There is some evidence that smaller LCD panels (with the same number of pixels as larger ones) could have smaller "spaces" between the pixels. Thus, when enlarged/projected onto a screen, they would have less "screen door" effect. I think the downside, though, is that you might have even higher heat levels on a smaller surface.

This explains the burn holes in the light filters

My GWIII KF-50WE610 is 5 years old this month...

The bulb that was in was over 3 years old, so as a b'day present I changed it this morning with a 'spare' bulb I bought, 3 years ago..

WOW, what a difference. I had noticed the PQ was diminishing over the last few months, the brightness especially had decreased quite a bit lately. This new bulb fixed all of that..

Anyway looking to increase the brightness without changing the bulb yesterday at 1st I played around in the Service Menu ( UMR tweaks) but for some reason when I was in the Service Menu I couldn't get into Video 7 ( the HDMI) menu... No matter, with this new bulb the picture looks almost new again..

Even though I have an extended service contract I am glad I bought this bulb as a spare years ago. It's made a big difference.

Congrats on your set's birthday! My 50WE610 will be 5 in November.

Did you mean the DVI input on Video 7? These sets don't have HDMI.

Are you using the DVI input?

Hi, I just opened the optical block unit in my KDFE42A10. The inner of the block look like patent 7,535,543.

My TV was experiencing a yellow stain in the middle of the screen.

The problem is a small optical filter and so far I'm unable to find a replacement part because I don't know the specification of the filter.

See attached picture. In one picture you can clearly see that the filter is burned or darker.

I have the same model and also a 50 inch with the same problem. I have been on the search for light filters/parts but no luck. It is not the same as the WE610 or WE655 models. If you find it please post your result.

After 5 years I learned something new.. Yeah, DVI, I always thought it was a HDMI input.