Home Theater Hacks

Hack #73. Don't Mess with Odd Screws

Ever run into a strange-looking screw, and spend hours trying to find just the right tool to get it open? Chances are that screw is for your protection: proceed with caution.

When you go to clean your TV's mirror and lenses [Hack #69] , you probably will be able to enter your TV from both the front and back. It's a good idea to try and go in through the front whenever possible, and if you've got a Pioneer Elite TV, you must never enter in through the back. There's a nice optical cavity, easily accessible, but you'll be digging your own grave (or rather, your TV's grave). This is a classic case of why not to mess with strange screws (in other words, screws that aren't standard Philips head or flat head).

What's the Big Deal?

On the Pioneer Elite unit on which I learned about this, there were a couple of weird-headed screws holding the back on the unit, along with several regular Philips head screws. Don't be clever and figure out how to get these screws out; they are there for your own protection! You can use a small flatedge screwdriver to circumvent them, but you'd be shooting yourself in the foot, just as I did when I first ran into this issue.

Several Pioneer Elite models have the bottom edge of the mirror bracketed into the removable back and the top edge bracketed into the body of the TV itself. If you separate the back from the unit, the mirror slips out of the top bracket and does a nosedive straight into your fresnel screen! Once this ...