I think I have finally found a hobby!

[Fixit]

I decided I want to go back to fixing electronics, like I did in high school! I repaired my old Mitsubishi WD65-C9 and the couple of broken game consoles in the basement. It's so exciting to see something you had torn completely apart come back to life after somebody has given up on it! I just got wind that a family member is getting rid of an old mitsubishi tv that still uses the old CRT tubes inside. I found a new project. Now the next hurdle is getting it home as the unit weighs almost 200 pounds. When it worked the sound was impressive and the picture was... meh. but it was never taken care of so I have a feeling that the convergence IC inside has gone bad, forcing the owner to go buy a 65 inch curved LED TV so this one should be interesting. Even if I don't keep it I know I could sell it easily, right? I have had a couple offers on my recently repaired DLP already but I just can't bear to part with it. The picture is unlike anything I have seen before.

 

[lukey]

Post an Pic of the CRT TV showing an calibration picture like this. Maybe i can find out what's wrong with it.

 

[rygD]

It is pretty shocking what can happen when you poke around inside electronics!

 

[Wally]

You won't be able to sell a CRT TV to many except a few select hipsters, best you'll do is be able to sell the Copper or donate it to charity but they likely won't take it.

Best take it to e-waste.

 

[TrashyMG]

My 380Lb 36" SVGA / TV will be sold with my condo, not lifting that again.

 

[Asaggynoodle]

You won't be able to sell a CRT TV to many except a few select hipsters, best you'll do is be able to sell the Copper or donate it to charity but they likely won't take it.

Best take it to e-waste.

There are a few special CRT Displays that can fetch quite a few (Hundred/Thousand) dollars. Mainly looking along the lines of the Sony Trinitron Pro's, some of the best CRT displays ever made for the consumer market (talking basically 100% Color Gamut). But these exact models are about as common as hens teeth as they are ultra well known by Movie/Media/Gaming enthusiasts..

 

[rygD]

Yeah, if I could get a high quality color CRT at a decent price (and that wasn't massive/heavy) I would replace what I currently use with some of my old consoles. Since that one is starting to go I have been looking at scanline generators and such, but I have no clue what to look for, and the prices on some things are a lot more than I am willing to pay right now. I would rather just stop by a thrift store and get another tube TV. I do like monochrome CRTs for my old computers too. I guess I am a hipster, according to what Wally said.

 

[___]

I am a fond owner of a Sony PVM CRT, which I got from the opera where they used these as stage monitors but were throwing them out. Sony PVMs are legendary amongst hardcore console enthusiasts and arcade freaks as it's so easy to hook up arcade pcbs to the various video inputs, and because the european Versions have scart for rgb input. They make the best RGB picture I have ever gotten out of my consoles.

I am pretty sure that there are a couple of CRT TVs with similar capabilities that will still sell for a very decent price, especially if you look into the right places. Check out the marketplace on the neogeo-forums: http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/

good CRT monitors are getting rare. Most people have thrown out their old devices and the few ones that are left will eventually break and parts are getting rare to make a repair. Most Arcade Monitor producers are not selling CRTs anymore, even wells gardner is selling off their last tri-mode CRTs. I was not able to source another 29" CRT for my sega naomi cabinet and since I wanted to play 15khz games anyway, I had to put in an old TV tube, which is now defunct as well. I still have a 29" CRT TV stored for this purpose but am too lazy to actually do the repair.

 

[Fixit]

So you think the TV is a waste of time then? Maybe I just have a soft spot for obsolete electronics. Hell, I used my 30GB Zune until the HDD met with an unfortunate end. I also still have a first gen macbook with the intel core duo. I mean new electronics are great and all but I still find myself turning back to the older devices. Most of the time I would fix them just to sell off but when I found a real gem, I would hang on to it until I couldn't repair it anymore.

 

[rygD]

It is up to you, really. The tv I currently use for my older consoles isn't anything special, but I use it. I have also seen old tv's used for art pieces, and I have repurposed some myself. The point is, if you repair it you may not make any money by selling it. If you don't care, go for it (be careful), and you could get your skills up to a point in 20 years where it is worth it, as those of us who still use CRTs will still be in need of repairs.

 

[Fixit]

Well by then it may be almost impossible to find parts. It's getting kinda scarce now as is. Doesn't mean I wouldn't try. I have always enjoyed a good challenge

 

[rygD]

I figured parts could be harvested from dead ones. Maybe I should get the parts needed to repair some monitors so that I can give those to whoever has the skills and tools to repair them when the time comes. I would rather stick with a tube monitor since the image persistance is a part of the experience that I don't think is recreated with scanline generators and other things like that. Maybe I should just give up. Amber monitors are somewhat uncommon now, and I still don't have one, so maybe the funds should be spent on something that will continue to work in the future, and should be easier to repair.

 

[levi]

Image persistance? You mean the burn in that we all hated back when we had CRT monitors, or something else?

 

[rygD]

Image persistance? You mean the burn in that we all hated back when we had CRT monitors, or something else?

No. The reason green screens were popular is that the phosphors stay "charged" or illuminated longer than white (I think) so it was easier on the eyes, causing less headaches and such. The result is less flicker (good), and the previously illuminated stuff remaining visible for a little while after the picture updates and an area is no longer getting zapped (sorta bad, but kinda cool).

That may all be wrong, but you can see the text remain for a bit after it goes away or moves, and on mine you can even see the whole screen glow for a bit after I have turned the lights off even when I haven't used the monitor. I will try to find more info about the phosphors for you to see if I was right or not about the reason for the much greater popularity of green over the more logical choice of white.
[doublepost=1461451071,1461450352][/doublepost]The second and third paragraph here discuss what I am talking about, but I am not finding info on green vs white very quickly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_monitor#Clarity
[doublepost=1461451285][/doublepost]Oh...well the section on screen burn talks about the persistence stuff to reduce flicker. Still, I would like to know why some colors were more popular than others since white was available, and supposedly not more expensive than green and amber.
[doublepost=1461452375][/doublepost]Good enough:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1051795-the-computer-screen-of-the-future-was-once-green

 

[levi]

Ah, that kind. Well. pick up an old LCD screen and you'll get that for free too. Anything without overdrive should have some persistence (also known as ghosting) and especially anything pre-TFT should ghost good!

It's not quite the same, cos a persistent phosphor display cannot be dimmed once it's been lit any quicker than persistence will allow, while the capacitors inside an LCD can be shorted by the driver when it gets round to it.

Edit: But yeah, the CRT glow of a recently turned off set is a sign of awesome power that you just won't get with an LCD. I'm not sure exactly where that comes from, since the electron gun shouldn't be discarging - maybe it's the decay of the HT coils that move the electron beam to and fro.

Edit2: Well, not to coils because their magnetic fields collapse relative quickly, as evidenced by the collapse of the image to a white dot as soon as you disconnect power on sets before about 1985. But the HT PSU has some toasty capacitors in it that supposedly take a few hours to leak out, so perhaps there's some stray stuff lighting the phosphors slightly. But what stuff? Magnetic fields don't light the phosphors by themselves.

Most likely is that phosphors actually take a really long time to go out completely, just you can't see that against the brightly lit parts of the image - the contrast is too great. The light dies out quickly enough to disappear from view before the next frame's been up too long, but the long tail is still there.

 

[FBnil]

my way of playing with my TV: Put your hand on the TV screen. Close eyes. Take flash picture. Open eyes, remove hand. See hand on screen.