TV repairable?

[krw]

And none will be right.

I know you're a moron. You need not advertise it.

My laptop is 16:10, but it's *never* been connected to a TV. It's not "needed" in any case.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, No video streaming? No movie watching?

[aemeijers]

Only techno-geeks and/or rich people have broadband fast enough to do that, here in North America.

[The Daring Dufas]

I just watched most of The Green Hornet online, I'm not rich so I must be a techno-geek. I watch most TV shows online and I just checked my cable modem speed which is 6.88/0.49 Mbps. We did have the extra cost turbo speed for a while and I would see speeds of 17/1.5 Mbps at times. If I was rich or a lottery winner, I would start a "Save The Rednecks" foundation to teach Rednecks how to use The Interweb and properly set up a mobile home for broad band communications. :-)

TDD

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "Tony Miklos" wrote

Yes, but be careful. In the 16:9 ratio, the set is lower at say 19: compared to a regular CRT. If making a direct replacement for a 19", I'd go with a

22 or 26"

[norminn]

Same goes for my Olympus collection ... I'm waiting for SLR digitals to go down in price so's I can try my old lenses with a digital. We have a pack of coyotes in the woods near our home, so may have another go at nature photography. I had never heard a coyote howl until two nights ago...pretty awesome! Have yet to see them, but my son went out to investigate and saw three of them. Lots of deer around, in spite of a deer harvest (90 killed) in and around our town this fall.

[norminn]

And teenagers :o)

[Jeff Thies]

I just wanted to some what you can realistically do.

This is likely a cap problem. If you look at the top of an electrolytic cap it will have a cross scored "vent" on the top of the cap. Damaged caps will often appear slightly bulged there. Look for one and replace it with one of the same value and the same or higher voltage rating. The negative end is marked, make sure the polarity is correct.

This may, or may not, fix your problem. But it is in the low dollars to try.

Jeff

[Jeff Thies]

I wanted to watch the Sugar Bowl (alma mater playing) and it was not on broadcast TV. But ESPN streamed it for free. Worked well enough for me.

Net Flix is fun to watch too.

I watch most TV shows online and I just checked my

That is still smoking speed (the down) for most streaming content. Bandwidth is not free so this stuff is highly compressed.

After a long incubation and where the internet speeds and computer speeds really weren't there, online video is catching on rapidly.

We are not so far off that already the near homeless are watching on their 4g phones. Crazy what people do and don't spend money on.

Jeff

[Jules Richardson]

The effect's called pincushion; it's unlikely to be the CRT itself - chances are a bad capacitor in the horizonal deflection or something specific to the pincushion correction circuitry (bad transistor, bad solder joint etc.)

See if you can find a schematic online. Might take a bit of digging because some chassis are shared between manufacturers or between models from a specific manufacturer, and the schematics are often filed by chassis designation rather than whatever manufacturer / model number is printed on the back of the set.

Gotchas:

1) TVs are about the worst-built of any consumer appliance; just about everything's designed to be as low-cost as possible so that the TV works when you buy it but doesn't necessarily last for long. Bad solder joints aplenty, and cracked PCBs aren't unheard of. You may be looking for a mechanical fault rather than component failure.

2) Some capacitors fail in an obvious way - sometimes with can-style electrolytics they'll visibly bulge and split and show signs of electrolyte leakage. But most don't die that way, and you'll need an ESR meter to detect faults (the other approach is to trace the fault to the most likely area and simply replace all caps in that area)

3) Serious voltages inside a TV, and stored after the set's switched off. I've only been zapped by a TV's HV once, but it's not something I'd care to repeat - unlike the brief ouch from an outlet shock, TV HV *hurts*. Be careful (if you've been inside TVs before you probably know this, but I figure it doesn't hurt to mention it :-)

There's a huge amount of useful info on the repair of TVs at:

Anyway, yes, it's fixable - but only you can decide whether you want to invest the time :)

cheers

Jules

[The Daring Dufas]

Breaking news, Apple introduces "The ipatch"! New technology that feeds content directly to the optic nerve. It is being called the Borg mod in some tech circles because it covers one eye making the user look like the Star Trek cyborg villain. The new item is expected to break all sales records and have people camping out in line at the retail locations that will be selling the ipatch. :-)

TDD

[Jules Richardson]

In a CRT TV environment, yes, not too bad - it does get pretty toasty inside a TV, and heat's a real killer. I've got many computers that are

30 years old and still working without any capacitor issues though; a lot of it depends on the environment and how close the working voltage is to the limit of the capacitor.

At the place where I used to work, we had a computer from the early 60s and that was still running with many of the original capacitors in the power supplies (although some of them had been replaced over the years as they went bad). Not bad for electronics that was pushing 50 years old, though.

The modern stuff really doesn't seem to be built as well, that much is true. And the less said about modern-era PCs and "capacitor plague" the better :-)

cheers

Jules

[The Daring Dufas]

I have an original IBM PC or two somewhere that still worked the last time it/they was/were turned on. The originals were built like tanks with high quality components that were of at least commercial grade specs. The 4 to 5 thousand dollar price tag of the computers was not really that far out of line considering the low production volume and build quality. The quality of PC's didn't really slip until they became commodity items and were produced in massive quantities. A good example is the Delco 8-track tape players that were installed in GM vehicles years ago. The Delco player was a substantially robust unit built with very high quality components. When the market became flooded with tons of cheaply made imported tape players, no one wanted to pay the price for the expensive Delco units. It's like anything else, you can buy an electronic item that will last and last but it will cost a whole lot more than your typical consumer electronic unit.

TDD

[Malcolm Hoar]

The lenses may have significant value. A *lot* of old Nikkor lenses are still usable on modern Nikon DSLR's.

The camera bodies are probably not worth much but I would pull those batteries. It's heartbreaking to see precision equipment ruined for something that would only take a few seconds to prevent.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Someone did that here last year. It was a RCA 46-inch rear-projection TV. That stayed on the curb for almost a weak until it was thrown in the trash truck and crushed.

[snip]

[Jules Richardson]

If you ever feel like parting with them, shout - although I suspect shipping costs might be phenominal, even within the US :-)

I had an original PC (the 5150) and also an XT (5160) but got rid of them before moving over to the US as I was trying to cut down on weight of things to ship over - I've always regretted losing them, though. It took me a while to get hold of them as they were down on the insurance policy of the original owners as still being worth several thousand bucks, despite my getting them in the early 90s - so I know exactly what you mean about the price tag ;-)

My pair had a (very) minor claim to fame in that they were used for photos in Gordon Laing's "Digital Retro" book - I remember running around like a nut on the morning of the shooting trying to find a full complement of case screws, as they'd all gone walkabout over the years :-)

true, although IBM's design and choice of CPU was always a bit questionable, and sales relied on marketing pressure more than anything. "mechanically" they were very good, though.

I've never had an 8-track - I should really get one for the old truck. They weren't particularly common back in the UK; older vehicles had radios only, and later made the jump to compact cassette.

I'm not sure it's always true, though. There comes a point where you just can't throw money at the problem because no company is able to make a quality product and still survive in the marketplace, so the product that you want doesn't exist; the only solution is to keep existing better- engineered products going, or to completely make from scratch (but good luck with doing something like that with a PC, say :-)

Maybe it's always been like that, but it seems more true in these times of low-quality products on short replacement cycles.

cheers

Jules

[Jim Yanik]

"Nancy Young" wrote in news:4d34cb1f$0$1428$ [e-mail]:

me either.

Heh,when the ATSC converters first came out,I picked up a nice 13" CRT set that a neighbor had tossed out,it works fine with a converter,has a nice picture.

I don't like the flat panel 16:9 sets,they don't display the aspect ratios properly,if you see a circle on them,it's flattened,and people look squished down. I have yet to see a flat panel that doesn't do that. If I had to buy a new TV tomorrow,I'd buy a CRT set,no bigger than 25",if they can still be found.

[Jim Yanik]

Jeff Thies wrote in news:ih2oue$l2m$ [e-mail]:

they're called SWMBO; She Who Must Be Obeyed.

[Jim Yanik]

"Nancy Young" wrote in news:4d3512eb$0$1414$ [e-mail]:

some people use their old film cameras because of their large selection of SLR lenses that don't fit newer camera bodies.(me)

If only they made a digital back for my AE-1. I could use my 600mm telephoto lens a lot these days,if I could take digital pics with it,or my 75-205macro zoom. I've been seeing a lot of red-shouldered hawks recently. Even had some otters in the "lake",again.

[Jim Yanik]

Jeff Thies wrote in news:ih41l3$dc4$ [e-mail]:

yeah,if you don't,they burst and spray nasty,icky,smelly stuff (and foil,too)all over...from personal experience! ;-)

you may also see a discolored cap body,compared to others on the board.