Been looking around recently for a CRT TV to play older systems and light gun games on. Found one on ebay which was about 7 miles away so stuck a bid in and got it dirt cheap. Went to pick it up today and the dude showed me it working and all was well. Put it in the car, bring it home and then what... the AV channels have a flickering red and green line at the top of the screen. Fuck. So I can either keep it and have these annoying flickering lines at the top, or just give it away and keep looking for another one. Such a shame as it's a decent set (Panasonic) with great connectivity. Sods law.
No charity/thrift shops near your place? Here they are abundant and for a relatively reasonable price a decent set can be had if one shops around. How thick are the lines - are they just at the boarder of the image? Would it be weird to create your own mask with some electrical tape, just barely blocking out the annoying part?
Try local ad listings (gumtree if you're UK) or even freecycle sites. They're everywhere and people are giving them away. I had a similar thing though - specifically wanted a 21" Panasonic so paid £20 to a local guy for one. Got it home and the picture is slightly offset to the left on RGB. Not enough for me to not use it, but enough to irritate and my mates to notice it too. Keep meaning to pick up another one, it's on the to do list.
Sets do come up here and there (but not in charity shops, more on free/local ads). The lines are very thin and sort of go off the screen towards the right hand side too, I can probably live with it or might mask it off as you say. Yep keep checking gumtree, just depends on locality really. This is a 21" Panny too! I wouldn't really go further than 15-20 mins each way to pick one up. It's just annoying when you think you have what you've been looking for and something spoils it! I'll probably live with it for now, will test a few systems to see how bad it really is. The lines are thin though so maybe I won't even notice within a game.
Ooh, good call APE. If you promise to do some research and not touch anything you shouldn't (pretty much everything), you might be able to crack it open and find a little potentiometer to turn and perhaps shift that bad line out of view.
Yeah, that's worth checking out. I read that with Panasonic it's post '96 models that can be messed with electronically. I guess mine was made before that, and I'm not about to open up the pile of toxic waste
There's no toxic waste inside CRT TVs, but some components stay electrically charged even after the power has been disconnected - so there's a chance of electrocution, if you're not careful. Personally, I would never risk it.
Electrocution is lethal by definition. The risk is overrated. You would have to be quite deliberately ham-fisted to kill yourself on a modern set. If all you want to do is adjust the trimpots, just do it with a plastic instrument (not with a screwdriver or your meaty digits), and work with one hand in your pocket. If you're replacing components you really need to discharge the set, but trimmer adjustments really need to be done while the set is switched on and displaying a signal.
That's something you should most definitely not say. CRT televisions all contained the same basic circuitry: (thanks to www.learnabout-electronics.org) The CRT still needs a high voltage, coming from the LOPT, regardless of whether the television is from 1950 or 2000. That's the same circuitry that will potentially KILL. Worse than that, your suggestion to just change trimmers to adjust the picture is not only just temporarily hiding the problem, but it most likely involves touching components on the neck board with the power on - THE VERY PLACE THAT CARRIES HIGH VOLTAGE! If you're getting problems with flickering lines of colour, it's an excess voltage in the tube. Basically an issue in the RGB circuitry. It could point to a gun being on the way out, or the tube itself. Either way, it's probably not worth repairing - if you can even get the part now. Certainly not a job for anyone other than a professional, anyway.
My Sony Trinitron has a service menu to push the picture around if you want, so no need to mess with the electronics inside.
i just asked on facebook if anyone had a CRT set they wanted to get rid of, and the offers came flooding in, got mine for free, surprising how many people still have them and just want rid
Yeah even my cheap no name brand from the early 90's has that feature. You can both stretch the image on the x and y axis, but also move it so if you're really picky and can deal with one pixel of stretching you can just move it off screen.
You can stretch the picture yes, but if it's an issue with the tube, that's not going to do a blind bit of good! Best bet is to keep an eye out locally. Try charity shops if they're allowed to carry electronic goods, junk shops, cash converters perhaps, local papers, freeads, Craigslist/gumtree etc. and those cards people put up in the windows of newsagents / boards of supermarkets. Oh yeah, garage sales, boot fairs and the like. And maybe even AVforums? That way, you can see it working beforehand, or get a limited warranty if it's in a shop.
You don't need to lecture me on how CRTs work, despite what my post count might suggest I do know what I am talking about. Furthermore, I'm not saying that potentially lethal voltages are never present. What I said is that you would need to be very careless, and not using any common sense, to actually sustain an injury working on a CRT, even while live. Just simple things like: - Wear rubber-soled shoes, work standing up, and keep one hand in your pocket at all times (so any charge you do come into contact with has no path through your body) - Use non-conductive tools to make adjustments on live gear (you can get purpose-made HDPE and nylon tools for safely working inside live devices, so you can't accidentally short something) - Never do anything (not just CRT servicing, but ANYTHING) without having the correct tools. For fixing a car, this means sockets, spanners, jacks, ramps, fluids, etc. And for fixing CRTs this means aforementioned non-conductive tools, rubber shoes, a non-conductive waist-height well-lit work surface, a HV probe, high-impedance ground-isolated oscilloscope probes, test signal generators, replacement passive components etc.) - Research research research. Get the service manual. Buy it if you have to. The only information you can trust to be correct, is that from the manufacturer. I didn't suggest that as a solution for anybody, I was simply supposing a scenario: "If all you want to do is..." Which is why, obviously, you would not touch it with your bare hands, or make adjustments with metal tools. Common sense. And you know, I don't think it's a good idea for every weekend-warrior to rush in and start servicing CRTs, but at the same time there's a heck of a lot of FUD out there regarding the actual risk level. It's there and it's real, but it's not as frighteningly, unpredictably dangerous as many believe. By taking the right precautions, and taking your time, CRT repair is well within the reach of a competent electronics hobbyist.
I think this is more the argument against: Why go to the bother of buying service manuals and messing with high voltage when you can just scrap it and pick up another one. People can't give these things away.
That's fine if you're dealing with random screens that aren't anything special. If you have a decent quality CRT like a Trinitron, it's not as simple or economic to "scrap it and pick up another one". Also this. If you have one with SCART RGB, or even Y/Pb/Pr component, it's probably worth repairing.
