How Long Do Plasma Tvs Last?

The average shelf life of a plasma screen is not an easy question to answer. Many early model plasmas have already met their unwavering friend the dump. Many LCD and other new technologies have met that end as well, but to count those into the average would be unfair. Newer televisions using the same technology are more reliable through practice and experience engineers have developed new practices, which extend the life of these televisions. For the purpose of this article I will stick to factory guessed life spans, because there are not enough new TVs which have met the scrap pile to build an average off of. That in itself is a good sign to you the consumer. .

To begin with, the average manufacture of plasma screens today rates their screens with a shelf life of 100,000+ hours. This seems a bit excessive to me however. Really if you used your tv 24 hours a day and there are 365 days in a year that is 8,760 hours a year. So in theory you could leave your TV on all the time, and still not concern yourself with your TV dying, for more then ten years.

The truth is if you leave your TV on for 24 hours a day it's going to get hot. The fans are going to become over used. The electronic grease inside those fans is going to turn into more of a glue, and over a period of 3 years permanent usage like that. You are liable to find your TV has bad fans, resistors and possibly even blew a couple of capacitors, because the fans pulled to much juice. This is common and the way that factories rate is based on the screen and it's gas rather then on the electrical components, or any outside factors such as handling of the TV, average room temperature and more.

Overall and this is mostly speculation. I wouldn't expect any TV to last without some work being done to it more then 4 to 5 years. In this time many things can go wrong. Which isn't to say the TV is dead but it does need some work maintenance is important in electronics as well as mechanics. Electronic components like a TV do contain mechanical elements which guide them to their eventual goal of producing the effects the consumer has come to expect of them. And these mechanical elements play a role in the the end of life expectancy of electrical components.