Philips Recalls Almost 12,000 Flat Panel TVs 173
wh0pper writes "Arcing capacitors have caused Philips to recall select Ambilight flat panel (read plasma) TVs. Because the TVs make use of flame retardant materials, damage was only sustained to the TVs and not homes. This is the first time I've heard of TVs having this type of issue. How safe are LCD and DLP TVs from this type of thing?"
Plasma?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
proper safety protocol (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Plasma?!?! (Score:2)
CRT (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, I think the hazard from the toxic chemicals is worse than the danger of something catching on fire.
Re:CRT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CRT (Score:3, Funny)
(bye bye karma)
Re:CRT (Score:3, Funny)
Re:CRT (Score:1, Offtopic)
Exploding capacitors from China (Score:2, Informative)
Result: 2-inch arcs from the flyback transformer to the capacitor. I have several of the carcasses under my bench, some have holes the size of golf balls burned through the boards.
Re:CRT (Score:2, Informative)
fire retardant (Score:1)
RoHS does not allow for this. Arching capacitors can be just a smoke screen.
Re:fire retardant (Score:2)
Re:fire retardant (Score:4, Informative)
Not all flame retardants are banned under RoHS. Many are eliminated under a related code (waste electronic and electical enclosures or WEEE) but not all are banned.
Re:fire retardant (Score:2)
Re:fire retardant (Score:1)
Isn't Plasma... (Score:1)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:4, Funny)
No... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:2)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:5, Informative)
A Plasma tv has two plates of glass that sandwich panels of cells (the pixels) that house 3 sub-pixels corresponding to the colours blue red and green.
The TV's control circuit can address any of the sub-pixels through the rear glass substrate mounted circuit and pass an electrical charge through neon and xenon gas and as a result, the gas state changes to plasma and ultraviolet light is emitted.
This UV light is absorbed by the blue, red and green phosphors in the cell, and re-radiate the energy in the visible spectrum.
It's fairly old technology, dating back to the '60s.
Isn't science fun?
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:2)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:2)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Isn't Plasma... (Score:2)
Basically any self-illuminating gas is in the plasma state.
Turnips... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Turnips... (Score:1)
Re:Turnips... (Score:2)
I have never seen a DLP mounted to a wall...I guess it would be possible since my 46 inch Samsung only weighs about 75 lbs, but there is no wasy way to do it unless you buy a huge wall bracket or something. So there's one less thing they "all have in common". Yes, the power cord is a fire risk I suppose...
Re:Turnips... (Score:2)
To answer the OP, much "safer", but only if you plan on jamming metal implements into your TV. Plasma TVs make use of highly charged gases (neon and xenon, my favorine noble gases), which means you need to generate that charge in the TV set. CRTs also use high voltage, but LCDs can run on just a few volts of power with little current (I.E. a slow tric
Re:Turnips... (Score:2)
That's true about the LCD, but it's not true about the backlight.
Re:Turnips... (Score:2)
Those boys over at Philips... (Score:1)
Not a problem with the panel... (Score:5, Informative)
The source of the problem are fluorescent lights that Philips built into these sets to illuminate the wall behind the display. There is a fix: turn the bulbs off.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-co
"The recall includes sets with "Ambilight," or ambient light technology that projects a soft glow onto the wall behind the set, to create atmosphere and an enhanced viewing experience, according to the company. If owners turn off the Ambilight feature, the hazard is eliminated."
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:5, Insightful)
It helps reduce eye strain when you watch tv/movies with the lights off.
Even neater is that it provides different colors based on what's being displayed.
I was really hoping the idea would take off & quickyl trickle down to cheaper TVs. Looks like they're going to have to reengineer their solution
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
They use to say not to watch TV in the dark. Your pupil dilates in the dark, more light gets in than would normally, greater stress to the eye happens. Now, the CAO says watching TV in day light conditions is equally as dangerous, but that overall reading is more dangerous to your eyes. Well, if I have these eyes, but can't use them, what good are they? According to this [about.com] link, the CAO also suggests you shouldn't watch TV with sunglasses on (sic). Well, what else am I supposed to use these
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
I'm surprised they were using fluorescent lighing for this in the first place. I would have thought a couple banks of inexpensive LEDs would provide the effect quite nicely.
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Re:Could you detail that... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not a problem with the panel... (Score:2)
Well, that's what you get for watching Backdraft on this thing.
Philips... Ambiflame (Score:5, Funny)
It's a "feature" (Score:2, Funny)
Not a plasma issue (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA, the fires were caused by an arcing capacitor used in the ambilight system. The ambilight system has nothing to do with the plama technology, its just a rear lighting system projected on your back wall to help prevent the weird feeling you get from watching a large image (that and a marketing gimmick). This is more fire cause by a faulty ballast or capacator in a flourecent lighting system in your ceiling.
Re:Not a plasma issue (Score:1)
By the way (Score:2)
News I need? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:News I need? (Score:2)
HDTV (Score:5, Funny)
Now we know where pillip is building there stuff. (Score:1, Funny)
What the (Score:2)
Oh, hell... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, hell... (Score:2)
You can make a new electrolytic out of Cut-Rite and Reynolds Wrap but you couldn't use the old tube base, stick in a dropping resistor for the filament string and an FET and some resistors for the triode? :-)
Re:Oh, hell... (Score:2)
Could be worse ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Could be worse ... (Score:5, Informative)
Because the electrons can only go about 10 cm in air. They bounce off the air molecules, lose energy, and stop.
This is why we use a vacuum tube in CRTs like TVs, if there was air in them you wouldn't get a picture. It's not just for the fun implosions.
Re:Could be worse ... (Score:2)
Re:Could be worse ... (Score:2)
Re:Could be worse ... (Score:2)
Re:Could be worse ... (Score:2)
Caps go sometimes. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few years back, one of the big-two makers of the electrolytic paste put out bad goop for several months. This paste found its way to several manufacturers of high quality capacitors. These caps found their way into PC mobo's, and there was a spate of in-the-field capacitor failures in certain motherboards. Some name-brand makers of high quality mother boards got bit by that one. (My then-employer included.) No flames, though. These caps were being operated entirely within spec, but were fabricated with out-of-spec paste.
Caps that are pushed beyond their ratings will go. Sometimes, their are transient voltages the designer didn't account for that cause caps to be operating beyond their rating.
I remember oh... about 25 years ago when the TI "Silent 700" thermal printing terminal with built-in acoustic modem was the Bee's Knees. No shit, we all coveted those babies. Way better than an ASR33. Anyway, I was working in the cube next door to one guy that was cranking away on a Silent 700. For some odd reason, it was a period of dead silence among the 16 code monkeys in that area. There was a loud *BANG* and then a "Woah" from the user when a fairly large 'lytic released it's magic smoke(*). A rather spectacular amount of smoke, as I recall, since it was a large cap. A memorable occasion.
About 20 years ago at a startup company, we had just gotten the first prototype PC boards for the first product. The boards were the first of the design, using a brand new CAD system tool flow. The entire company (all 16 people) gathered in the lab for the power-on ceremony. Anyway, with the whole company watching, the VP of Eng flips the big red switch, and -- *BANG* -- along with lots of smoke. Now, the engineers were in their glory, fanning the smoke away with notepads and laughing like drunken sailors. The newly hired VP of Finance turned white as a sheet. The Pres. got a frozen smile on his face and mumbled something encouraging. He told me later he was thinking about how much money he could get for the furniture at liquidation. Turns out, with several brand new untried cad tools in the tool flow, the silk screen for one type of electrolytic had the polarity backwards, and so those caps had been stuffed backwards. A trival, but spectacular bug.
And then, in college, after a couple of brews my roomie and I decided to strip out the electrolytic caps from a worthless transistor radio, plug them into the end of an extension cord, and lower them out the window to the room blow, plug in the extension cord, and let them go *BANG* outside the window of the room below. Yes, sometimes caps go.
(*) The magic smoke theory of electronics: All components run on factory inserted magic smoke. This is easy to prove, as sometimes you will see a component rupture and release its magic smoke. It never works again after that. Therefore, all electronic components require magic smoke in order to operate.
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Back in undergraduate circuits lab, we had to build the pow
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Sounds like a fun prank, When I was a kid I took a large cap out of something and wired it up to my model railroad transformer; I counted the seconds ("one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
That works if the cap went open. If the cap shorted, then it's destroyed other components in the process.
Personally, I returned my motherboard to MSI (about 4 years outside of warranty) and they replaced it with a much newer, much more expensive model, which I'm using right now...
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
I've done that a number of times as well. Note that most MOBO's use lead-free solder which requires a bit hotter temp than regular lead solder and also tend suck heat away from the soldering point pretty quick. This can make it tedious to get capacitors out. Use a high-wattage iron (45 to 90W works pretty well) or pick up one of th
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Anyway, one day the tech was over working on it with me late at night. He sealed it up and plugged it in, then hit the power switch. There was a high pitched whine that increased in pitch and volume, and then BANG!, and we were choking on the magic smoke. The cap had blown - and it was huge, easily as big as a
Correction... (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague [wikipedia.org]
Cause of the failing capacitors
The primary cause of these problems is industrial espionage gone wrong, with some Taiwanese electrolyte manufacturers using a stolen formula that was incomplete, and lacked ingredients needed to produce a stable capacitor.
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:2)
>in certain motherboards.
That's funny, because it's exactly what happened here just last week. All the caps on a Dell motherboard blew out, and the tech that came in to fix it told me it was a known issue with that particular batch of mobo's.
Re:Caps go sometimes. (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember seeing a Motorola phone that had some of our caps in and when they went, they made a nice black sqishy mess out of the phones back casing.
Another thing about burning tantalum caps, the only thing that will put them out is salt. The manufacturing process is pretty involved with each cap taking about 1 to 2 weeks to go through all the processes. The chemicals were pretty shitty too. Phosphoric acid, glycolic acid, acetic acid, manganese and many other horrible mixtures. I remember one day I was working on the manganese section (Black dip) where the anodes were dipped into the manganese solution up to the shoulder, then blotted to remove excess fluid. After that, they went into an oven with a water bath for an hour. The dozy QA came walking round and was opening each oven door in turn and big clouds of green (highly toxic) smoke was pouring from the ovens. Apparently she was "checking that I had put water in the baths" ! I think she ended up in management...
I'm glad I got away from that place.
After further study... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Fire Retardant Material (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't it be "ignition challenged" material?
Simply put? No safety anywhere. (Score:2)
Plasma: See above.
DLP: See above.
Television: Different tech, yes, but still see above.
The quality of your product is based on the quality of the products put into it. If they're sub par, don't be surprised if it doesn't melt into a pile of plastic and glass.
Re:DLP Backlight? (Score:2)
buzzing ambilight (Score:2)
bad caps?! (Score:3, Informative)
If I read the article correct, the products are just as safe as any other product. Caps arcing has been seend for ages and is a "common" problem. Here at work, we got old computers dieing every month due to caps.
Just check out http://www.badcaps.com/ [badcaps.com]
Near misses and desensitization (Score:2)
In none of these events did anything nearby catch fire. Fire extinguisher not needed, nothing required of me but the mourning of the dead device.
That creates the illusion that these are riskless non-events. But that's always the with risks. One of the reason why accidents happen: we start to igno
IT crowd (Score:5, Funny)
Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Help me, exclamation mark.
123 Carlignton Road. Looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best, Maurice Moss.
Timing, people! (Score:4, Funny)
Probably not so uncommon (Score:2)
I suspect about as safe as any good design that is built with crap parts. Same as many of us who got Mexican Palm Pilots that bled the batteries in three or four days? Maybe capacitors are difficult to successfully cheapify?
Who edits this stuff? (Score:2)
That just makes my head hurt.
Amateurs (Score:2)
Re:Ambilight is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Like most people suffering from frequent headaches, I never watch at a screen (be it TV or computer) without an ambient light. Without, I can be sure to develop a severe migraine after 1 hour of concentrated watch. With a dim light, I can watch TV up to 4 hours without side effects (save brain wash). This sadly apply to theatres too, so I really don't watch a film on a big screen often.
Re:Ambilight is... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ambilight is... (Score:5, Funny)
I would prefer to use my monitor with the lights off but some bastard keeps on turning on the sun.
Re:Ambilight is... (Score:2)
Voice of God: Bastard? If I had wanted a father, I would have created one for myself.
Voice of God, (walking away shaking head): Whiners. I gave them Light... I gave them Lightning... I gave them Bud Light... Bunch a' whiners...
Re:Ambilight is... (Score:2)
Except possibly when there was a light reflected in the screen or something...
"Ambilight" is certainly NOT a new idea..... (Score:4, Informative)
Beginning in 1952, some of their high-end sets incorporated a feature called "HaloLight", which was an illuminated bezel surrounding the CRT, designed to reduce eyestrain when watching the set in a dark room.
Everything old is new again....
Re:First time? (Score:2)
Are you working at Philips ?
Re:First time? (Score:2, Redundant)
Beginning in 1952, some of their high-end sets incorporated a feature called "HaloLight", which was an illuminated bezel surrounding the CRT, designed to reduce eyestrain when watching the set in a dark room.
Everything old is new again....
Nice... (Score:2)
OTOH, I wonder how long the patents on the HaloLight lasted.... Perhaps this is why we are seeing it again just now? [I haven't seen a Sylvania TV recently....]
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
http://www.sylvania.com/ [sylvania.com]
The brand is now owned by Osram. LOTS of old US consumer electronics brands are back on the market, under new ownership. Saw a "Curtis-Mathes" set in a newspaper ad the other day...
Philips probably acquired any remaining patents on the halolight technology when THEY bought Sylvania back in the late 70s or early 80s, and folded it into "NAPCEC", or North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp.
Re:slightly offtopic -- that whole Ambilight conce (Score:2)
Even though my set is not flat against a wall, but angled in a corner where it lights a wall and a curtain, it really gives a good effect, which astonishes especially when you turn it off and you notice what is missing.
It also occurred to me that this must be easy to fabricate as an add-on to ex
Re:slightly offtopic -- that whole Ambilight conce (Score:2)
Yet, it's still the common wax candle.. (Score:2)
Despite all of the potentially malfunctioning electronics in a given home, candles are still the leading cause (21%) of house fires in the USA.
In this case, 'candles' includes other open-flame devices, like oil lamps, etc. Still, kind of ironic for 2006