WD-65735 needs help!

[StellarTV]

Nonstop flashing timer LED is the DM computer not booting up. Ordinarily when these sets are first plugged in, that LED will flash for about 60 seconds while the computer boots, then stop which means the set is ready.

It's bad caps. You'll see the bulgies if you take apart the DM, but there are plenty more that will need to be changed for this to work. Some models are lousy with surface mount caps, not a task for the faint of heart!

[miniman82]

Must small SMD caps then, because none of the regular cans were bulging/leaky.

[miniman82]

2 months later, and I finally got my set back. I can't say I would recommend the repair place I went to, but they did do the job for the price they quoted me. Now to get used to my regular sized tv, the temp one was only a 36"....

[zenithfan1]

Hey Nick, glad you got it fixed. You were telling me about that nightmare at the ETF, at least it has a good end, unlike anytime I've ever taken a tv to a shop....
I remember seeing that set in action after a new bulb, the picture was outstanding, worth the effort you put in, that's for sure

[miniman82]

Trade ye for a superfine 16x9 trini? muhahaha!

[RichardLandi]

I have a WD-65735. A year or so ago it was hit with lightening. I took it to a repair shop and they could not pinpoint the problem. They suggested replacing the main board. I will dig the tv out of storage and plug it in to see what all it is doing as I do not remember.

[RichardLandi]

I have uploaded 4 pics. They are the front and back of the power supply board and the main board. I plugged in the TV and there were no blinking lights on the front panel. The tv made no sounds and no light came on in the back of the tv. I noticed the glass fuse on the power supply board had 4 color stripes on it. They are tan, black, orange and yellow.

[rca2000]

If this set was indeed a lightning victim...then the first thing you need to do is see if you are getting any standby voltages off of that power supply board.

With the power cord plugged into it (and the board out of the set for convenience)--do you see any sort of voltage on that 12 volt line on the power supply ? Since your set appears to use the SMPS all of the time for power even in standby --there definitely MUST be some voltages from it even when the tv is not on --but plugged in. Likely a 12 volt line, maybe a 5 volt line, maybe that 21 volt line. All are referenced to cold ground. near the middle of the supply picture--there are 2 capacitors. Above them is a heat sink. Is there any appreciable voltage on these caps? There should be in standby.

If you get NO standby voltages--then the switcher control chip has likely been taken out. Can't tell for sure--but looks to be the part on the other big sink--below the "live" symbol, and above the 820 uf cap.

[Tom S]

You have the Green light of death. Power supply and or many bad electrolytic caps. Good luck. It's the V26 Chassis. Not very repairable. I had a VK26 and gave it to my kid. Much less problems. The flashing is coming up because it will not boot up the Micro. Also could be an Eeprom problem too. good luck

[TerrySmith]

I have the WD-60737, new in 2010. At about 6 months you could turn it on, the green light would flash a while and it turned off.

There was a firmware update, downloaded it from Mitsu and fixed the problem! It still works like new to this day!

FWIW, I checked the odometer on it and has over 16,000 hours, and the lamp has been replaced twice.

[Phototone]

Mention was made several times about rear projection TV being an obsolete technology, well perhaps the rear-projection part, but certainly not the DLP technology used to generate the picture, which is used in all movie theaters, and in all video projectors (well most all). It is quite current, and not obsolete.

[miniman82]

Rear projection with CRT's is obsolete, rear projection with DLP is debatable considering the wide range of flat panels available today. What will differ is the price you pay per sq inch.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by miniman82

Rear projection with CRT's is obsolete, rear projection with DLP is debatable considering the wide range of flat panels available today. What will differ is the price you pay per sq inch.

You are absolutely correct. RPTVs using CRTs are obsolete these days, and it isn't worth having one of these sets repaired anymore. It's better to junk the old RPTV and buy a new flat screen, as the latter have come down in price and continue to do so, considering that UHD and 4K are beginning to catch on. H. H. Gregg and other places now have 32" HDTV flat screens for under $200, so, again, it is hardly worth it to have an old, obsolete RPTV repaired.

It makes even more sense to get a modern HD flat screen to replace an older set when you consider that today's FS TVs deliver much better picture quality than the RPTVs ever did. I remember reading somewhere that, while rear-projection CRT TVs were good for what they were in their day, nowadays modern FS sets will run rings around them.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to put hundreds of dollars into repairing a 32-year-old RPTV when the person could get a modern 32-inch or larger flat screen for the same money, or even less. RPTVs like Zenith's Space Screen 45 were good for what they were, given the state of the art at the time (early 1980s), as I mentioned, even though their advertisements for them (there is one on YouTube) would have one believe that these sets were the greatest thing to come along since color TV itself.

However, I think the disappearing screen was the SS45's real selling point. Zenith, in the ad I mentioned, stated "By remote control, the screen rises from the fine furniture cabinet. . . . Space Screen 45. More than three times the area of a 25-inch screen, yet the picture is sharper than ever before in home projection TV. And only Zenith has a screen that disappears. . . . Only Zenith has it."

In 1983, when Zenith meant Zenith and their TVs were still made here, the claim that the sets made the best picture possible in home RPTV may have been true, but today, that set could not hold a candle to any modern HDTV flat screen. That is, RPTVs were the first attempt at very large screen TV, with the SS45 being one of the first if not the first sets to use the then-new technology. It was the best the industry could offer to the public at the time, but as time went on better things (such as DLP and later LCD flat screens) came along, rendering CRT-based RPTVs obsolete.

As with any new technology, these then-new RPTVs had problems. Zenith's Space Screen 45 may have had a good picture for its time, but the motorized drive mechanism that raised and lowered the screen would fail after about a year or so of use, depending on how much the set was used. Some set owners got around this by fixing the screen in the viewing position and unplugging the drive motor, continuing to use the TV until it developed more serious problems.

The SS45 was sold for only one or two model years, probably due to the problems with the motor drive. In homes with no small children, the drive mechanism in these sets might have lasted somewhat longer than a year, but in homes with kids who became fascinated with the disappearing screen (they would constantly push the button on the remote to see the screen go up and down, probably when their parents weren't looking), the drive may have failed quite a bit sooner, due to worn-out gears and even burned-out drive motors (those motors were not meant to run for any extended length of time).

[Phototone]

DLP is certainly not obsolete technology, although its use in rear screen sets is now made obsolete by Flat Screen tv's. DLP is as current as any technology for video projection. I can understand that a high-end rear projection DLP could deliver as good a picture as many LCD.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Phototone

DLP is certainly not obsolete technology, although its use in rear screen sets is now made obsolete by Flat Screen tv's. DLP is as current as any technology for video projection. I can understand that a high-end rear projection DLP could deliver as good a picture as many LCD.

DLP may not be obsolete (today's motion-picture theaters use this technology instead of old 8- and 16-mm projectors), but miniman82's and my point is that projection televisions using cathode-ray tubes are indeed obsolete, much as the NTSC television standard was rendered obsolete by the ATSC one in 2009.

Advances in technology since the early 1980s may well have resulted in DLP sets that can deliver pictures as good as today's LCD sets, but the size of most DLP TVs may be keeping them out of American living rooms, not to mention the short life of the projection lamp. I don't know whether today's DLPs still use arc lamps, but if they do, set owners still must replace that lamp every so often, depending on how much the set is used (often at considerable expense; I understand these lamps sell for something like $100 apiece if not more). It may very well be that today's DLP TVs use high-power LEDs as backlight sources, which all but eliminates the chance of a bulb burning out; most LEDs can last hundreds or thousands of hours to half brightness, not unlike LCD television screens. The latter are often rated for 60,000 hours, which works out to 20 years or more of average use. Too bad the electronics in LCD flat screens, more often than not, fail after only four or five years, while the panel still has plenty of life left in it.