The Plasma TV Blog

Many people worry about the lifespan of a plasma TV. It is understandable when you consider that plasma TVs typically cost much more than a traditional tube TV. The earliest plasma TVs were flawed in the sense that they cost much more than they do today and they didn’t last nearly as long. To determine how long a plasma TV lasts, manufacturers assign what is known as a half-life. The half-life is the point at which the TV will have lost 50% of its brightness. Most plasma TVs have a half-life of 60,000 hours. This means that even if you watch TV for seven or eight hours a day, your plasma TV will last at least nine years. The half-life of plasma TVs is now longer than the half-life of standard tube televisions. If you watch your plasma TV less than eight hours a day, then you are likely to be able to use your TV for many many years without any noticeable depreciation in quality.

Plasma TVs need to be cleaned with an extreme amount of caution. The first thing you should do is consult your owner’s manual. All plasma TV owner’s manuals should have detailed instructions as to the best way to clean your particular brand of TV.

In general, you want to abide by the following guidelines:

1. Just because an item says it is safe for plasma TVs doesn’t make it so. Be careful when choosing which chemicals to apply to your TV.

2. Always clean the TV with a cloth made from microfiber or 100% cotton. Never use paper towels or tissues as they have the ability to scratch the TV. A good place to an acceptable cloth is at a photography store.

3. Do not use any product which contains ammonia. Ammonia can damage the anti-reflective coating of the TV. Check cleaning products carefully as many do contain ammonia.

4. You can use a damp cloth to wipe down the TV, but it is best to use a dry one. Only use a damp cloth if you can’t remove marks on the screen.

5. Some plasma TVs come with its own cleaning kit. If so, you can probably order refills directly from the manufacturer or a distributor.

We have long been used to thinking in terms of matter existing in three states. These three traditionally taught states were liquid, solid, and gas. There is another state of matter and it is not only important in a ever growing number of technical applications, it also is estimated to make up almost 99% of the visible universe. This distinct state of matter is known as plasma, and it is distinguished by having a positive electrical charge. Ordinary gas contains an equal number of positive electrons and negative electrons. This makes the gas electrically balanced. The positive electrons are in the nucleus and they are orbited by an equal number of negatively charged electrons. When an atom of gas is acted upon by some outside energy force such as heat it has a tendency to allow some of the negatively charged electrons to break free from the hold of the nucleus. This atom becomes unbalanced as the negative electrons release and drift freely. The result is a gas with an positive electric charge. Such a positively charged electron is said to be “ionized.” It would usually take a majority of the atoms of the gas to become ionized in order to effect the electrical characteristics of the gas, but once this change takes place, the resulting gas is known as plasma.

It is often the interaction between these ionized plasma particles and the neutral atoms that creates the unique characteristics that gives plasma its usefulness in any number of technical applications. The door to the use of plasma has only opened a crack, and its use in applications that will someday impact many aspects of our life is just being understood.

The technology that brings television into our home has long been based on the cathode ray tube. The basic idea is to excite large numbers of small light sources, called pixels. The pixels are made up of three colors, red, blue, and green. By combining the three colors, a large variety of colors can be produced. In the cathode ray tube television (CRT), a beam of negatively charged particles is discharged inside a large glass tube. They excite phosphor atoms along the wide edge of the tube which causes the phosphor atoms to light up. The image is created by lighting up various areas along the screen at different mixtures of color, and different intensities.

The problem with CRT televisions, as any one who has ever lifted one is sure to know, is that the glass picture tubes are very large. When the screen is made larger, especially in a horizontal direction, the tube has to be bigger, and longer. A wide screen CRT would require such a massive tube that it would be fairly impractical, and would have a hard time fitting into a room.

Recently, a new technology has been developed that not only provides an increase in the quality of the picture produced, but also overcomes the size problem. The new plasma televisions replace the cathode ray tube with a flat panel allowing the screen size to be enlarged without increasing the depth. The television uses two ionized gases to excite the multicolored pixels, and produce the image.