I have vertical even spaced lines across the whole screen. i went into the service menu to check the colors in flicker adjust on the blue and the red screens there are no lines but on the green screen the lines are there any suggestions?
If you are handy with SMT rework it might be possible to fix this problem. The heat spreaders on the LCD drivers are insufficient to cool the chips and they will get hot enough to reflow the solder and cause a short on some of the pins. I think it most often happens after bulb replacement since bulbs near their end of life are dimmed and run cooler. After replacing the bulb the bit of extra heat is all that is needed to push them over the edge.
The problem also seems to be most prevalent on the green IC since it shares a heatsink with red and has a smaller area to dissapate the heat into.
If you pull the heatsink you will probably be able to see the short with careful inspection. The pitch is very small - 0.6mm but I was able to wick, clean, and reflow one side of my green IC and the problem went away.
I am planning on adding some additional aluminum stock to the heat spreaders with some thermal adhesive to give the chips more cooling.
By the way the very common rattle noise in these projectors is not a fan but the auto iris. You can unplug the iris servo from the mainboard and disable the auto iris in the menu to work around the problem or you can replace the iris servo for about $75, again, if you are handy with that sort of thing.
Thanks everyone for your success stories; happy to help. BTW my projector is still going strong!
Gorkish- it's been about 20 years since I was mucking around on my old amigas circuit board. So forgive me i am a bit rusty. Where are the heat sinks you refer to specifically? I'll try to attach a pic. JimF
There is a photo posted in the 3rd comment here that shows the heat spreaders. There are 3 large ICs that drive the lcds one each for R G &B. you can see the ribbon connectors going down into the projector near them.http://www.avsforum.com/t/1422733/help-w...
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I have the same projector PT-AE900U and the same problem , looks like you are watching tv through a screen as the horizantal lines are there too just less visable . I have eliminated the bulb by trying a working one with much less hours ... still have the lines . I am thinking a prob with the lense or lcd component . hope there is a tweak for this as mine is off waranty :>(
Well I have brought my AE900U into the shop today , will post the diagnosis and repair costs when i get them , they said it could take 2-3 weeks :>(
I have the same vertical line problem with my PT-AE900U. The rattle fan sound has gone away and now I have this problem. Bummer.
I have the same problem.... anyone get an idea on a fix yet?
I also have the even spaced vertical lines runing up on the screen with DVD or cable input but not with the blue Panasonic screen.
I have to tell you. I took apart my PT-AE900U a while back because I was having this same problem and reconnected everything but that didn't fix it so I went back and followed Gorkish's advice. I removed the 2 heat dissipators, cleaned out the areas around the ICs inspecting for any solder shorts and reconnected everything. I was AMAZED when it worked perfectly after that. I then went back in and installed a large piece of flat aluminum connecting the 2 heat dissipators to prevent future overheating. When I was between homes and living in an apartment for 9 months I was forced to mount the projector in close proximity to all the other equip (cable box, reciever, PS3, VCR) which I am sure led to the overheating and vertical line problem. Thanks much Gorkish for saving me.
Thanks Gorkish!
Your procedure actually worked for me and my PT-AE900U is back in service again and operating flawlessly.
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