DrJekyll

The model number turns up very little when searching. The manual also isn't available on Pioneer's website (since the thing's around 8 years old). From the little that I've managed to glean, the popular suggestion is that we scrap it. Seems like a waste though.

Anyway, it's a big screen, rear-projection Pioneer SD-P5075. A few months ago, our house got struck by lightning. This had the effect of blowing through several surge protectors as well as components that were hooked to the components (multiple PCs, a tv, a satellite receiver, and a DVD player). Well, the big screen survived, but the inputs started acting up somewhat. Within the past day or two however, the red seems to have screwed up. The blue and green work fine, but no amount of "converge" or screwing with the red lens can get it to line up (it's shifted slightly to the right). I noticed that upon removing the red lens, the small red screen shows the problem also (the red line shown during "converge" is shifted).

My questions are:
1) Does anyone know what the problem is?
2) If so, what would it cost to fix and how much electronics experience would be necessary?
3) If it can't be fixed, would anyone have recommendations? It seems like it'd be a waste to just throw it away...I mean, it plays black and white films fine.

Thanks in advance.

MSD

If I understand the problem correctly, the servo or motor that moves the lens in order to align the colors was damaged by the power surge. The satellite line transferred the surge to the inputs, charring the wires and probably severely oxidizing the contacts. Just recently, the mounts for the lens had more abuse than it could take from the combination of the lightning strike and repeated attempts to realign it. Your only hope is to take the TV apart and remount the lens (I doubt that's going to happen, and even if you did, you probably wouldn't get it perfect unless you're a veteran TV-repair guy.)

If you do decide to take it apart, you'll need to be careful not to touch any capacitors or voltage sources, although I don't think the lethal-current ones from CRT TV's are present in projectors.

shakran

didja keep the instruction manual for the surge protector? Some of the guaranteed-replacement warranties do cover lightning.

DrJekyll

Unfortunately, I doubt we've got the manual for the surge protector...though that is a decent idea. I'll try to dig it up.

Again, I don't think the lens' alignment is the problem. When I remove the lens, I can see a little red "monitor" that's being projected. There are a couple of red lines on it when there's only supposed to one...which leads to me to believe that the lens isn't the problem.

As for electricity, my friend got a nice little shock when he reached in there last night. And, does anyone know why there's an X-Ray warning?

shakran

hehe. First off, NEVER reach inside a TV unless you know what you're doing. Even when they're unplugged, the capacitors store a lot of energy and you CAN get injured or killed doing that.

As for the X-ray warning, X-rays are produced when the electrons from the cathode ray guns hit the phosphors. This is true on any CRT TV. Your rear-projection TV is most likely a transmittive CRT projector system, which means it uses a small (9 inch or so) very bright CRT (some designs use a separate CRT for each color) to emit the picture, which then passes through the lens and is magnified to fit on the large screen. That little CRT will be the source of the X-ray emissions.

DrJekyll

So is the X-Ray warning a "sweet n' low causes cancer" disclaimer or a "you have cancer now" disclaimer?

MSD

The first one