Help..our plasma has crack on the inside!

[tv head]

Hi everyone, Im a newbie here & this is my first post. We have a 50 inch plasma...only 3 months old & we have just noticed a huge crack that starts from the bottom of the screen & comes up in a `V` shape.(double crack actually)! Well, the weird thing is that the glass is not brocken on the outside, and when you touch the screen it feels smooth. The glass is slightly raised where the crack runs but like I said, it seems to be on the inside.

Can anyone help us by explaining how this is possible. Could it have broken from on outside force eg the kids throwing something at it? Have any of you heard of glass cracking froim the inside?

Thanks in advance, very depressed tv head!

[jeskibuff]

Sounds like a defect in the glass, perhaps induced by stress either in the mounting or some flex during shipment. Good for you that it's only 3 months into your ownership and you should get it replaced under warranty (hopefully, depending on where you purchased it). What brand of plasma was it? Did you mount it on the wall or does it sit in a stand? If on the wall, what kind of mount did you use? The only possibility that I see that you wouldn't be covered under warranty is if you mishandled the unit while mounting it or placing it, but that would be next to impossible to prove unless there's some scars on the back of the unit. Also, my unit (a Panasonic) has express warnings to only ship it in an upright position. Was yours ever transported in any other position?

[tv head]

Thanks jeskibuff for your advice. Our plasma is wall mounted. It is an NEC 50 inch. As far as shipping goes, how can you tell what was done? The crack starts from the very bottom about a third in from the side & seems to be inside (as previously described).

Could the crack come up 3 months after instalation on the wall?
the mount is a nec wall mount

[edtyct]

Geez, I just took a look at jeskibuff's link. Nice room. It seems to me that a plasma could undergo damage when unpacked. One side of the glass sandwich could crack if, say, it were lifted out of the box and placed (heavily) on the ground with a little torque. Maybe someone better at physics that I am could make or break a case that an invisible stress point when lifted and hung on the wall could eventually turn into a visible crack.

Depending on how it was packed and handled, the same sort of scenario is also possible during shipping, I guess. The best mode of transportation for a plasma is a dedicated freight service, not UPS or other everyday company, which usually gives these sorts of items rough treatment. But you have to do some fancy footwork to hold the shipper responsible if you accepted the box and didn't notice a problem for three months. You might have better luck claiming that the glass came with a defect. This is a tough one.

Ed

[jeskibuff]

A defect in the glass could just take a bit of heat stress to cause it to crack, I imagine. The glass could have been fine initially, but expansion and contraction might eventually be the catalyst that caused the failure because of an imperfection.

I once had a windshield crack on me as I was entering a parking garage. No big g-forces or twisting involved. It just gave out a nice loud cracking noise and gave me about a 6" crack to stare at in the lower left corner of the windshield. The car was about 4 years old at the time with the original glass. Fortunately, insurance covered the replacement which was subsequently cracked soon thereafter from road projectiles.

Bottom line: I don't think you'll have much of a problem getting NEC to replace it unless you bought it used or from an unauthorized dealer. If it shows no sign of abuse, I think it falls clearly into the manufacturing defect category.

[IsmaVA]

A defect in the glass could just take a bit of heat stress to cause it to crack, I imagine. The glass could have been fine initially, but expansion and contraction might eventually be the catalyst that caused the failure because of an imperfection.

I once had a windshield crack on me as I was entering a parking garage. No big g-forces or twisting involved. It just gave out a nice loud cracking noise and gave me about a 6" crack to stare at in the lower left corner of the windshield. The car was about 4 years old at the time with the original glass. Fortunately, insurance covered the replacement which was subsequently cracked soon thereafter from road projectiles.

Bottom line: I don't think you'll have much of a problem getting NEC to replace it unless you bought it used or from an unauthorized dealer. If it shows no sign of abuse, I think it falls clearly into the manufacturing defect category.

If the crack started at the edge, I would suspect that it was dropped, or some other type of impact, since the glass boundaries are msot vulnerable to that type of damage. However, the fact that the cracks come together cofrming a V, do suggest heat trauma (like someone mentioned before), since it is the inside of the glass that has very little room to expand and contract, and therefore subject to a higher stress.

Anyway, Good Luck to Tv Head, PLASMA display warranties are very, VERY tricky, with tons of fine print.