Need troubleshooting advice for rca dlp tv

Chitown021

Chitown021

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I'm hoping someone out there might have experience with this TV and might be able to help me diagnose the problem.

I have a 50" RCA Scenium DLP TV. I bought it brand new at Best Buy about 7 years ago. In that time I've gone through 3 bulbs. The issue I'm having is a flickering or "strobing" effect when I watch TV. It's very sporadic and seemed to start a few months ago when I put in the third bulb.

Based on the research I've done online it seems like it's one of two problems:

1) The color wheel is going out
2) The bulb is bad

A lot of the stuff I've read about a malfunctioning color wheel said there will be noise and/or distorted/blurred color. I'm not experiencing any of that. My issue is intermittent flickering along with the brightness that seems to fade in and out (dims and brightens).

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I am in the process of saving up for a new TV so I don't want to spend a bunch of cash in repairs or parts. I'm just hoping to keep it running for about 6 more months to give me time to save some more dough.
 
[quote name='SpeedyG']I would check your power supplies and if you have ballasts.[/QUOTE]

I will do that. It's odd because sometimes the issue happens within 5 minutes of me turning on the TV and other times I can go an hour before I see it happen. Tonight I've been watching college football on it for the past couple hours. An hour ago I was getting a lot of flickering, since then I haven't hardly seen it.

I've thought about putting in the old bulb to see if I still get the flickering with it but I don't want that to damage the TV. The reason I changed bulbs a few months back was because it seemed like it was going bad in a hurry.

Several years ago my first bulb just exploded while I was watching TV one night. This last bulb seemed like it was overheating in its process of dying. It would work for about 1/2 hour and then the lamp would just shut down for about 30 seconds. I would get a buzzing sound, the blue lights on the front would flash a few times, and then the lamp would restart and things would be fine. The longer I had it on the more often I would get that "reboot" effect. I don't remember getting the flickering with the old bulb which lead me to believe at first that could be the issue now.
 
ballast could be it - could also be arc jumping around - many report they let it "burn in" for around 12 hours on high mode and it fixes it. So if you haven't let it run for that long continuously you could try that. I haven't seen this issue but I have owned two dlp projectors - an infocus many years ago and my current mits. You may try doing some searching for "dlp burn in" and see what folks say. Here is some talk (about a mits dlp projector) http://www.avsforum.com/t/951408/mitsubishi-hc1500-flickering-problem-please-help
 
[quote name='bordjon']ballast could be it - could also be arc jumping around - many report they let it "burn in" for around 12 hours on high mode and it fixes it. So if you haven't let it run for that long continuously you could try that. I haven't seen this issue but I have owned two dlp projectors - an infocus many years ago and my current mits. You may try doing some searching for "dlp burn in" and see what folks say. Here is some talk (about a mits dlp projector) http://www.avsforum.com/t/951408/mitsubishi-hc1500-flickering-problem-please-help[/QUOTE]

Thanks, I will check that out. It's possible my TV has been on for 12 hours straight since I changed the bulb but I know it hasn't been on high. I thought having it on high ruined my old bulb so I turned it down when I installed my most recent one.
 
Yeah I run mine in low lamp mode too just so I can (supposedly) get more life out of it. I'd imagine once the bulb gets burned in though you'd be able to switch back to low mode. I'd change my bulb out but the darn thing keeps on going. I've reset the 3k hour timer twice so far! I have a spare but just haven't needed to use it yet. Though I freak out about it blowing up in there. (Hey - that may be a good reason to tell the wife why we need to get a new 1080p projector though!?!?!)
 
[quote name='bordjon']Yeah I run mine in low lamp mode too just so I can (supposedly) get more life out of it. I'd imagine once the bulb gets burned in though you'd be able to switch back to low mode. I'd change my bulb out but the darn thing keeps on going. I've reset the 3k hour timer twice so far! I have a spare but just haven't needed to use it yet. Though I freak out about it blowing up in there. (Hey - that may be a good reason to tell the wife why we need to get a new 1080p projector though!?!?!)[/QUOTE]

LOL, there you go! I'm on my third bulb in about 7 years (and still have not paid for one :) ). Not too shabby seeing as this has been my mancave sports/gaming TV. The first one exploded and freaked me and my wife out. There was a loud bang and a little plume of smoke. Thankfully I had taken out the extended warranty with Best Buy which also covered bulbs.

The replacement was going strong until about 6 months ago. It suddenly started overheating. on high my TV would reset itself every 10 minutes, on low it would go maybe a 1/2 hour. I would hear a buzz, the lights would flash a few times on the front, and about 30 seconds later the bulb would kick back on.

This last one I kicked the brightness down to low as soon as I installed it thinking, like you, I could get more life out of it. That's when I started getting that strobe effect. At first it started in the upper left corner and then it seemed to spread across the entire screen. It's also very sporadic in it's frequency and intensity.

I learned something about this TV a couple weeks ago as well. I noticed my screen had some little lines on it that looked like burn in. I thought for sure I let that overheating bulb go too long and it had somehow added burn in. I did some research and found you could unscrew the front to clean the mirror and the lens at the bottom. Turned out there was a bunch of dirt accumulated on it. Once it was all clean my picture was better than ever!
 
Interesting... I've been running the lamp on high all day while I gamed/watched TV. It's run flawlessly without any of the stroebing effect. Hopefully it will get burned in and I can kick it back down to low.
 
[quote name='bordjon']Good to hear - I hope this solves your flicker issue![/QUOTE]

Looks like letting the bulb "burn in" was all I needed. I left the lamp on high for a couple days last weekend. This past Friday I kicked the power back down to low and haven't had any strobe effect since!

Thanks for the advice! :)
 
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