Fluid change on Philips TV... anyone wanna help? :) - Page 2

It is the blue tube fluid. not hard to change, but messy and takes about an hour. Don't do all 3.

Turn the set off.
disconnect the deflection and convergence yokes for the blue tube. (the wires going from the boards to the tube)
watch out for the grounding cord for the CRT/PRT, they are a pain to remove, use needle nose, they are a spade type plug that grounds the tubes chassis.
remove the 4 screws holding the tube to the "optical box".
now the whole tube, wires and all should pull straight out of the unit.
remove the plug from the tube, it is a hex shape.
insert tube to suck out the majority of the fluid.
remove the 4 BOLTS holding the lens on the frame of the tube. they are the thingies with the springs.
suck out remaining fluid, clean thouroughly, CLEAN WELL!! CLEAN WELL!!! sorry.... had to make sure that gets through. you have to remove all algae.
reassemble after cleaning the seals.
tighten the BOLTS down fully.
fill will fluid, don't worry the bubbles will dissipate.
fill until nearly all the way to the top.
some say to empty the overflow as well, i have never bothered.
reinsert into the TV and screw into place, attach yoke wires to main board.
perform minor touchup convergence if needed through USER MENU.
don't touch service menu unless you are sure you can do it.
cross your fingers and hope you dont have a super-slow drip that will trash your TV.
Or simply lay down some plastic/paper towels for a week or two to monitor.
VIOLA!!

Mike


p.s. or pay ~ 450 bucks to have it done by a pro

You're going to have to pull the lens assy off the CRT front and clean the "spooge" off the CRT face. It's similar to algae growth and is difficult to see until you actually pull the lens off the tube. The stuff can be quite clingy to the crt face. Good luck.

BTW, it's normally not necessary to change the coolant in the green and red tubes. All you're doing is taking the chance of knocking the centering rings off on those tubes when you remove them which then turns a minor blue re-convergence into a three color nightmare.

I agree with Mr. BOB, I had the SAME problem with my 55 and I changed the fluid on all 3, (blue was TERRIBLY cloudy) and the picture is 100% corrected. Change that coolant!

Listen to this guy, he is right. I change mostly blue with the occasional green. never red, the algae can't live off the red light.

I cannot tell by the pics of the tube, it takes being there, but by the pic of your screen with the blue halo around everything.... dead giveaway.

To clean the algae off you first wipe with a paper towel, use a light source and look at the tube from an angle, you are looking for spooge sometimes it can be hard to remove and needs some alcohol or, what i use is electronics cleaner (contact cleaner, just what i always have handy) it may wipe off cleanly, you may have to scrub that sucka.

Good luck, and like I said, take NO CHANCES. put paper down and check periodically for leaks. it may look good and went together nice. but they can develop nightmare "2 drip leaks" just enough to ruin your day.


BIG TIP!!! use a permanent marker to draw a line from the picture tube up to the lens to aid in reassembly. just a marker. saves time and possible error.

Mike

480i vs 1080i viewing on my Philips results in fairly significant image differences. Any 480i input is deinterlaced to 480/60p, using a separate signal-processing section on the chassis. Can't recall from above whether you've viewed both 480i and 1080i on your model at your location; perhaps your brother viewed mostly 1080i. The HD, with over twice the scan lines, and interlaced, not progressive, obviously isn't as fuzzy as 480i/p, especially NTSC 480i (from OTA/etc. sources)--as opposed to, say, a 480i digital-cable program originating and delivered (cable QAM) digitally. Not sure about your model, but many set makers started upconverting 480i to 540p, electrically very similar to 1080i, which let them cut building costs since separate 480i and 1080i processing sections were no longer needed.

Can't see very cold storage as a factor on just one CRT tube. Moisture condensation in a warm room, it seems, might briefly be an optical problem, but not an algae factor. Don't think magnetic speaker fields would be a factor either, and shifting them farther would be a quick test. More speculation: the move jiggled the blue tube in its yoke, or blue focus magnets. Notice all the discussion about halos and tube magnets under "beam alignment and astigmatism" procedures (same as my service CDROM) at the site linked earlier above. -- John

Suggest pinning down that blue-gun beam alignment/astigmatism procedure, involving magnetic adjustments and minimizing HALOS to ensure that's not the cause. -- John

Yes, without actually looking in the tube I cannot tell for %100 surety it is algae. usually algae takes weeks to months to develop and is a gradual problem. sounds in your case like it happened overnight. But like Mr. Mason says, it shouldn't be affecting only one tube, and would dissappear (sp?) shortly. I am sure some collaboration would be possible to make a fluid change sticky. The only sets I see with changeable fluid now are philips/magnavox. So it would be useful.

here's where you could get started I guess;

the yoke is the wrapped wire assembly on the "neck" of the picture tube. it is held in place by a screw, like a hose clamp. there should be 2 sets of plugs coming from the yoke and going to the circuit board. take pictures of the plugs and the yoke.

also take off the back of the set (upper, not lower, you could call it a "shell") about a dozen screws around the perimeter of the shell. that will allow you to get a better shot of the upper portion of the tube, to allow marking of the 4 screws that hold the tube to the optical assy.

The HV wire is a thick red wire going to the CRT. it can be removed from the flyback with a neat tool you probably don't have. but, you pull back the rubber boot and see how it connects, you may be able to use small needlenose pliers to squeeze the tabs and remove the HV lead

the CRT board can be easily disconnected, with a slight wiggle at the bottom of the tube. Be VERY careful when reapplying the CRT board, it is easy to be in a rush and bend a pin so that two are touching, this can have dire consequences. 200v running in places you don't want. just
be wary that all 12 or 13 pins are straight and the board slides on easily and fully.

at this point the only thing left connecting the tube to the TV is the ground clips, they help (correct me if I am wrong here please) absorb throug the aquadag coating, back emissions in the tube, ie high voltage. there is one per tube I THINK. can't remember for certain, different models and all that. but these can be a pain to remove, the protective rubber is thick, they have a tab to compress to pull it off but they ALWAYS give me a hard time. just take a pic of the places they go to aid in reassembly.

picture tube should now slide up and out of the optical assy, or whatever you would like to call it. p.s. make sure the TV is unplugged before you even begin.

Now lay down a towel on a clean working surface and locate the fluid plug, it is hexagonal in shape. keep that upright and twist to unscrew, only half a turn i believe. make sure the seal is intact on the plug itself, and clean and set aside. using a hose from a fishtank and any bottle you can attach it to (i use old CRT fluid bottles, but a ketchup/catsup bottle will work fine) and suck out as much as you can. until it sounds like the waitress should refill your drink.

That is all i have time for today. I was as descriptive as possible going from memory. haven't actually done one in a couple months. but I suppose that is more recent than some

Mike

as far as I know these don't have focusing magnets, but centering magnets. But again it has been quite a while since I have dabbled in the service manual. usually algae problems present themselves in high contrast scenes as in the first page. I am fairly confident it is algae, but without having my own eyes looking in the tube..... it is an educated guess at best.


My suggestion is to stick your face right up to the tube and look for any difference in the tubes, pausing video where it is present, under many different scenes. it should be a noticable layer on top of the picture.

Agree about the term focusing magnets. That link I provided, and the subsection about 'alignment and astigmatism', outlines in detail, exactly as in my year-2000 Philips 64PH9905 service CDROM, how to adjust magnets for the best beam spot. Could be his model differs. Part of the procedure is to deliberately create HALOS for each of the three tube colors, using the adjustable magnets.

Since his brother didn't have the blue halo, I speculated moving the set may have thrown off these blue tube adjustments. After cleaning my Philips optics last summer and adjusting lenses and focus potentiometers, mostly to see if I could make scan lines visible again--even though test patterns and HD images are crisp and clear--I considered going through this beam-spot adjustment procedure, but decided not to.

I've copied your post link for the fluid change procedure just in case I get a growth problem. Very valuable tips! But, since beam/astigmatism adjustments only require a NTSC crosshatch/dot pattern, on most test DVDs such as the AVIA, if I ever see one-color halos here I'd want to compare this adjustment for all three tubes to ensure the halo wasn't related. Anyway, sure hope some firm will be marketing big-screen SED or FED displays, or equals, before contaminant growth develops here. -- John

EDIT: BTW, there's a recent post here by someone who undertook these beam alignment adjustments, perhaps with a Philips.

I can't tell you how many Philips sets I've had to change both the fluid and then, clean the algae off the crt face for the bluish glow.

Congratulations on the repair and thanks for the shots. Believe most of the Philips tweaking tips I've seen, matching what's on my service CDROM, are at the Keohi site listed back in post #4. AIUI, blue beam widths are often wider (less focused) than red/green to compensate for eye sensitivity to blue, but you shouldn't be able to see blue overlapping from normal viewing positions.

Not sure if I mentioned earlier, but found last summer than neither the lens focus nor the focus potentiometers had a significant effect on my Philips--for all three guns, because the adjustment range was so narrow. Curious if you have scan line visibillity before or after the fluid change. With my Philips the 480 scan lines were visible in SD mode and 1080 in HD mode closer to the screen, but gradually disappeared after several years (from mid-2000 onward). -- John

^^^Scan lines, seen on most focused CRTs, appear as very thin blackish gaps between the three electron beams scanning horizontal lines across the screen. 480 lines in SD (some sets) and 1080 for HD. They may have faded by now on your set, too. On three color TV kits I built, adjusting the high-voltage section for the best scan line focus (nose to screen) was one of the final DIY adjustments.

Yes, getting the out-of-convergence appearance at the very top of my Philips, too. I've been ignoring it here because it's rarely apparent, and my optics cleaning last summer broke something that lets me enter the service mode (seeing a much higher-density "+" pattern on screen than the user convergence screen and covering the top-most area).

If you try it (I haven't) take care entering service mode since you can screw things up by altering the set's memory chips. Always copy the current (hex code) memory settings and preserve them. Suspect someone that's tinkered with Philips service settings could help best, but I could summarize my CDROM section for my year-2000 64PH9905 if that site linked in post #4 doesn't outline how to do it. Procedures for your set could differ. -- John

Judging from the picture problems in post 47 I'd say you crossed the convergence plugs (ie. blue in the green plug) doesn't hurt anything. picture looks great, and yeah the blue is slightly defocused for a more pleasing picture.
You could try the stigma magnets on the CRT neck but i wouldn't touch it. the blue is intentionally defocused slightly, you would see why if you un-did it then slightly misaligned it.... nevermind, don't do that...

If you are quite sure the plugs for the convergence are in the right slots, then look online and find a walkthrough for convergence, I can't remember off hand... i think it is "status, 5 9 6 9 7 3" or something, but don't try it unless you have full instructions.

Mike

p.s. i forgot all about this thread

Anyone know of 'tricks' to disconnect the HV lead(s) from the HV flyback--or how to order the special tool as a last resort? Got hung up on disconnecting this last wire from my year-2000 Philips 64PH9905 RPTV to remove the blue CRT/lens and change the contaminated coolant. Don't want to force and break anything--parts are too exotic on this set now.

The flyback has three ~1" long white cigarette-size plastic posts for the red, green, blue CRT high-voltage output leads. There are two tiny, slightly inset, metal tabs near the top on either side of each post. AIUI, the special tool pinches both tabs to aid HD lead removal. My needle nose, maybe because the jaws are too short, won't work. Bending a paper clip over the tabs and squeezing lightly with vice grips or pliers didn't work.

Is it a push down and twist lead removal operation while the tabs are compressed? Thanks, anyone, for advice. -- John

Sorry, no digital camera, but can provide as much additional description as needed. Read a similar yanking the lead comment at another site, but don't want to do it here and escalate this repair into chasing down an exact replacement HV transformer, Hopefully Mike or others who've removed numerous HV leads will see this and reply.

It feels like something's still restricting lifting the CRT/lens out, even when/if I disconnect the HD wire at the transformer. But all the other cables and ground wires are unplugged from the chassis or CRT. -- John

There's a photo of the HV leads (Sony model) here and another shot on page 1 of that thread showing the white posts (without the Philips' release tabs) that stick out about 1" from the Philips flyback. The red HV lead wires fit into the posts with a hidden inside connector. There's discussion of jerking out the wires in that thread, plus someone (page 2) saying he damaged his wiring doing that. Also mention of a special tool for HD wire removal. -- John