I have a panasonic rear project. TV mdl PT45-SL12, AND I HAD STORED IT FOR ABOUT 3 MONTHS ,with some other stuff around it . Some of this stuff was some old hard drives stacked on top of it (hard drives with magnets),well... now the bottom of the screen has a blue cloud and the top has a red one. Is there an easy fix for this?? I hope... thx pb magnut

Hello pbmagnet

The problem is indeed caused by magnets of whatever sorts. They magnetize the display screen (in your case the display screen inside the television that provides the picture that is projected onto the rear of the main screen).
The screen has to be "de-gaussed", which means that it has to be subjected to an AC magnetic field (best if slowly decreasing).

You have to hold the coil that produces the field in front of the display screen, and start "circling" the entire display screen, while slowly increasing the distance to the screen to about 1.5 to 2 meters before switching off the power.

You can ask the nearest television repair shop to do that for you, or you can borrow or rent a coil unit to do this yourself.

While easy to do with a normal tube television, there is not much space to do that inside the projection television.
Either you remove - if installed - the box between the display screens (and/or mirror) to de-gausse, or you may have to remove the display unit temporally to de-gausse it outside. Make sure in that case not to change the display position direction.

Success !

:)

Thanks a lot ,I'll try that, my only question is . You said to use an AC magnet is there a reason?

Yes : an AC coil de-gausser. The coil (1.5' diam, 1" thick) is connected to the mains. A push-to-operate button provides control. Some units have build-in current limiters that decrease the current slowly over time.
Keep the coil activated while circling the (small) display screen and increasing the distance till you are 1.5 to 2 meters away.

The changing AC electro-magnetic fields force the screen to loose any residual magnestism due to constant field changes.

If you use a DC or permanent magnet you would make the screen into a permanent magnet with even worse discoloring.

Get , borrow, or rent a coil from a near-by repair shop. They all have one.

Note : all tube color televisions have also a coil bend inside the cabinet around the front of the display tube, to de-gausse. The current through that coil is in seconds lowered from amps to micro-amps**
Therefore it will not function as a strong de-gausser. It just removes small magnetic fields.

**When you switch a color televison "on" you hear a kind of short hum. That is that coil getting activated for 1 or 2 seconds.

Thank U again professor , now youuu wouldn't know where to look for that internal screen would ya'?