Found on the side of the road:1981 Hitachi CT1911 Television

First off, HEY!!! I miss you guys and it's great to be back here making a post!

Anyway, I just wanted to share this Television I found the other day with you guys. Finding CRTs on the side of the street isn't that hard to do, and I usually wouldn't care to take one home with me, especially while I'm away at school lol. But, this one caught my eye and I just had to have her.


Luckily I had this blanket in the trunk. Because it was a bit dirty and a homeless guy pissed on it for all I know.


When I got it home I gave it more inspection and found that the power cord had been cut off of it. Maybe a homeless guy took it to strangle someone in a dark alley-way or something (who knows). I gave it good cleaning and here is the result.





I don't have my tools with me where I am, but I wanted to rig something up to test it. So I got some paper clips and turned them into probes to stick into an adapter plug. Not the safest thing, I know. But I'm a professional! lmao


AND...she works!

Hooked her up to the cable jack in the apartment and everything looks great!



I'm really happy with the TV. I love the way it looks, and apparently Hitachis were the shit back in the day. Everything works smooth on it and I can't way to put a front loading NES next to do. Will really give that retro vibe.
Can't believe someone left her out to die :,(

 

That is very cool, love the sounds of the mechanical rotary dial! Nice idea for the quick power test. You can pop that back cover, there should be enough power cable inside to wire up a new power lead. Just keep clear of the Flyback Transformer due to high voltage even when unplugged. I have an older RCA wood grain Color Track, but it is a "modern" unit with push buttons to scroll thru the channels. Say, how did you pick up the TV stations with the analog tuner?

 

Nice car btw, and yes Hitachi was great back in the 70s and still is a good brand today.

 

Nice find! My childhood gaming TV was somewhat similar in design (check my signature below for an approximation).

 

Oh yeah, I definitely know about the hazards of working with these old televisions and I have a bit of experience with them. I'm going to re-cord it as soon as I get to my soldering iron. My building provides just basic cable hook up free of charge. I just plugged the cable line right from the wall and into the TV and it worked!

Yeah, I had a similar setup as a kid, too! I want to re-create that same kinda set up from your signature. Put a VCR and a NES underneath lol.

 

TVs with rotary channel switches became very rare thing now and you need to be very lucky to find one in perfectly working condition (minus power cable but that's not much of a problem).
P.S. Hitachi made good TVs back then, i had a portable TV in 80s and still have CMT2191, CRT is like new after all those years.

 

Got the power cord repaired.


Now we're in business!

 

Had to show off that Little Samson cartridge huh

Nice find!! Glad that stain came off the CRT, first glance looked like it was some kind of burn-in.

 

Lol, I was playing it on my EverdriveN8.. Wish I owned an actual copy. Just a few fun pics

Yeah I'm happy with the way she cleaned up, too.

 

You're using a polarized plug right? I was thrown off by prongs.

 

yeah, I am. I think you are referring to the picture above where I rigged that adapter plug just to test the tv. That plug is not polarized, but the one I used to repair the TV was.

 

*UPDATE*

While the TV was working well, there was an issue with some retracing and faint white lines at the top of the picture.
You can kinda see them here


So I decided to crack it open and check out the insides. To my surprise it's a very simple design inside.


The board was caked with dust so I started by vacuuming it out.



Convergence was perfect so I won't even be touching the yoke or the purity magnets.


I'm going to start off by switching out all of the electrolytic capacitors and see if that sorts out the issue.
The caps are from 1981 so I'm hoping they're the culprit.


After I get all the caps changed out and the issue is fixed I'm planning to add composite or RGB inputs. I bought the service manual for the TV and I have all the schematics if anyone is interested in taking a look and helping me determine where to put my connections.

The IC's in the television are:
HA11215A
HA1124D
HA11412A
HA11235

 

man an RGB input on that bad boy would probably look beautiful. Eagerly awaiting an update!

 

Update!
Got the shipment of capacitors I was missing!


I went through the Caps and hand picked the ones that were closest to their intended value and made a little
organizational template to help me out. When my eyes get tired I have a hard time reading the values on the caps!


Now its time to get to work!


Stay tuned!

UPDATE

Good thing I decided to change these caps because I found a lot of bad ones!




I got all the electrolytic caps replaced (except for that big can)


That little cap by the flyback was a real PITA to not only desolder but to get the new cap installed, too.


I will now assemble it and see what happens!

 

OK.... some bad news...
I got everything connected and turned it on and shortly after I saw a flash near the flyback.


The only thing I can think of is that I might have accidentally bridged a connection under the PCB when I was soldering. There were a few places that were heavily populated and it was hard to tell if certain pads were joined or not, so I'm going to re-inspect all my work and check for that.

The television also had no sound coming through it when it was switched on, which is also not normal. The area where the flash was doesn't have any obvious signs of damage either. Everything looks fine there. The tube also glows so I believe it to be receiving high voltage from the flyback, so I'm not sure if the flyback is damaged or not. Regardless, I've made calls all over the country and even to Canada looking for a replacement flyback and I haven't been able to find anything, so if the flyback IS bad... I may be screwed and have to find something else to do with this television.

Any ideas?


BTW the flyback I need is a Hitachi # 2432029 Generic Asti # 2731 if anyone wants to help me find one!