What I've been up to - Living Room A/V setup - Part 1

This is our living room right now. Well, as it was. . .

Stitch together multiple photos into a panoramic with free program Microsoft Ice !

About a year ago our awesome friend (who, oh by the way, introduced me to my wife), got this Pioneer 50" 720p tv from a job-site for free because it was Non-working.
He looked at it a bit, figured it was the power supply that was dead, but didn't want to shell out the $380 or so for a new replacement part from pioneer. Plus he already has a better plasma than this one.

When asked if I wanted it, the tinkerer in me couldn't say no - "A broken power supply? That's IT?!"

It turns out that pioneer actually had lots of problems with this power supply failing in these tv's and they made newer boards to replace the original.
So I began using saved searches on eBay to email me when new parts were posted for the PDP-505HD or compatible model PDP-502MX, along with the more specific part numbers off of the circuit board itself.

Finally a year later someone posted what I was looking for starting substantially lower than 'new from pioneer' prices. I ended up winning the power supply for $114 shipped. Only hoping that this would work.

Well it turns out that it did in fact fix the tv much to my enjoyment.


10 year old Pioneer 50" Plasma - $114

Articulating wall mount - $42 on eBay

Can you believe that around 2001 when this tv was new, people were paying between $10,000 - $13,000 for one of these?! Wow! Talk about being on the wrong/early-adopter side of the technology curve. . .

Considering that you can get a really nice new 50" plasma for what, under $800 easily now? 

Part 1 - Done!