Also Adrian, you need to put the CRT neck up when doing rejuve and short work because the little metal particles need to fall away from the guns, then when done don't put the neck down at any point because there will be metal particles in the tube, just let them fall to the "side" of the tube as they should naturally when you put the tube back to it's operating orientation. We do a lot of this kind of work for Arcade games.
When I was a TV engineer I built my own monochrome tube zapper. (Rejuvenator) It consisted of two light bulbs a power resistor and a smaller carbon resistor plus mains cable and leads and socket to the tube. It's a long time ago as I was about 17 at the time and now I'm 63. Basically the one bulb 100w was to allow current to the filament and the other 15w was the current feed to the cathode and grid. I copied one that the other guys used and it worked pretty well, but not every tube could be improved. From what I remember it was a way to strip the cathode to allow for a better emission. During the process you would often see flashing inside the tube neck, like bits of molten metal flyng about. Another method used instead of a brand new tube for color TV was a replacement tube gun assembly in the neck. Part of the neck was removed and a new gun assemble attached, done at a specialized factory due to vacuum requirements etc. This was much cheaper than a completely new tube. Now as far as setting up the replacement tube after reassembly, a process of purity adjustment using just a red screen was used to remove any other color from that display. Once that was complete then the other colors were checked individually before convergence was attempted. Sometimes degaussing was required to de-magnitize the shadow mask in the front of the tube. Interestingly I have seen a picture go from looking great with the monitor/tv facing one direction to being all messed up facing a different direction only rotating the unit through 90 degrees on the work bench. This I assumed was due to the earth's magnetic fields affecting the display. Each monitor/TV has de- gaussing coils around the tube and once power cycled from cold a few times this can make a big difference to the performance of the picture purity and convergence. Watching you replace that tube brought back many memories from my past, especially the point when you got a zap off the final anode connector which do have a tendency to re charge after some time. I got a good zap to my belly and almost dropped a 26" color tube while transporting it up some stairs. Needless to say I was always careful to make sure the final anode faced away from me every time I carried one after that. Thanks for the video.
32:33 THAT was a mistake, probably that's why you have bad convergence at two corners. Do not remove correction magnets that are on the inside of the yoke. Those belong to the yoke. If anything, put a dab of two part resin on them so they won't fall off in the future as the original glue dries out. Another suggestion: next time, measure the two yokes with a multimeter. If the readings are close (within 20-30%), don't remove the yoke and convergence assembly from the donor CRT, try it first! A lot of times they are interchangable, so you can save yourself from the hassle of purity and convergence adjustments. Swapping yokes on modern color CRTs is only a last resort, especially on high resolution CRTs. I'd rather swap the horizontal size adjustment coil on the chassis than swap the yoke.
I found a video on youtube showing a guy in the US who repaired CRTs by opening them, changing filaments, and closing. It seems the guy passed away but I can tell you it's possible to do. I could not find the video again. This senior master technician would crack the neck of the crt and then put a scotch tape around the area and leave it there. After one day, the tube would be filled with air and he could safely remove the neck. Having that done, he would replace and clean parts inside the neck, put it back, use a vacuum pump and re-seal it with heat. I really don't remember the details. Nice video, as alwayhs, Adrian!
I was a Namco arcade tech back in 99. Senior tech used to have me push that rejuvinator repeatedly for an hour on a bad tube. I thought he was crazy until it actually worked one day. Sometimes it fuses that bad gun together from all the energy being pushed. So don't give up on your old tube too quickly.
I have a Beltron crt rejuvinater here that was rebuilt and updated just before CRTs went away. I'm in Portland as well but any crt cooker can destroy the guns if you're not careful. The beltron has a cleaning function and a rejuvenation function and it does all guns at once with 3 meters and lights to show what's going on. It's completely manual so you hold the cleaning or rejuvenation button till your happy oy you kill the guns. Usually I use the cleaning function gently then move up from there if I feel it has a chance. The color gun alignment after the fact if you change the tube will still need to be adjusted again and if you don't have the service manual it's going to be really hard to get it perfect because there generally is steps to do to get it right. I have done quite a few tv tube swaps back in the day and some aligned pretty easily, some you could just get close.
@@erikberg7891 there is a type of oven that is pronounced like kennel but "kennel" is probably the wrong spelling, especially given my learning disabilities lol
I wasn't shouting, but I was saying that you should have done the fine set of G1 before doing anything. Also, you don't start the tester in Cut-Off. You always start with shorts, if you have a G1 short you can proceed to clear G1 shorts, if you have an HK short or any other short you can't proceed. If the tube is used face up, don't bother with clearing G1 shorts unless you have a place to use it elsewhere that isn't face up. When you saw the good emission, you should have again, stopped. In this case you needed to figure out why you had a good reading and a dim picture. In this case again, the fine set of the G1 should have been checked to make sure it was correct as you made clear you checked out the monitor (you want to check cathode and G1 voltages on the monitor if you have a dim picture and a good emission reading). Lastly, if the tube was designed for a cutoff in the 300 volt range, putting it up to 600 volts could have influenced the result. On some testers the cutoff influences the emission reading. Lastly, since this was a "Hail Mary" attempt on your own equipment, I can't fault you for trying the restoration anyway. If the tube was in better condition it may have worked as the emission didn't immediately drop off like a very small cathode (such as Trinitron) would have.
One minor safety nit from an old tech, when discharging the anode one hand in the pants pocket, don't give the potential any way to ground through your heart. we had that beaten into us in School. Great vids I have been enjoying them.
@@mrcassioo Could be worse. 17kv DC for a fraction of a second hurts like a bitch, but doesn't kill you nearly as efficiently as grabbing an electrical outlet when it's out of the box and the power is still on. The first time my dad showed me how to replace an outlet, he didn't bother turning the power off. Just told me to make sure nothing was touching the live leads. Metal screwdriver, metal wire cutters, metal strippers, everything carefully manipulated so as not to touch live. And boy, you learn quick! I don't recommend that, by the way. Just turn the breaker off first. That first exercise has, however, given me a method by which I always assume that it's live while I'm working on it, even if I know otherwise.
I had one of these monitors. It cost more than the cpu and motherboard I was using at the time. It was a heavy thing, but it could be used on almost anything. Granted, it was a few years old when I got mine, but it was an amazing piece of kit. Stuff was so strange in the before times. I miss those times, but really don't want to go back. I find it very funny that your camera picked up the screen just fine. It looks amazing in the video. Good to see something special get some love.
If you've ever seen the movie, Dean Koontz "Phantoms", I did all the electronics in the mobile lab set. Some of the monitors had to be taken apart to be installed. The whole set was on a gimble and had to be repaired all the time. I shocked myself several times with those CRTs. They will zap you pretty good.
I'm glad I finally got the time to watch this one, I love CRT videos! Yes, even the ones when you break stuff. It doesn't bother me as much because you always make it clear you're aware of the risks, and usually whatever you're working on is pretty much at the end of its rope anyway, so it's not as bad. Of course, now that you've made a video about the monitor, I'm sure someone will send one in to mail call! Or at least a monitor with a similar tube.
I was TV technician for about 10 years, before becoming a professional programmer. First, looking at the initial problem with your monitor , if it can do HIGH bright high contrast, black and white vertical strips (like letters, menu frame) without FLAMMING (that is luma bleeding to the right) as seen , min 7:49, The CRT IS NOT the culprit!, so, you misdiagnosed at all, the problem you originally has a misadjustment in BLACK LEVEL, if the chassis hasn't analog adjustments pots, you need to enter in service mode and adjust it with the menues. (I imagine that you already tried the SCREEN pot at the flyback to correct it and you was unabled to correct it with that control, also assuming as it is in focus, the flyback HV circuit is not the culprit, anything wrong there will make the focus to move constantly and ugly). After you change the CRT, you has problems with yoke/crt mismatching one each other, you need to implement MAGNET strips to marry the joke with the CRT. That is, magnetic strip that you can set in the glass of the neck, or stick it over the windings of the yoke, those magnet will affect a single corner, or top center, bottom center, etc., deppends on where you set, the angle also affect. But for doing that, you need to find out the exact position of the joke (that is how far or near is the joke mounted against the glass, sometime it needs a bit of space, so there is rubber mounts aswell that prevent the joke to move freely while making space). The PURITY rings (both rings near to the screen) adjust it first, rotating both at the same time will CENTER the IMAGE (you need a TV pattern for calibrating the center), and then the CONVERGENCE rings (rings near to the socket) adjust it later. If you can't do purity AND CENTERERING, you can't do convergence. If purity is not OK, that means the joke is in a bad position, change the position of the joke, once you has perfect purity and center, you can adjust the convergence, the convergence must be adjusted WATCHING ONLY the CENTER of the screen, your goal is a perfect match IN THE CENTER, once achieved that, it is DONE!. For the corners, you needs to insert magnet strips. (when the center of the screen match convergence but not corners that means that the joke or the CRT has quality issues, for matching marrying the quality of both are used magned strips). Remember that a yoke can be in the FAR / NEAR regard screen (focal point) correct position, but if the joke is falling that is, the winding is pointing some degree down, or to the left, or to the right, or up, that joke is not CENTERED, and will affect purity, image center, and convergence. Make sure to measure that mounting rubbers maintain the joke centered vertically and horizontally, a big mistake is to mount a rubber deeper that the rubber of the other side, so the jokes points to some side. Other mistake, is not to place the rings holder in the exact position where the manufacturer placed it, that happens when a newbie clean the glass, so the exact dirt mark in the glass where the ring holder was, is not visible anymore!. If it out of position, the rings won't do the exact function that it must do, like purity ring affecting convergence, or convergence rings affecting purity, that means that it is out of place, if is too out of place, you can to rotate a ring and it will do nothig, or affect just a bit, but not enough, that is out of place.
@@mikeuk666 brown is too near to the black if the cutoff (rgb black level) is wrong , you will has exactly what the video shows. If is matter of ... the crt is tired... you never will has that bright white in the menues , it will be all dim (like all phosohor burned, i don't see burn marks aswell, also I don't see unbalanced guns like brown is just a very dark yellow , so you need the red gun to be ok, but if something wrong with the red gun , you will never has that bright white.
Hey Adrian, I really enjoy the CRT videos, though for a different reason than the computer repair ones. I am not qualified to play around in those chassis outside of replacing a few caps, and it's interesting to see someone confident enough to dig into them. Thanks for taking one for the team and playing around with these old CRTs!
On ANY computer monitor or TV, if the bright controls are "all the way up" and it is still too dark(won't show darker areas), find and turn up a bit the "G2" control (if you turn too much you get lines in the pix,set below that!) adjusting that really helps on older tubes! On flybacks with 2 controls on it, it is the lower one(upper is foucus) on some sets it is on the tube neck board as a big pot marked G2 almost always.
Adrian - love your work! Overscan / Underscan will emulate TVs which are all on Overscan to various degrees. Underscan will show you the bar and other information between frames which can contain Macrovision and teletext information.
Funny, to my eyes that looks like professional audio or video equipment from the '80s, especially the big colored buttons and the knobs with colored caps. I love this video, by the way. I don't why, but I was excited to see your "new" CRT tester/rejuvenator.
Hi - I also bought my first NEC multysync when we had NEC Powermates at work , the first model had the little trap door on the top of the monitors bezel, after 5 years i bought the next series2 version with the typical front narrow flip door. Did eventually in 1993-5 but a Mitusishi multiscan monitor very similar to this one featured here, but only ever connected a IBM PC to it - i would have still had the C64 and Amiga 500 in the cupboard for games nights but never connected them to the Mitsubishi The colours were very vibrant and text sharp, i recall the blue was very strong as many dos text items ( think dos 5 dos 6 style editor menus ) and the early win95 build was very attractive, refresh rate was good and i was able to upgrade video cards almost annually at that period and the monitor was bale to handle screen size and refresh rates with no eye strain Regards George
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 The very early NEC multisync ( @ 1986/88 ) that came with the NEC powermates 286/386 were a enhanced EGA version that came close to VGA, they actually did run the first gen VGA ok. I searched and found a article, pricing at the time was $ 1999 - system box only $ 900 - multisync monitor $ 649 - multisync graphics board This ties in with my memory of us buying 8 of the in @ 1988 at work at the price of @ $3500 - which was more than what i paid for my 5 or 6 year old car Later on we had some honeywell clone 386's - the video cards and amber monitors were swapped with the NEC's video cards and monitors and they ran windows 3 / 3.1 in VGA mode books.google.com.au/books?id=b4EFTpmTnFgC&pg=PA299&lpg=PA299&dq=nec+powermate+iv+video+card&source=bl&ots=_TWBi6TwyU&sig=ACfU3U3yJ-T43otRdfQqBR6y6hhKHWM2IQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzuKjX4J3vAhUDg-YKHS5ACYkQ6AEwCXoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q=nec%20powermate%20iv%20video%20card&f=false
Wow, this takes me back. I had one of these, probably the 1371 model, and used it FOREVER. Can't tell you how many orcs and gnolls I killed in Everquest staring at one of these. And don't believe the PCMag review! NEC bought lots of ad space so PCMag reviewers would always trash talk any competitors. The Diamond Scan was great and versatile.
so pleased I bought one of the last iiyama CRTs before tubes finally succumbed to panels, and boy my OG DOS games look so much better with CRT then panel on my PIII retro gaming rig. The romance is real
Glad to see your experiences with Rejuvenation. I've got a nice BK467. I've built some custom adapters to use on Sony PVMs and BVM tubes. Sometimes tubes are just too far gone to save, but sometimes you can boost them and get some extra useable life from it. Thanks Adrian. Keep working on CRTs.
I once found a beautiful CRT rejuvenator in the trash! It looks almost like new and powers up just fine! I have been waiting to try it on one of my old CRT's, but they don't need rejuvenating just yet. I like it because it is a neat little portable kit built right into its own case! The one you have here looks WAY more advanced than mine and MUCH cooler! 👍👍 PS: Many years ago I was working on a TV that burned out and I attempted to lift off the high voltage suction cup and pry it off the CRT tube. Though the TV was unplugged, I had forgot to discharge the high voltage capacitor and I had my other hand touching the glass front of the tube. I saw a very tiny spark at the suction cup area but received such a high jolt straight across my chest that I was literally thrown back against my mom's breakfront cabinet! Today that I am much older, such a jolt straight through my chest would probably kill me instantly! Needless to say I have NEVER forgotten to discharge the high voltage capacitor in ANY electronics I have worked in since then and I do my best to work with one hand behind my back when I discharge them! Lesson learned!! 😵
This is not nessisaraly computer related but watching your videos has given me skills to work with a mel meter and asses wireing and read electrical diagrams and schematics. becase of your videos I was able to build a new wireing harness for my friends car and do it correctly. So thank you so much.
The stuff you learned during the process isn't something you can learn from a book. You have to try it and learn from the experience. Very Good end result considering the replacement tube was completely different from the original! It's a miracle you were able to get it to converge at all. I also didn't think it was possible to swap color CRTs without retaining the original yoke that came with the CRT. I just figured they are glued on for a reason so I never tried this because I was also afraid of imploding the tube by prying the yoke off. You are much braver than I am! Kids don't try this at home!
Love the body style and design, it just looks great completely assembled and working. I know it's a PITA having all the controls in the rear but it makes the face look so striking and confident. What a keeper.
"I just LOVE CRTs" You and me both! There's nothing IMHO that can beat the warm fuzzy glow of the phosphors in a CRT, and because using a linear particle accelerator (because yes, a CRT is a form of linear particle accelerator, or "linac") to display an image is pretty damn cool.
Kids these days, with their low-voltage, perfectly-safe LCDs! When I was their age, when we wanted to watch TV or use a computer, we had to point particle accelerator at our face! Also, uphill both ways in the snow, etc etc. 😄
I love your crt videos please keep doing them it's always really interesting to see u work on crts and I love ur videos in general and my dad loves ur videos too we always watch them together. Thank you for content and stay strong :) and PS greetings from my dad out of Germany Sry for my bad English im 14 and haven't leard it that much yet, hope u see this comment
From where did you have the könig electronic bildröhrenregeneriergerät? I come from germany and i have the original könig electronic prime Focus satellite dish.
This is amazing. I did buy a mint Nixdorf multisync and never got around to working out the pin outs. Just opened it up to work out who made it and it is the same monitor as you have there!
Adrian, I have two of these Kongo units myself. Both needed serviced, and I have the maintenance manual if you need it. I have a feeling your unit needs to be calibrated at the very least. Also, the initial readings that you saw (.9) were good. That said, it’s possible the cutoff wasn’t sufficient to achieve good grayscale levels. When this is the issue, it’s a lot harder to achieve a decent restore. I have a number of these rejuv units - Konig 850, B&K 467, Sencore CR7000, among others. I’m happy to help you out with these restores in the future. The trick is to use each of the testers to get a good idea of what the true tube health is. Each of the testers can be used to confirm each other’s readings. Thanks for the video. Please reach out if you have questions.
I'm one of a small handful of Apple certified convergence techs! OMG so glad you mentioned how critical and bizarre it is to do. Thanks for spreading the truth. All the love, keep it up. And yes I'm the funny colored hair guy in some of the old Ads showing the old crt iMacs getting built.
I'm actually kinda glad the rejuvenation didn't work... in that HAD it worked it certainly would have given me false sense of security and I might have easily ended up destroying CRT monitors sometime in the future. Also... even if the process itself was unsuccessful I still learned a lot - Thanks!
CRT vids are my fave! please keep doing 'em. Maybe the rejuvenation process should only be done once? Is there manuals that say how many times you can do it, or how long to wait between processes? the first pass was an improvment at least
It's a last ditch effort to get a little more life out of them. Repeatedly subjecting delicate parts to overvoltage and overcurrent conditions significantly reduces their life even if in the short term it buys you a bit more operational time. Once is probably all you will get before permanently destroying them. The only way to fix them is to rebuild the electron gun, reevacuate the tube and seal it. Nobody left that does it anymore.
The inaccurate 16 color palette reminded me of a TSR called Rainbow I used years ago to set the values of 16 color mode on my VGA monitor. Each color went from 0 to 64 (or 128, I'm not sure which). Customizing the colors came in handy since it allowed a colorblind person like me to make sense of what was on the screen. Most programs I used were well behaved with it running in the background but only a few were games so I don't know if a lot of games could make use of it.
I had one of those too, you have the 13W3 to VGA adaptor great. I vaguely remember there was 2 kinds of these adapters, active and passive. But I seem to recall many (perhaps not all?) of those old Sun monitors used "sync on green" instead of composite sync. I also remember it being limited to a single resolution of 1152x900 and that means you won't see the BIOS or any VGA/text mode screens ever. The unusual sync on green means getting non-Sun hardware to display anything on it will likely require yet another adapter. I got it working on an old Windows 98 PC using a software tool called "Powerstrip" and a supported graphics card (I think it was the original Matrox MGA Millenium w/2MB WRAM). Powerstrip was able to force the graphics card to output the needed sync on green signal, it did work very well but only after Windows and Powerstrip had loaded. Of course I had to install and configure Windows/PS with a different monitor to even get to this point. Maybe this will save you some time, good luck!
Back in the '90s I had a specialty video card for a PC to run a Sun monitor. I'm 95% sure that the monitor was the one that was sold with the SPARCstation 20 where the only controls were on a credit card-sized remote control that slotted below the bottom bezel. Anyway, I think the card somehow translated the startup BIOS and POST screens into a signal that the monitor would display, though I might be misremembering that. Anyway, good luck and thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Thanks for another informative and entertaining video, Adrian. More, please. When I serviced for Zenith, we used "convergence helpers" on CRTs which resisted satisfactory colour purity and beam convergence - 3 to 4" x 1/2" plastic strips with a thin sort of "fridge magnet" 1/2" square at one end. After a few passes of the "de rigueur" degaussing coil, we techs slid these gimmicks, magnetic end first, under the yoke and wiggled 'em into some semblance of correctness - while observing a generator's pattern in a mirror, of course. A little dab of RTV silicone and the "magique" was complete. Best wishes from Vancouver BC.
I had the pleasure of using an NEC 15" Multisync back in the day with my A3000T. I think the price was about $720 USD back in the day. And, it was "Flat screen". Hehehe. Cool videos!
Hey Adrian, it is awesome to see the process and this obscure tools. There are some comments indicating some enhancements to what you are doing, maybe in the future you could add some of this knowledge to the videos or do some collab with another RUclipsr that may have developed his professional life during the CRT years. Keep up the great content!
My first computer was the Tandy 1000HX, but for all that, I'm not terribly fond of DeskMate. Oh sure, if you didn't have anything else, it would get you going with it's basic productivity suite, but it didn't offer a lot for cross-compatibility with non-Tandy software, so I prefer to just stick to DOS or Windows and run my own programs.
Rejuvenation works by stripping the top layer of 'oxide' off of the cathode, with the hope that a good amount still remains underneath. When the worn out top layer is gone, any existing oxide beneath will come to the surface and provide enough emission to bring the tube back to life. However, it the tube is REALLY tired, there won't be any useful oxide left on the cathode, and the rejuvenation will be only a death blow. If the tube was made with a thick cathode coating, rejuvenation might work several times. If the coating was put on thin, it won't help at all. However, if the tube is so tired that it's useless, you probably don't have anything to lose. A brightener, which is a transformer that increases the CRT filament voltage from 6 volts to 8 volts or so can give you a few months of more life,. Good thing you were able to find a nearly perfect replacement. Nobody today is making new CRT's or rebuilding old ones. So most monitors will end up in the landfill. :-(
I love your crt vids. While the amount of content about them is increasing, I struggle to find videos which help me repair or rgb mod my stock, pvm, or arcade crts. I’m still scared of tube swaps even though I need to do some. And I’m terrified of swapping neck or driver boards despite having replacements.
Don't be too afraid to stick some cheater magnets on the tube! I used some on my Trinitron TV and it helped straighten out the edges. I just got some soft square fridge type magnets off Amazon and slid them around until they started affecting the area I wanted to fix, then rotate and slide them until you get the effect you are looking for
Great Video. Have you ever messed around with the "screen voltage" adjustment on the flyback? Most flybacks from that time period had both focus and screen adjustments vertically stacked. Raising the screen voltage will make the picture brighter, but too much and you get "retrace" lines.
As an old CRT tech I can tell you I have done this hundreds of times. In the end I explained to my customers that there was no warranty, It could work for 1 day I week or 1 month. Chances being it would fix for 3 months. In the end I stopped doing this , my customers were never satisfied in the end of the day.
Good job, a lot of work with magnet rings. I spend some hours to setup properly my 5154. I have not heard about magnets stuck to the picture tube, thanks for the interesting information.
It would be neat if you could try that rejuvenator on other tired CRTs. Perhaps we could work out a pattern where rejuvenation consistently works and/or consistently fails.
800x600 at 60Hz was one of the very first SVGA resolutions. The highest resolution I recall from 1989 was to be found on the IBM 8514/a which did 1024x768 at 87Hz interlaced. For comparison, in the mid-1980s a 1024x1024 special pre-VESA pre-SVGA color graphics display was a choice hardware item that would set you back $10 grand.
I noticed that the needle on the blue meter bouncing a bit when you were pointing at it and wondering what's going on. It might not be common knowledge, but I learned that way back in the day and also forgot about it until it bit me: These needle instruments are so sensitive, that static alectricity is throwing them off. You can get quite a few degrees deflection by just brushing against the case while charged up. And some cases will "keep" the static and create a false reading from it. Always make sure to use ESD wrist bands with these, and discharge them before serious mesurements. I might do a brief "tidbits" video about that at some time...
It may be my imagination, but it seemed like the camera getting brighter an dimmer was fluctuating at the same rate as the blue meter. The peaking was out of phase with the meter.
decades ago, back in the 90's, I worked for a small business that, in addition to pc repair, specialized in rejuvenating CRT's. It no longer exists, but I think I still have a floppy with the DOS diagnostics they used somewhere...
I had one of those! Got it for $20 at a government auction. Used it on my C-128 (composite and RGBI) and SNES (analog RGB). It also had a weak CRT but it looked pretty good after 20 minutes or so. Turning up the G2 helped some, once I got it just below the point you saw retrace lines, I had good range on the brightness control after warmup.
I worked in a repair shop in the 90s. We did still replace CRTs. You would be surprised how attached people can be to their idiot boxes. We didn't do rejuvenators or brighteners we thought the were bullshit. The fixes are only temporary.
Hey Adrian, there is a company called Lexel Imaging that has a significant stock of unused CRTs that might be able to help you if you send them an e-mail. You may have heard previously about a company called VDC that a lot of TRS-80 folks used to get replacement tubes from, well Lexel is a subsidiary of VDC to whom most of the CRT stock was transferred a year or two ago. I ordered a tube from VDC for a CGA monitor back in 2018, they know how to cross-reference these and find one that's compatible. EDIT: I actually thought the video was over when I commented this but there's like 15 minutes left, so just disregard if this advice isn't applicable. But maybe if you need a new CRT in the future you can contact them!
It would have been interesting to more thoroughly test things out after just the first rejuvenation, but live and learn, I suppose. Hindsight is 20/20 as always.
You could have just put the screen with the front down, on top of a stack of towels or something. Mich safer than trying to hold it horizontal. Oh well. That'll be good to know for next time I guess :) Great video! I've seen CRT testers used in other RUclips channels but your video explains how it works in a great way!
Nice find with the König rejuvenator! I have a very similar Müter BMR-90, but it's not automated. They did have an automated model as well, tho (BMR-95). That said, I wonder if the automatic process killed the tube? Your Mitsubishi really did have good emission, surprisingly. Infact, usually the blue cathode is the one to go first so I was surprised it turned out strongest. Maybe the previous owner preferred yellows. ;^)
Certainly not groaning from all of the CRT coverage. They're cool, and I don't want any part in opening one up myself, so it's good to live vicariously.
I had the Taxan 770 mentioned in the group review. You have to remember that the beam width is not adjusted for the 50Hz and lower rates so a substantial part of the CRT has nothing being fired at it from the guns. Hence the dim pictures. It will be much brighter at higher resolutions.
Even new my Taxan 770 multi sync had a dim picture on PAL and NTSC machines because of the beam being tighly focused for higher resolutions at high scan rates.
As I understand it, the Sencore CR70 CRT tester has an ‘universal’ adapter which is simply a set of labeled EZ hook clips, so you may want to consider making a set to fit this tester versus making an adapter for each CRT you come across.
Many years ago I saw a stack of *that* model CRT tester/analyzer/rejuvenater collecting dust in an industrial-computer repair-shop in Pickering. They'd had their cables and accessories scrapped by someone at an auction/consignment house [redact]. (At the time) The shop couldn't get the documentation necessary to recreate the missing cables (with enough certainty). I wish that I'd recognised what they were, and had somewhere safe to store it; Then I'd have accepted the offer to take a couple of them, and might have avoided seeing it raided/stripped like my other toys and equipment.
Adrian, I believe that if you trace the circuit of the composite input it will go through some filters to separate it into luma and chroma, so is it possible to run inputs for each to bypass the filters? I think I did that many years ago but the process evades my memory! I do have a friend who worked on analog design way back when Sylvania made color TV's and monitors, I'm sure he'd know! THX!
Multisync's are worth saving, especially as CGA/EGA monitors are getting harder to find. I was fortunate enough to find an LCD TV at a thrift store (a Daenyx DN-153) that, a pleasant surprise, accepts 15.7KHz over it's VGA input, which makes it easy to convert CGA or TGA to "analog" RGB with a simple resistor/diode bridge (minus the brown/grey circuit, which needs a couple extra ICs). Indeed, many multi-sync monitors would have a removable cable, so you can attach one that has the appropriate connection for the device you're running.
Also Adrian, you need to put the CRT neck up when doing rejuve and short work because the little metal particles need to fall away from the guns, then when done don't put the neck down at any point because there will be metal particles in the tube, just let them fall to the "side" of the tube as they should naturally when you put the tube back to it's operating orientation. We do a lot of this kind of work for Arcade games.
now that you mention that, I remember being given the same caution, years ago.
This is true. I remember this from when I was fixing tvs.
thanks for sharing mike, it's a dying art
you see that hawk crt guy who would open up the CRTs and bake them in kennels?
As an old TV repairman (when that was a thing) and I worked on CRT tubes, this is a good practice for those tubes.
When I was a TV engineer I built my own monochrome tube zapper. (Rejuvenator)
It consisted of two light bulbs a power resistor and a smaller carbon resistor plus mains cable and leads and socket to the tube. It's a long time ago as I was about 17 at the time and now I'm 63. Basically the one bulb 100w was to allow current to the filament and the other 15w was the current feed to the cathode and grid.
I copied one that the other guys used and it worked pretty well, but not every tube could be improved. From what I remember it was a way to strip the cathode to allow for a better emission. During the process you would often see flashing inside the tube neck, like bits of molten metal flyng about. Another method used instead of a brand new tube for color TV was a replacement tube gun assembly in the neck. Part of the neck was removed and a new gun assemble attached, done at a specialized factory due to vacuum requirements etc. This was much cheaper than a completely new tube. Now as far as setting up the replacement tube after reassembly, a process of purity adjustment using just a red screen was used to remove any other color from that display. Once that was complete then the other colors were checked individually before convergence was attempted.
Sometimes degaussing was required to de-magnitize the shadow mask in the front of the tube. Interestingly I have seen a picture go from looking great with the monitor/tv facing one direction to being all messed up facing a different direction only rotating the unit through 90 degrees on the work bench. This I assumed was due to the earth's magnetic fields affecting the display. Each monitor/TV has de- gaussing coils around the tube and once power cycled from cold a few times this can make a big difference to the performance of the picture purity and convergence.
Watching you replace that tube brought back many memories from my past, especially the point when you got a zap off the final anode connector which do have a tendency to re charge after some time. I got a good zap to my belly and almost dropped a 26" color tube while transporting it up some stairs. Needless to say I was always careful to make sure the final anode faced away from me every time I carried one after that. Thanks for the video.
32:33 THAT was a mistake, probably that's why you have bad convergence at two corners. Do not remove correction magnets that are on the inside of the yoke. Those belong to the yoke. If anything, put a dab of two part resin on them so they won't fall off in the future as the original glue dries out.
Another suggestion: next time, measure the two yokes with a multimeter. If the readings are close (within 20-30%), don't remove the yoke and convergence assembly from the donor CRT, try it first! A lot of times they are interchangable, so you can save yourself from the hassle of purity and convergence adjustments. Swapping yokes on modern color CRTs is only a last resort, especially on high resolution CRTs. I'd rather swap the horizontal size adjustment coil on the chassis than swap the yoke.
I found a video on youtube showing a guy in the US who repaired CRTs by opening them, changing filaments, and closing. It seems the guy passed away but I can tell you it's possible to do.
I could not find the video again. This senior master technician would crack the neck of the crt and then put a scotch tape around the area and leave it there. After one day, the tube would be filled with air and he could safely remove the neck. Having that done, he would replace and clean parts inside the neck, put it back, use a vacuum pump and re-seal it with heat. I really don't remember the details.
Nice video, as alwayhs, Adrian!
I was a Namco arcade tech back in 99. Senior tech used to have me push that rejuvinator repeatedly for an hour on a bad tube. I thought he was crazy until it actually worked one day. Sometimes it fuses that bad gun together from all the energy being pushed. So don't give up on your old tube too quickly.
I have a Beltron crt rejuvinater here that was rebuilt and updated just before CRTs went away. I'm in Portland as well but any crt cooker can destroy the guns if you're not careful. The beltron has a cleaning function and a rejuvenation function and it does all guns at once with 3 meters and lights to show what's going on. It's completely manual so you hold the cleaning or rejuvenation button till your happy oy you kill the guns. Usually I use the cleaning function gently then move up from there if I feel it has a chance. The color gun alignment after the fact if you change the tube will still need to be adjusted again and if you don't have the service manual it's going to be really hard to get it perfect because there generally is steps to do to get it right. I have done quite a few tv tube swaps back in the day and some aligned pretty easily, some you could just get close.
you see that hawk crt guy who would open up the CRTs and bake them in kennels?
@@cdoublejj OK, I’ll bite… “Bake them in kennels”? As in facilities that house large numbers of dogs?
@@erikberg7891 there is a type of oven that is pronounced like kennel but "kennel" is probably the wrong spelling, especially given my learning disabilities lol
@@cdoublejj you sure it's not kiln?
I wasn't shouting, but I was saying that you should have done the fine set of G1 before doing anything. Also, you don't start the tester in Cut-Off. You always start with shorts, if you have a G1 short you can proceed to clear G1 shorts, if you have an HK short or any other short you can't proceed. If the tube is used face up, don't bother with clearing G1 shorts unless you have a place to use it elsewhere that isn't face up.
When you saw the good emission, you should have again, stopped. In this case you needed to figure out why you had a good reading and a dim picture. In this case again, the fine set of the G1 should have been checked to make sure it was correct as you made clear you checked out the monitor (you want to check cathode and G1 voltages on the monitor if you have a dim picture and a good emission reading). Lastly, if the tube was designed for a cutoff in the 300 volt range, putting it up to 600 volts could have influenced the result. On some testers the cutoff influences the emission reading.
Lastly, since this was a "Hail Mary" attempt on your own equipment, I can't fault you for trying the restoration anyway. If the tube was in better condition it may have worked as the emission didn't immediately drop off like a very small cathode (such as Trinitron) would have.
One minor safety nit from an old tech, when discharging the anode one hand in the pants pocket, don't give the potential any way to ground through your heart. we had that beaten into us in School. Great vids I have been enjoying them.
I have also heard this, grab your belt above your ass..
I've been taking CRTs apart since I was a kid. One thing my dad never taught me was how to discharge the tube. Learned that one the hard way.
@@BlackEpyon My dad was the same. Me: "Is the power off?" Dad: "Yeah, yeah." :P
@@mrcassioo Could be worse. 17kv DC for a fraction of a second hurts like a bitch, but doesn't kill you nearly as efficiently as grabbing an electrical outlet when it's out of the box and the power is still on. The first time my dad showed me how to replace an outlet, he didn't bother turning the power off. Just told me to make sure nothing was touching the live leads. Metal screwdriver, metal wire cutters, metal strippers, everything carefully manipulated so as not to touch live. And boy, you learn quick!
I don't recommend that, by the way. Just turn the breaker off first. That first exercise has, however, given me a method by which I always assume that it's live while I'm working on it, even if I know otherwise.
@@BlackEpyon Yupp, my dad did the same and I now always check thoroughly beforehand as a result. ;)
I had one of these monitors. It cost more than the cpu and motherboard I was using at the time. It was a heavy thing, but it could be used on almost anything. Granted, it was a few years old when I got mine, but it was an amazing piece of kit.
Stuff was so strange in the before times. I miss those times, but really don't want to go back.
I find it very funny that your camera picked up the screen just fine. It looks amazing in the video.
Good to see something special get some love.
Yay! More CRT fun! These things always seemed so mysterious. I love learning about them.
I wonder if a light sensor on the camera might have been detecting an IR hotspot from the CRT curing the restoration?
If you've ever seen the movie, Dean Koontz "Phantoms", I did all the electronics in the mobile lab set. Some of the monitors had to be taken apart to be installed. The whole set was on a gimble and had to be repaired all the time. I shocked myself several times with those CRTs. They will zap you pretty good.
Damn!
Hope you were paid well
Yes…with egg and tuna sandwiches and lukewarm diet coke
I'm glad I finally got the time to watch this one, I love CRT videos! Yes, even the ones when you break stuff. It doesn't bother me as much because you always make it clear you're aware of the risks, and usually whatever you're working on is pretty much at the end of its rope anyway, so it's not as bad.
Of course, now that you've made a video about the monitor, I'm sure someone will send one in to mail call! Or at least a monitor with a similar tube.
I was TV technician for about 10 years, before becoming a professional programmer. First, looking at the initial problem with your monitor , if it can do HIGH bright high contrast, black and white vertical strips (like letters, menu frame) without FLAMMING (that is luma bleeding to the right) as seen , min 7:49, The CRT IS NOT the culprit!, so, you misdiagnosed at all, the problem you originally has a misadjustment in BLACK LEVEL, if the chassis hasn't analog adjustments pots, you need to enter in service mode and adjust it with the menues. (I imagine that you already tried the SCREEN pot at the flyback to correct it and you was unabled to correct it with that control, also assuming as it is in focus, the flyback HV circuit is not the culprit, anything wrong there will make the focus to move constantly and ugly).
After you change the CRT, you has problems with yoke/crt mismatching one each other, you need to implement MAGNET strips to marry the joke with the CRT. That is, magnetic strip that you can set in the glass of the neck, or stick it over the windings of the yoke, those magnet will affect a single corner, or top center, bottom center, etc., deppends on where you set, the angle also affect. But for doing that, you need to find out the exact position of the joke (that is how far or near is the joke mounted against the glass, sometime it needs a bit of space, so there is rubber mounts aswell that prevent the joke to move freely while making space).
The PURITY rings (both rings near to the screen) adjust it first, rotating both at the same time will CENTER the IMAGE (you need a TV pattern for calibrating the center), and then the CONVERGENCE rings (rings near to the socket) adjust it later. If you can't do purity AND CENTERERING, you can't do convergence. If purity is not OK, that means the joke is in a bad position, change the position of the joke, once you has perfect purity and center, you can adjust the convergence, the convergence must be adjusted WATCHING ONLY the CENTER of the screen, your goal is a perfect match IN THE CENTER, once achieved that, it is DONE!. For the corners, you needs to insert magnet strips. (when the center of the screen match convergence but not corners that means that the joke or the CRT has quality issues, for matching marrying the quality of both are used magned strips).
Remember that a yoke can be in the FAR / NEAR regard screen (focal point) correct position, but if the joke is falling that is, the winding is pointing some degree down, or to the left, or to the right, or up, that joke is not CENTERED, and will affect purity, image center, and convergence. Make sure to measure that mounting rubbers maintain the joke centered vertically and horizontally, a big mistake is to mount a rubber deeper that the rubber of the other side, so the jokes points to some side.
Other mistake, is not to place the rings holder in the exact position where the manufacturer placed it, that happens when a newbie clean the glass, so the exact dirt mark in the glass where the ring holder was, is not visible anymore!. If it out of position, the rings won't do the exact function that it must do, like purity ring affecting convergence, or convergence rings affecting purity, that means that it is out of place, if is too out of place, you can to rotate a ring and it will do nothig, or affect just a bit, but not enough, that is out of place.
EDITED.
Adrian is colour blind
@@mikeuk666 brown is too near to the black if the cutoff (rgb black level) is wrong , you will has exactly what the video shows. If is matter of ... the crt is tired... you never will has that bright white in the menues , it will be all dim (like all phosohor burned, i don't see burn marks aswell, also I don't see unbalanced guns like brown is just a very dark yellow , so you need the red gun to be ok, but if something wrong with the red gun , you will never has that bright white.
@@mikeuk666 edited
@@flyguille not sure why you explained all that to me 👍🏻
I love the soliloquies delivered by your hands :D
Always cracks me up, but your hands are actually quite expressive and it works for your vids!
Hey Adrian, I really enjoy the CRT videos, though for a different reason than the computer repair ones. I am not qualified to play around in those chassis outside of replacing a few caps, and it's interesting to see someone confident enough to dig into them. Thanks for taking one for the team and playing around with these old CRTs!
On ANY computer monitor or TV, if the bright controls are "all the way up" and it is still too dark(won't show darker areas), find and turn up a bit the "G2" control (if you turn too much you get lines in the pix,set below that!) adjusting that really helps on older tubes! On flybacks with 2 controls on it, it is the lower one(upper is foucus) on some sets it is on the tube neck board as a big pot marked G2 almost always.
Adrian - love your work! Overscan / Underscan will emulate TVs which are all on Overscan to various degrees. Underscan will show you the bar and other information between frames which can contain Macrovision and teletext information.
I am terrified of working on crts. I feel I get to live dangerously by watching you deal with them.... love these!
Funny, to my eyes that looks like professional audio or video equipment from the '80s, especially the big colored buttons and the knobs with colored caps. I love this video, by the way. I don't why, but I was excited to see your "new" CRT tester/rejuvenator.
Hi Adrian. The proper CRT model in this Mitsubishi is AT14A9SRB22-E. I've got a service manual for this monitor as well.
I remember getting my first ever nec multi sync monitor, loved the fact you could connect almost anything.
It was great getting a new video board and realizing you didn't have to buy a new expensive monitor for it.
Hi - I also bought my first NEC multysync when we had NEC Powermates at work , the first model had the little trap door on the top of the monitors bezel, after 5 years i bought the next series2 version with the typical front narrow flip door.
Did eventually in 1993-5 but a Mitusishi multiscan monitor very similar to this one featured here, but only ever connected a IBM PC to it - i would have still had the C64 and Amiga 500 in the cupboard for games nights but never connected them to the Mitsubishi
The colours were very vibrant and text sharp, i recall the blue was very strong as many dos text items ( think dos 5 dos 6 style editor menus ) and the early win95 build was very attractive, refresh rate was good and i was able to upgrade video cards almost annually at that period and the monitor was bale to handle screen size and refresh rates with no eye strain
Regards
George
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 The very early NEC multisync ( @ 1986/88 ) that came with the NEC powermates 286/386 were a enhanced EGA version that came close to VGA, they actually did run the first gen VGA ok.
I searched and found a article, pricing at the time was
$ 1999 - system box only
$ 900 - multisync monitor
$ 649 - multisync graphics board
This ties in with my memory of us buying 8 of the in @ 1988 at work at the price of @ $3500 - which was more than what i paid for my 5 or 6 year old car
Later on we had some honeywell clone 386's - the video cards and amber monitors were swapped with the NEC's video cards and monitors and they ran windows 3 / 3.1 in VGA mode
books.google.com.au/books?id=b4EFTpmTnFgC&pg=PA299&lpg=PA299&dq=nec+powermate+iv+video+card&source=bl&ots=_TWBi6TwyU&sig=ACfU3U3yJ-T43otRdfQqBR6y6hhKHWM2IQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzuKjX4J3vAhUDg-YKHS5ACYkQ6AEwCXoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q=nec%20powermate%20iv%20video%20card&f=false
Wow, this takes me back. I had one of these, probably the 1371 model, and used it FOREVER. Can't tell you how many orcs and gnolls I killed in Everquest staring at one of these. And don't believe the PCMag review! NEC bought lots of ad space so PCMag reviewers would always trash talk any competitors. The Diamond Scan was great and versatile.
"Bildröhrenregeneriergerät" Only we germans can come up with such a word...
Doesn't that just mean "picture tube regeneration device"
ha-ha, why use 3 or 4 separate words, when 1 word will do
So can the Dutch.
Picture tube regenerator... that would work in Swedish too... :-)
I'm sad he didn't try to pronounce it :(
so pleased I bought one of the last iiyama CRTs before tubes finally succumbed to panels, and boy my OG DOS games look so much better with CRT then panel on my PIII retro gaming rig. The romance is real
Glad to see your experiences with Rejuvenation. I've got a nice BK467. I've built some custom adapters to use on Sony PVMs and BVM tubes. Sometimes tubes are just too far gone to save, but sometimes you can boost them and get some extra useable life from it. Thanks Adrian. Keep working on CRTs.
Hey man, i do have a BK467 too, Do you know if it is possible to use it on a 31khz monitor?
@@kirabate with the right adapter / universal adapter, I dont see why not
I once found a beautiful CRT rejuvenator in the trash! It looks almost like new and powers up just fine! I have been waiting to try it on one of my old CRT's, but they don't need rejuvenating just yet. I like it because it is a neat little portable kit built right into its own case! The one you have here looks WAY more advanced than mine and MUCH cooler! 👍👍
PS: Many years ago I was working on a TV that burned out and I attempted to lift off the high voltage suction cup and pry it off the CRT tube. Though the TV was unplugged, I had forgot to discharge the high voltage capacitor and I had my other hand touching the glass front of the tube. I saw a very tiny spark at the suction cup area but received such a high jolt straight across my chest that I was literally thrown back against my mom's breakfront cabinet! Today that I am much older, such a jolt straight through my chest would probably kill me instantly! Needless to say I have NEVER forgotten to discharge the high voltage capacitor in ANY electronics I have worked in since then and I do my best to work with one hand behind my back when I discharge them! Lesson learned!! 😵
How long had the monitor been off before you pulled the suction cup?
Probably only about an hour, giving it FULL power to knock me right on my @ss! LESSON LEARNED, I must admit! LOL!!! 😅
This is not nessisaraly computer related but watching your videos has given me skills to work with a mel meter and asses wireing and read electrical diagrams and schematics. becase of your videos I was able to build a new wireing harness for my friends car and do it correctly. So thank you so much.
Used a 20" Diamond Scan Multisync on a CAD station back in the day... Brilliant monitor.
The stuff you learned during the process isn't something you can learn from a book. You have to try it and learn from the experience. Very Good end result considering the replacement tube was completely different from the original! It's a miracle you were able to get it to converge at all. I also didn't think it was possible to swap color CRTs without retaining the original yoke that came with the CRT. I just figured they are glued on for a reason so I never tried this because I was also afraid of imploding the tube by prying the yoke off. You are much braver than I am! Kids don't try this at home!
I'm really glad you included the CRT swap in this video! It was great - I learned loads.
i love your rejuvenation videos :)
Love the body style and design, it just looks great completely assembled and working. I know it's a PITA having all the controls in the rear but it makes the face look so striking and confident. What a keeper.
Lovin these CRT videos. Always had a soft spot for CRTs.
"I just LOVE CRTs"
You and me both! There's nothing IMHO that can beat the warm fuzzy glow of the phosphors in a CRT, and because using a linear particle accelerator (because yes, a CRT is a form of linear particle accelerator, or "linac") to display an image is pretty damn cool.
Kitty!!
Also: agreed, it’s pretty metal. Vacuum tubes (slash thermionic valves) are fascinating in general for how they operate.
Kids these days, with their low-voltage, perfectly-safe LCDs! When I was their age, when we wanted to watch TV or use a computer, we had to point particle accelerator at our face! Also, uphill both ways in the snow, etc etc. 😄
I love your crt videos please keep doing them it's always really interesting to see u work on crts and I love ur videos in general and my dad loves ur videos too we always watch them together. Thank you for content and stay strong :) and PS greetings from my dad out of Germany
Sry for my bad English im 14 and haven't leard it that much yet, hope u see this comment
From where did you have the könig electronic bildröhrenregeneriergerät? I come from germany and i have the original könig electronic prime Focus satellite dish.
I love your CRT videos. Keep them up. I still find CRTs very interesting.
I appreciate this very much including all the fails and half-successes. Beautiful work and so interesting to follow the process!
What do those red, green and blue knobs at the top do, and does it matter that they weren't set the same?
This is amazing. I did buy a mint Nixdorf multisync and never got around to working out the pin outs. Just opened it up to work out who made it and it is the same monitor as you have there!
Adrian, I have two of these Kongo units myself. Both needed serviced, and I have the maintenance manual if you need it. I have a feeling your unit needs to be calibrated at the very least.
Also, the initial readings that you saw (.9) were good. That said, it’s possible the cutoff wasn’t sufficient to achieve good grayscale levels. When this is the issue, it’s a lot harder to achieve a decent restore.
I have a number of these rejuv units - Konig 850, B&K 467, Sencore CR7000, among others.
I’m happy to help you out with these restores in the future. The trick is to use each of the testers to get a good idea of what the true tube health is. Each of the testers can be used to confirm each other’s readings.
Thanks for the video. Please reach out if you have questions.
I'm one of a small handful of Apple certified convergence techs! OMG so glad you mentioned how critical and bizarre it is to do. Thanks for spreading the truth. All the love, keep it up.
And yes I'm the funny colored hair guy in some of the old Ads showing the old crt iMacs getting built.
These had the best picture ive ever seen on any crt, excellent screens these were i had one with my pentium90 mitsubishi desktop pc in 1998
I'm actually kinda glad the rejuvenation didn't work... in that HAD it worked it certainly would have given me false sense of security and I might have easily ended up destroying CRT monitors sometime in the future. Also... even if the process itself was unsuccessful I still learned a lot - Thanks!
CRT vids are my fave! please keep doing 'em. Maybe the rejuvenation process should only be done once? Is there manuals that say how many times you can do it, or how long to wait between processes? the first pass was an improvment at least
It's a last ditch effort to get a little more life out of them. Repeatedly subjecting delicate parts to overvoltage and overcurrent conditions significantly reduces their life even if in the short term it buys you a bit more operational time. Once is probably all you will get before permanently destroying them.
The only way to fix them is to rebuild the electron gun, reevacuate the tube and seal it. Nobody left that does it anymore.
@@tiporari or you can throw it out.
The inaccurate 16 color palette reminded me of a TSR called Rainbow I used years ago to set the values of 16 color mode on my VGA monitor. Each color went from 0 to 64 (or 128, I'm not sure which). Customizing the colors came in handy since it allowed a colorblind person like me to make sense of what was on the screen. Most programs I used were well behaved with it running in the background but only a few were games so I don't know if a lot of games could make use of it.
So, I was given a 19" SUN flat-crt the other day. I plan on using it for something, even have the vga adapter!
I had one of those too, you have the 13W3 to VGA adaptor great. I vaguely remember there was 2 kinds of these adapters, active and passive. But I seem to recall many (perhaps not all?) of those old Sun monitors used "sync on green" instead of composite sync. I also remember it being limited to a single resolution of 1152x900 and that means you won't see the BIOS or any VGA/text mode screens ever. The unusual sync on green means getting non-Sun hardware to display anything on it will likely require yet another adapter. I got it working on an old Windows 98 PC using a software tool called "Powerstrip" and a supported graphics card (I think it was the original Matrox MGA Millenium w/2MB WRAM). Powerstrip was able to force the graphics card to output the needed sync on green signal, it did work very well but only after Windows and Powerstrip had loaded. Of course I had to install and configure Windows/PS with a different monitor to even get to this point.
Maybe this will save you some time, good luck!
Back in the '90s I had a specialty video card for a PC to run a Sun monitor. I'm 95% sure that the monitor was the one that was sold with the SPARCstation 20 where the only controls were on a credit card-sized remote control that slotted below the bottom bezel. Anyway, I think the card somehow translated the startup BIOS and POST screens into a signal that the monitor would display, though I might be misremembering that. Anyway, good luck and thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Thanks for another informative and entertaining video, Adrian. More, please.
When I serviced for Zenith, we used "convergence helpers" on CRTs which resisted satisfactory colour purity and beam convergence - 3 to 4" x 1/2" plastic strips with a thin sort of "fridge magnet" 1/2" square at one end. After a few passes of the "de rigueur" degaussing coil, we techs slid these gimmicks, magnetic end first, under the yoke and wiggled 'em into some semblance of correctness - while observing a generator's pattern in a mirror, of course. A little dab of RTV silicone and the "magique" was complete. Best wishes from Vancouver BC.
Good show ADB. Ben is proud of you....
Could we be lucky enouth to witness some new CRT manufacturing plant appearing somewhere? I would love to be able to buy new CRT displays!!
CRTs are awesome, don't worry about showing and working on them!
Hey! You have my monitor!
(I have exactly this monitor. But not worn out. ^_^ )
I had the pleasure of using an NEC 15" Multisync back in the day with my A3000T. I think the price was about $720 USD back in the day. And, it was "Flat screen". Hehehe. Cool videos!
Hey Adrian, it is awesome to see the process and this obscure tools. There are some comments indicating some enhancements to what you are doing, maybe in the future you could add some of this knowledge to the videos or do some collab with another RUclipsr that may have developed his professional life during the CRT years. Keep up the great content!
I'm learning so much about CRTs! Way more than I ever thought I would!
Love the DeskMate!! Just installed that on my 5160 last week.
My first computer was the Tandy 1000HX, but for all that, I'm not terribly fond of DeskMate. Oh sure, if you didn't have anything else, it would get you going with it's basic productivity suite, but it didn't offer a lot for cross-compatibility with non-Tandy software, so I prefer to just stick to DOS or Windows and run my own programs.
"It was probably used until it was... not used" fair enough
These are the hard hitting insights for which I come to this channel.
I love CRT videos too! Don't stop making them
Rejuvenation works by stripping the top layer of 'oxide' off of the cathode, with the hope that a good amount still remains underneath. When the worn out top layer is gone, any existing oxide beneath will come to the surface and provide enough emission to bring the tube back to life. However, it the tube is REALLY tired, there won't be any useful oxide left on the cathode, and the rejuvenation will be only a death blow. If the tube was made with a thick cathode coating, rejuvenation might work several times. If the coating was put on thin, it won't help at all. However, if the tube is so tired that it's useless, you probably don't have anything to lose. A brightener, which is a transformer that increases the CRT filament voltage from 6 volts to 8 volts or so can give you a few months of more life,. Good thing you were able to find a nearly perfect replacement. Nobody today is making new CRT's or rebuilding old ones. So most monitors will end up in the landfill. :-(
I love your crt vids. While the amount of content about them is increasing, I struggle to find videos which help me repair or rgb mod my stock, pvm, or arcade crts. I’m still scared of tube swaps even though I need to do some. And I’m terrified of swapping neck or driver boards despite having replacements.
Love the retro towel, Adrian! My grandparents had that exact pattern in the 1970s.
Don't be too afraid to stick some cheater magnets on the tube! I used some on my Trinitron TV and it helped straighten out the edges. I just got some soft square fridge type magnets off Amazon and slid them around until they started affecting the area I wanted to fix, then rotate and slide them until you get the effect you are looking for
The picture looks good and clear to me on menu screen
B&K Precision still make awesome tools. I absolutely LOVE my multimeter from them.
"It's a standard US plug now..." One prong is already bent, yup it's a US plug.
Swear I need a tool like Adrian has for bent IC pens, but for US plugs.
Thats cool! I have an NEC MultiSync II and I absolutely love it!
0:08 What? Are you crazy? CRT vids are my favourite too! :3
Great Video. Have you ever messed around with the "screen voltage" adjustment on the flyback? Most flybacks from that time period had both focus and screen adjustments vertically stacked. Raising the screen voltage will make the picture brighter, but too much and you get "retrace" lines.
Nice tester/rejuvenator. And a good job on the CRT swap.
As an old CRT tech I can tell you I have done this hundreds of times. In the end I explained to my customers that there was no warranty, It could work for 1 day I week or 1 month. Chances being it would fix for 3 months. In the end I stopped doing this , my customers were never satisfied in the end of the day.
Good job, a lot of work with magnet rings. I spend some hours to setup properly my 5154. I have not heard about magnets stuck to the picture tube, thanks for the interesting information.
There are 3 knobs on top.Each color RGB. But red is on min,green on something like 25% and blue a little more.
Didn't they affect results?
It would be neat if you could try that rejuvenator on other tired CRTs. Perhaps we could work out a pattern where rejuvenation consistently works and/or consistently fails.
800x600 at 60Hz was one of the very first SVGA resolutions. The highest resolution I recall from 1989 was to be found on the IBM 8514/a which did 1024x768 at 87Hz interlaced. For comparison, in the mid-1980s a 1024x1024 special pre-VESA pre-SVGA color graphics display was a choice hardware item that would set you back $10 grand.
I was sad that it was Saturday, as I had basically wasted my week off, Then I saw ADB's regular Saturday video "Things are looking up".
I noticed that the needle on the blue meter bouncing a bit when you were pointing at it and wondering what's going on. It might not be common knowledge, but I learned that way back in the day and also forgot about it until it bit me: These needle instruments are so sensitive, that static alectricity is throwing them off. You can get quite a few degrees deflection by just brushing against the case while charged up. And some cases will "keep" the static and create a false reading from it. Always make sure to use ESD wrist bands with these, and discharge them before serious mesurements. I might do a brief "tidbits" video about that at some time...
Don't worry Adrian I love crt videos almost as much as I love your c64 videos
It may be my imagination, but it seemed like the camera getting brighter an dimmer was fluctuating at the same rate as the blue meter. The peaking was out of phase with the meter.
decades ago, back in the 90's, I worked for a small business that, in addition to pc repair, specialized in rejuvenating CRT's. It no longer exists, but I think I still have a floppy with the DOS diagnostics they used somewhere...
I had one of those! Got it for $20 at a government auction. Used it on my C-128 (composite and RGBI) and SNES (analog RGB). It also had a weak CRT but it looked pretty good after 20 minutes or so. Turning up the G2 helped some, once I got it just below the point you saw retrace lines, I had good range on the brightness control after warmup.
I worked in a repair shop in the 90s. We did still replace CRTs. You would be surprised how attached people can be to their idiot boxes. We didn't do rejuvenators or brighteners we thought the were bullshit. The fixes are only temporary.
Hey Adrian, there is a company called Lexel Imaging that has a significant stock of unused CRTs that might be able to help you if you send them an e-mail. You may have heard previously about a company called VDC that a lot of TRS-80 folks used to get replacement tubes from, well Lexel is a subsidiary of VDC to whom most of the CRT stock was transferred a year or two ago. I ordered a tube from VDC for a CGA monitor back in 2018, they know how to cross-reference these and find one that's compatible.
EDIT: I actually thought the video was over when I commented this but there's like 15 minutes left, so just disregard if this advice isn't applicable. But maybe if you need a new CRT in the future you can contact them!
Hey now I LIKE all the CRT videos. I wouldn’t watch a car channel to see if they work on a bike, do your thing!
For the dynamic convergence at the corner, you may wanna try to attach some convergence strips (permalloy) or weak magnets.
It would have been interesting to more thoroughly test things out after just the first rejuvenation, but live and learn, I suppose. Hindsight is 20/20 as always.
You could have just put the screen with the front down, on top of a stack of towels or something. Mich safer than trying to hold it horizontal. Oh well. That'll be good to know for next time I guess :)
Great video! I've seen CRT testers used in other RUclips channels but your video explains how it works in a great way!
Great video, I love crts, great to see one resurrected and used
Keep the CRT goodness coming!
Nice find with the König rejuvenator! I have a very similar Müter BMR-90, but it's not automated. They did have an automated model as well, tho (BMR-95). That said, I wonder if the automatic process killed the tube?
Your Mitsubishi really did have good emission, surprisingly. Infact, usually the blue cathode is the one to go first so I was surprised it turned out strongest. Maybe the previous owner preferred yellows. ;^)
Certainly not groaning from all of the CRT coverage. They're cool, and I don't want any part in opening one up myself, so it's good to live vicariously.
Convergence outside of the center is usually adjusted via electronic adjustments, coils, pots or digital. Magnets are for purity.
I had the Taxan 770 mentioned in the group review. You have to remember that the beam width is not adjusted for the 50Hz and lower rates so a substantial part of the CRT has nothing being fired at it from the guns.
Hence the dim pictures. It will be much brighter at higher resolutions.
Even new my Taxan 770 multi sync had a dim picture on PAL and NTSC machines because of the beam being tighly focused for higher resolutions at high scan rates.
More CRT regeneration! I love CRT's as well and am always up for CRT tech! You Go Adrian!
As I understand it, the Sencore CR70 CRT tester has an ‘universal’ adapter which is simply a set of labeled EZ hook clips, so you may want to consider making a set to fit this tester versus making an adapter for each CRT you come across.
Many years ago I saw a stack of *that* model CRT tester/analyzer/rejuvenater collecting dust in an industrial-computer repair-shop in Pickering.
They'd had their cables and accessories scrapped by someone at an auction/consignment house [redact]. (At the time) The shop couldn't get the documentation necessary to recreate the missing cables (with enough certainty).
I wish that I'd recognised what they were, and had somewhere safe to store it; Then I'd have accepted the offer to take a couple of them, and might have avoided seeing it raided/stripped like my other toys and equipment.
Adrian, I believe that if you trace the circuit of the composite input it will go through some filters to separate it into luma and chroma, so is it possible to run inputs for each to bypass the filters? I think I did that many years ago but the process evades my memory! I do have a friend who worked on analog design way back when Sylvania made color TV's and monitors, I'm sure he'd know! THX!
I'm not groaning at all, I LOVE the CRT videos. I find them so interesting for some reason!
long ago I worked at a t TV repair shop and I had to replace a tube a couple times. I am surprised you even had the tube pinout be compatible.
Multisync's are worth saving, especially as CGA/EGA monitors are getting harder to find. I was fortunate enough to find an LCD TV at a thrift store (a Daenyx DN-153) that, a pleasant surprise, accepts 15.7KHz over it's VGA input, which makes it easy to convert CGA or TGA to "analog" RGB with a simple resistor/diode bridge (minus the brown/grey circuit, which needs a couple extra ICs). Indeed, many multi-sync monitors would have a removable cable, so you can attach one that has the appropriate connection for the device you're running.
Brown gray circuit?