Cooling a TV?

[Troika]

So, kind of a strange question. Anyone who's owned a Plasma TV will probably understand just how much they heat up a room. I have an old Panasonic TH-42PZ80U I got back in 2020 when I moved to Austin for $20. I really like the TV. The colors are incredible, the sound is great given that it has space for actually not bad built in speakers, and perfect for watching movies or playing games. The blacks are super deep, dare I say, on par with OLEDs. Yeah, its only 1080p but it looks WAY better than my 1440p monitor when it comes to enjoying content. That said, it sucks down nearly 600 watts of power all by itself. A good portion of that gets turned back into heat. It has four fans built into the back of the TV to pull heat out from the TV casing but that doesn't solve the issue that its just accelerating how fast heat gets put into the room. What I'd like to do is somehow watercool the TV and window mount the radiator so heat gets pushed outside. I'm assuming a lot of the heat being generated by the TV is coming from the panel so I was thinking of attaching a few of these on the backside of the panel and plug them into a Alphacool triple 180mm radiator and a DDC pump, maybe two. I haven't got an idea of how a plasma TV works so I don't know if cooling the panel will negatively affect image quality. I have most of the parts already, I'd just have to order those waterblocks from Aliexpress.

[Needfuldoer]

Can you just open a window? That will accomplish the same thing.

 

I don't think there's a way to effectively "whole room water cool" your TV, since IIRC it's the panel itself that generates the lion's share of the heat.

 

How much do you pay per kilowatt-hour for electricity? A modern TV would probably pay for itself in electricity savings faster than you might expect, especially if you factor in the cost of the watercooling parts you won't have to buy for it.

[Mojo-Jojo]

4 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Can you just open a window? That will accomplish the same thing.

 

I don't think there's a way to effectively "whole room water cool" your TV, since IIRC it's the panel itself that generates the lion's share of the heat.

 

How much do you pay per kilowatt-hour for electricity? A modern TV would probably pay for itself in electricity savings faster than you might expect, especially if you factor in the cost of the watercooling parts you won't have to buy for it.

OP seems to live in Texas, opening a window might actually let more heat in if the season is right.

[bezza...]

if you are going to spend all this money on water cooled equitment. may aswell get a used oled and you will save money on the power bill and still get your good coulers

[Needfuldoer]

19 minutes ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

OP seems to live in Texas, opening a window might actually let more heat in if the season is right.

In that case, I double down on my "replace the TV" advice. There really isn't an effective way to cool the panel, and any solution that isn't a refrigerant-and-compressor heat pump would just bring more outdoor heat inside.

 

If OP watches TV 4 hours a day that plasma costs $8/mo in electricity for itself, not even counting its 2000 BTU heat load on the HVAC system.

 

https://www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/electricity-cost

 

I believe most modern LED TVs only draw around 100 watts on average.

[ToboRobot]

Vent the waste heat and air out of the home with ducts.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

58 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Vent the waste heat and air out of the home with ducts.

I was just about to say that, though id just put a duct directly to the back of the tv and have the hot air go through it and out the house

[Dedayog]

2 hours ago, Troika said:

So, kind of a strange question. Anyone who's owned a Plasma TV will probably understand just how much they heat up a room. I have an old Panasonic TH-42PZ80U I got back in 2020 when I moved to Austin for $20. I really like the TV. The colors are incredible, the sound is great given that it has space for actually not bad built in speakers, and perfect for watching movies or playing games. The blacks are super deep, dare I say, on par with OLEDs. Yeah, its only 1080p but it looks WAY better than my 1440p monitor when it comes to enjoying content. That said, it sucks down nearly 600 watts of power all by itself. A good portion of that gets turned back into heat. It has four fans built into the back of the TV to pull heat out from the TV casing but that doesn't solve the issue that its just accelerating how fast heat gets put into the room. What I'd like to do is somehow watercool the TV and window mount the radiator so heat gets pushed outside. I'm assuming a lot of the heat being generated by the TV is coming from the panel so I was thinking of attaching a few of these on the backside of the panel and plug them into a Alphacool triple 180mm radiator and a DDC pump, maybe two. I haven't got an idea of how a plasma TV works so I don't know if cooling the panel will negatively affect image quality. I have most of the parts already, I'd just have to order those waterblocks from Aliexpress.

If you need to, do what your Dryer and stove do.  Duct it out of the house.  

 

Or get a new, more efficient TV.  Plasma is nice, but it's 67 years old now.  

 

Doesn't make sense to spend money on an elaborate heat exchange idea when TV's are so cheap.

[Troika]

10 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Can you just open a window? That will accomplish the same thing.

 

I don't think there's a way to effectively "whole room water cool" your TV, since IIRC it's the panel itself that generates the lion's share of the heat.

 

How much do you pay per kilowatt-hour for electricity? A modern TV would probably pay for itself in electricity savings faster than you might expect, especially if you factor in the cost of the watercooling parts you won't have to buy for it.

I live in Texas, it doesn't help to open the window.

Its not about how much electricity the TV uses, the image quality is better than whatever TV I can get for $100~200. Cheap LCDs don't compare to a old Plasma TV.

[Troika]

10 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

In that case, I double down on my "replace the TV" advice. There really isn't an effective way to cool the panel, and any solution that isn't a refrigerant-and-compressor heat pump would just bring more outdoor heat inside.

 

If OP watches TV 4 hours a day that plasma costs $8/mo in electricity for itself, not even counting its 2000 BTU heat load on the HVAC system.

 

https://www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/electricity-cost

 

I believe most modern LED TVs only draw around 100 watts on average.

Most modern TVs that look as good as a plasma TV cost WAY more than just trying to jank-cool my TV.

[Troika]

9 hours ago, Dedayog said:

If you need to, do what your Dryer and stove do.  Duct it out of the house.  

 

Or get a new, more efficient TV.  Plasma is nice, but it's 67 years old now.  

 

Doesn't make sense to spend money on an elaborate heat exchange idea when TV's are so cheap.

Getting a legitimate replacement to the image quality I get from my Plasma TV will cost WAY more than what I would like to spend. I can run my TV for 5 years and its still cheaper than the cost of getting a decent 4K that may not look as good, not including the cost of getting a Framemiester (or something similar) for my old consoles.

[seanondemand]

Yeah, unless this is a “for shits and giggles” project for you, it doesn’t make a whole ton of sense. Any janky water-cooling solution you’ll be able to come up with is going to be half as effective (and possibly more expensive) than a window-mounted air conditioner. 

[Dedayog]

14 hours ago, Troika said:

Getting a legitimate replacement to the image quality I get from my Plasma TV will cost WAY more than what I would like to spend. I can run my TV for 5 years and its still cheaper than the cost of getting a decent 4K that may not look as good, not including the cost of getting a Framemiester (or something similar) for my old consoles.

What size is your Plasma and what are prices in your area?

 

At some point you need to acknowledge that Plasma isn't that great anymore due to the obvious draw backs, and not do some jury rigged solution.  There is a reason someone sold it to you for $20, to get rid of it.

 

If you think trying to do some cooling for it will really help, rock it.  I'd prefer a decent TV that wasn't some sort of Frankenstein.

 

BUT... I still think a duct setup would be your best bet to get the heat out of the room if you can't use a Window AC unit.  Do you have the TV near a window where it won't be too obvious?

[cmndr]

air conditioning... 

As an aside... it might be cheaper (after factoring in electricity and up front costs) to buy a newer TV that doesn't pump out the same heat. Modern mini-LED based LCDs and OLEDs are pretty solid. 

 

On 4/21/2023 at 2:12 PM, Troika said:

Getting a legitimate replacement to the image quality I get from my Plasma TV will cost WAY more than what I would like to spend. I can run my TV for 5 years and its still cheaper than the cost of getting a decent 4K that may not look as good

TCL 555 or Hisense U7H. 50" instead of 42." They're around $350-400 on sale. They get way brighter, have excellent contrast, etc. 

A not-bad window mount air conditioner will be around $300. There's something like a 500W difference between a newer TV and a 600W TV. Probably another 200-300W for a window AC. So 750W as kind of a baseline... 

750W at 5 hours a day for 1 year at 12cents a KWH is around $150. If you keep that thing for a few years you'll end up paying for it in electricity. At 2.5 hours a day it'd be more like $75 a year.

Your old Plasma TV is probably a great unit for a secondary location. Think guest bedroom. 

 

On 4/21/2023 at 2:12 PM, Troika said:

not including the cost of getting a Framemiester (or something similar) for my old consoles.

Not completely awful analog converters are like $25. I'm probably not all that discerning here though so I could be crazy. 

[Godlygamer23]

On 4/21/2023 at 7:57 AM, Dedayog said:

do what your Dryer and stove do

What stove exhausts through a duct? That would defeat the purpose of the stove, yeah?

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

What stove exhausts through a duct? That would defeat the purpose of the stove, yeah?

Stove, not oven.  The hood exhausts outside the home or some just filter it back into the home too which sucks.

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, Dedayog said:

Stove, not oven.  The hood exhausts outside the home or some just filter it back into the home too which sucks.

Even so, I rarely use my range hood when cooking, and I think the primary reason for it is to remove contaminants from the air when you're frying something. It's not really there to remove heat, at least when looking at my range hood.

[Troika]

On 4/22/2023 at 7:06 AM, Dedayog said:

What size is your Plasma and what are prices in your area?

 

At some point you need to acknowledge that Plasma isn't that great anymore due to the obvious draw backs, and not do some jury rigged solution.  There is a reason someone sold it to you for $20, to get rid of it.

 

If you think trying to do some cooling for it will really help, rock it.  I'd prefer a decent TV that wasn't some sort of Frankenstein.

 

BUT... I still think a duct setup would be your best bet to get the heat out of the room if you can't use a Window AC unit.  Do you have the TV near a window where it won't be too obvious?

Its a 42" 1080p Panasonic.

Its just wasn't being used anymore. I bought it from the original owner almost 3 years ago and they were selling it because they had upgraded to a 72" 4K OLED. They said the TV was like $1200+ when it was new, looking up the model, that seems to track. Their new TV was around $1600. That's pretty reasonable assuming the OLED will last as long at the plasma did. 10 years of service is pretty solid between upgrade cycles.

The thing is that a decent TV would be $1000+ to get comparable image quality on top of something to connect vintage consoles since I doubt new TVs have component, S-Video, and composite inputs.

There is a window but running a duct would obstruct the closet. Running a pair of 1/2" tubes wouldn't be obstructive as the door is about 1" from the carpet.

[Troika]

On 4/22/2023 at 4:26 PM, cmndr said:

air conditioning... 

As an aside... it might be cheaper (after factoring in electricity and up front costs) to buy a newer TV that doesn't pump out the same heat. Modern mini-LED based LCDs and OLEDs are pretty solid. 

 

TCL 555 or Hisense U7H. 50" instead of 42." They're around $350-400 on sale. They get way brighter, have excellent contrast, etc. 

A not-bad window mount air conditioner will be around $300. There's something like a 500W difference between a newer TV and a 600W TV. Probably another 200-300W for a window AC. So 750W as kind of a baseline... 

750W at 5 hours a day for 1 year at 12cents a KWH is around $150. If you keep that thing for a few years you'll end up paying for it in electricity. At 2.5 hours a day it'd be more like $75 a year.

Your old Plasma TV is probably a great unit for a secondary location. Think guest bedroom. 

 

Not completely awful analog converters are like $25. I'm probably not all that discerning here though so I could be crazy. 

I have an AC that I use in the summer to limit how long the main AC kicks on.

I don't think either will have similar image quality. Brightness and contrast is one thing, colors, sharpness and motion accuracy is another.

Our electricity bill is about $200 a month so I don't really consider the electricity cost a major factor. I don't use it daily but I do use it about 12 hours per week between gaming on my PS2, N64 or Xbox 360 or watching Hulu/Prime Video on my Xbox One X.

Guest bedroom? xD You overestimate my living situation. We live in a three bedroom apartment and share expenses fairly evenly. All in, I'm probably out about $1,040 per month. That's including cell service and internet because its cheaper for all three of us to be on a "family" plan rather than getting individual cell service. Plus, we got free Samsung Galaxy S22 each so it was a pretty sweet deal for everyone involved. Especially my best friend cause he was still using a iPhone 7 and it has a bunch of issues.

I'd rather get something like a receiver because that'd let me use my home theater audio instead of the built in speakers. Not to say the built in speakers are bad, they're amazing compared to what you get on TVs nowadays but compared to my Mackie CR8s and CR8-X Sub, they're kinda trash. Those are out in the living room so I move the TV out there for movie nights on the weekend or watching anime together.

[Troika]

On 4/22/2023 at 9:43 PM, Godlygamer23 said:

Even so, I rarely use my range hood when cooking, and I think the primary reason for it is to remove contaminants from the air when you're frying something. It's not really there to remove heat, at least when looking at my range hood.

I mainly use the hood on my stove whenever I boil water or searing a steak because that can be a pretty smokey affair.

[cmndr]

17 minutes ago, Troika said:

I have an AC that I use in the summer to limit how long the main AC kicks on.

I don't think either will have similar image quality. Brightness and contrast is one thing, colors, sharpness and motion accuracy is another.

Don't overestimate 10-15 year old TVs or underestimate modern FALD based LCD displays. 

If you have an AC already set up in your room then you pretty much have the solution to your issue. It'll never make economic sense to ghetto rig a water cooler with the radiator outdoors and it only takes one leak to REALLY make you regret the endeavor. 

 

[Troika]

3 hours ago, cmndr said:

Don't overestimate 10-15 year old TVs or underestimate modern FALD based LCD displays. 

If you have an AC already set up in your room then you pretty much have the solution to your issue. It'll never make economic sense to ghetto rig a water cooler with the radiator outdoors and it only takes one leak to REALLY make you regret the endeavor. 

 

Its not setup. I install it around the end of June once the outdoor temp consistantly stays above 90F.

 

Like I said, I already have most of the parts, its just a matter of ordering $60 in aluminum coldplates. $60 to lower the heat output of the TV or $400+ to replace it. The question I specifically asked was whether or not cooling the back of the display panel on the TV would negatively affect the panel. I didn't ask if its worth it to watercool a old plasma TV vs buying a new one that suits my needs.

[cmndr]

12 hours ago, Troika said:

Its not setup. I install it around the end of June once the outdoor temp consistantly stays above 90F.

 

Like I said, I already have most of the parts, its just a matter of ordering $60 in aluminum coldplates. $60 to lower the heat output of the TV or $400+ to replace it. The question I specifically asked was whether or not cooling the back of the display panel on the TV would negatively affect the panel. I didn't ask if its worth it to watercool a old plasma TV vs buying a new one that suits my needs.

It's +$60 of plates, the cost of insulating things, the cost of some extra tubes, the difference in power draw between systems (measured in $) and the risk of a leak causing damage.

 

It's unlikely to meaningfully affect the $20 TV in a meaningful way. 

 

It's also less likely to work as well as you think. 

Compared to PCs where the hot spot is around 1"x1" your "hot spot" is more like 30"x20" so you'd need to cover around 600x the space. Also the back is probably plastic which doesn't transfer heat well. 

Past that, the temperature delta between something like a 110F TV (43C) and a 90-100F (35C) outside Texas outdoor environment is small. 

A more typical water cooling set up might be a 176F CPU  (80C) and a 72F (22C) room. The delta is 58C.

 

Then there's the issue of mounting pressure. It's not harder to mount a plate to a motherboard. I'm not sure how a plate would be mounted to a TV? VESA threads? If you're going the VESA route you'll have much weaker contact than vs a normal PC cooling reference.

 

 

It's not hard to imagine such a project transferring between 10-1000x less heat than you were imagining. This assumes near-0 leakage along the way via the tubes and the plate. This also assumes 0 heat leakage from the window cooling system into the room. It also falls apart if the outside gets hotter than the TV in which case it becomes a heater. It's not that hard for heat leakage from the outside to actually increase your room's temperature. 

 

 

---

 

As hinted at before... running an AC (ideally a window AC and not one of those awful portable ACs which are 2-3x less energy efficient and don't come close to the cooling they promise on the box) is going to be the solution if you need less heat and you MUST have that TV.

Or spending $350 on a not-bad FALD TV. Mini-LED based systems are SURPRISINGLY good. In a dark room a plasma TV might still win. In a bright room, light pollution eats into the contrast advantages of plasma TVs. 

[Troika]

11 hours ago, cmndr said:

It's +$60 of plates, the cost of insulating things, the cost of some extra tubes, the difference in power draw between systems (measured in $) and the risk of a leak causing damage.

Insulating what exactly?

As for the risk of leaks, you can make the same argument about liquid cooling a computer. The risk of a water leak is commonly sited as a reason for not watercooling a computer.

11 hours ago, cmndr said:

Then there's the issue of mounting pressure. It's not harder to mount a plate to a motherboard. I'm not sure how a plate would be mounted to a TV? VESA threads? If you're going the VESA route you'll have much weaker contact than vs a normal PC cooling reference.

Thermal tape. Once the tape has time to cure, it's a fairly strong but not permanent bond. That would let me mount the blocks directly to the back of the panel (not the outer shell. Cooling the outer shell would do nothing). I don't think you understand how much empty space there is on the inside of a plasma TV. There's already vent holes along the bottom edge. Cutting and sanding those holes will allow for very clean tube routing down into a pair of manifolds (one for intake, the other for output. These can be built rather inexpensively out of PVC)

 

11 hours ago, cmndr said:

Past that, the temperature delta between something like a 110F TV (43C) and a 90-100F (35C) outside Texas outdoor environment is small. 

A more typical water cooling set up might be a 176F CPU  (80C) and a 72F (22C) room. The delta is 58C.

That would be accurate if the TV was outside and the ambient temp was 90~100F but its not, the ambient temp is between 72~74F so the delta is much more significant. Also, the room temp isn't as important for a waterloop because the main limitation is the thermal mass of the water and the size of the radiator. It takes a VERY long time for water to heat soak to 80C. In a 120mm or 240mm rad with low water volume, maybe, sure. With a 12900K/13900K but I don't know ANYONE that would put a 120mm/240mm rad on a cpu like those. They run too hot to be properly cooled by a 120mm or 240mm. Definitely not a AIO. Maybe a thick 240mm with really good fans but I can only see that being an option for some one in a ITX setup like a Lian Li Q58. I specifically said I have a 540mm rad (triple 180mm) available to me. It holds a lot of water. The res is just a old water bucket I have with a submersible fountain pump because its actually a lot quieter than the DDC I have plus it will have no issue running continuously.

Besides, I've spent $60 on worse things than trying to cool a old TV. I preordered the original Watch Dogs for my Xbox 360, still haven't played it because the reception was so awful. I watched some gameplay of it and it was kinda meh. By the time I decided to try and return it, Gamestop wouldn't take it back so I just kept it. I'll probably play it, eventually. $60 for 6 9.45"x1.57" waterblocks, some cheap PVC pipes and cheap irrigation tubing from home depot is nothing.

The question I asked has yet to be answered. To reiterate, will cooling the back of a plasma panel negatively affect the panel? I don't know exactly how that technology works and I don't know if lowering the operating temperature will negatively affected it. LCDs, when cooled, does negatively affect them because it slows down the LCD response time.

[vf1000ride]

I don't think cooling the back of the panel will damage anything if done well but I don't know how you would go about doing it effectively.  I have the bigger brother to yours, the 50" TH-50PZ800U and can certainly understand your frustration with the heat output.  Mine is rated at almost 700 watts max output.  They rarely ever draw that much though, it will only ever pull that much current when on a full white screen with the volume maxed out, the darker the image the less it draws.  I got mine new 13-14 years ago and I am happy it still works because I am in the same boat as you that I love the look of the image it puts out and don't want to have to replace it.   I have just learned to live with the extra heat it produces in the house.

 

I would recommend looking up a couple videos on how to disassemble the thing before trying to decide to water cool it.  There are possibly 8-9 different circuit boards in the back of that thing that would need cooling and also the plasma display panel itself makes a substantial amount of heat.  I'm sure with enough determination it could be done but the cost and labor involved I don't see the value in that kind of project.

 

Here is a picture of the inside of the TH-42PX80U but should be similar to ours.  Got it from here;

https://manualmachine.com/panasonic/th42pz80u/9338300-service-manual/