HDTV Myth Department: Will the Plasma Leak Out?
Whenever new, amazing, and mysterious technology appears in the world, a new group of “experts” on this technology often appears out of nowhere. These people are full of good information and have the best intentions, but sometimes they get a little careless with their explanations and promote an idea that seems logical and makes sense, but is actually wrong.
The conventional wisdom behind HDTV tech, magic as it is, includes several of these logical but misguided tips. One goes like this: Plasma TVs contain a weird substance inside the screen, called “plasma”, which is so slippery and sneaky that it could leak out of the set if you lay it flat on the floor or in the back of your car. This reasoning supposedly explains why many retailers have a strict policy against shipping a Plasma TV any way except vertically. Some customers have even been obligated to choose an LCD over a Plasma because the back of their car wasn’t tall enough to take it away from the shop in a vertical position.
The real reason behind that policy is that a Plasma TV has a relatively fragile construction, with two panes of glass mounted very close to each other. If one was resting horizontally in the back of a truck, and that truck bounced over a speed bump a little too fast, the panes could bounce a little themselves and squeeze what’s in between.
What’s in between is not a pool of mysterious liquid, but an array of tiny cells that contain a special kind of gas. When the computer inside the TV tells them to, these cells light up like tiny neon lights, because the gas inside them is excited into what’s called a “plasma state”. If some of these cells get damaged by transport, there’s really no way to fix them. Laying a Plasma TV carefully down on your living room floor, however, won’t do any harm at all. Just don’t step on it.
Here are some references, in case you need a little more convincing:
http://www.dtvcity.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-leak.html
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/plasma_tv_sales.html
http://www.answers.com/plasma+display?cat=technology
