CuriousMarc - 2022-12-01
Our dumpster rescue Sony Trinitron monitor is very tired and all purple. Can we bring it back to life with CRT rejuvenation? Previous video explaining CRTs: https://youtu.be/zqUlfMmhJQs Our sponsors - PCBWay: fast turn PCBs, https://www.pcbway.com - Electro-Rent: https://www.electrorent.com - Keysight: test instruments: https://www.keysight.com - Samtec: connectors: https://www.samtec.com - R&D Microwaves: https://rdmicrowaves.com Support the team on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/curiousmarc Buy our merch on Teespring: https://teespring.com/stores/curiousmarcs-store Get more info on the companion site: https://www.curiousmarc.com Contact info: https://www.youtube.com/curiousmarc/about
I have reactivated many CRTs over years with a B&K 467. It really depends on how you operate these and many Techs do not know how to use them properly. I know many tubes have been killed by Techs who think they know what they are doing!
The B&K 467 has specific instructions, follow these and you will be more successful. I have reactivated many Sony Trinitron tubes and they have come back to life very well. Some tubes of course do not have much emmision coating left so not great results there.
I recall my uncle had a 22" Sony TV which lost its green too. After reactvation, it lasted 6 years! Its important to clean & balance ( the lowest gentle setting on the B&K) the other guns too at the same time to get a balanced result.In fact use this gentle setting ro start with and you may find thats all you need. The rejuvenate setting us much stronger and really is only required if the CRT dies not respond on the clean & balance setting first off. After using the the Rejuvenation setting, you can then go back to the clean and balance for a final " clean up".
Succesfull reactivation operations will take time and patience, in my experience 10 mins or so to get it right. Many tubes had excellent emission after this.
Please follow the correct procedure though!
Good to know. So how long did you hit the button to zap the Trinitron in clean & balance mode? There are some rejuvenators specifically designed for newer CRTs, such as the Müter BMR 95 and 2005. These automate the procedure, but it also means you're no longer in control. I have both of these, but still haven't tried on them on my 32" flat Trinitron with spent green gun, as the prevailing opinion is that these tubes are easily ruined. This video gives some hope (and the B&K used here is infact considerably older). But as pointed out here in many comments, YMMV.
Had a flashback to my cousin's pc repair shop. He had a commodore monitor for his security cam that was so burnt in, I couldn't tell if it was on or off.
I've seen a windows 95 desktop burnt into a office monitor. Teal background and all.
Thanks for the stroll down memory lane! I used to work on a lot of Sony PVM’s and BVM broadcast color critical displays back in the day. I’ve been in post production since I was a wee engineering boy in San Francisco in the mid 90’s, and I haven’t got to play with actual electronics repair in way too long! The “fun” displays were the BVM-D24, HD tube monitors. We replaced the tubes in those usually every 3-6 months at a cost of around $30k/each. The tubes never lasted due to how hard they had to drive them to get a 100 nit uniform display.
Why $o much?
@@robertgift two reasons: quantity and quality.
The post production / broadcast TV industry did not require a substantial quantity of these picture tubes. I'd guess that Sony only ever made on the order of 10's of thousands of the BVM-D24 HD displays (maybe even touching the 100k mark?)
Quality was the other issue where we would often reject a tube for the smallest of defects. Nothing short of a perfect tube was allowed since we used these to grade (color correct) images for film and TV, and color correction decisions were made based on what was seen on the display.
Color uniformity and geometry had to be absolutely perfect on all areas of the display for us to create the quality film transfers and 'home video' HD grades of the time. For example, we'd charge our clients something around $800-$1000/hr for our high end colorists and color correction services.
I recall speaking with the Sony engineers about these tubes, and only a small fraction of the tubes they manufactured would make it to the end user. Thus the cost was... substantial... to say the least.
These days we use the Sony BVM-X300 and BVM-X310 series OLED displays, which are 1000 nit UHD/4k HDR, and these still cost upwards of $30k, but they last orders of magnitude longer than the HD tubes ever did!
The high-end reference monitors always come at a cost, but you get absolute quality and as close to perfection as you can get, which is a requirement when you are creating content.
Was a TV repairman in the 1970’s. Carried a CRT rejuvenator in the van. Very short term fix. Most of the failures of CRT’s especially premature failures was due to poor evacuation of the tube causing premature cathode failure. Rejuvenated many CRT’s, none lasted long enough to make it worth it.
Awesome vid, takes me back a few years. I still have a rejuvenator, it does not work on LED tv's. LOL
Have you tried? 😂
To be fair you don't need a specialized, high vacuum glass working facility to rebuild a LCD with new backlights. A kitchen table, Phillips screwdriver, and an eBay account will suffice.
was going to mention shango066 doesn't think much of those rejuvenators but ya already noted they are a bit on the snake oil side :P they did sound a bit too good to be true :'(
Yeah it's already re-redening. I am afraid shango066 is right. It was a fun experiment though!
@@CuriousMarc aww, I loved that trick ^^
I think shango066 indicated it was to buy time to order a replacement.
BAKED.
Anyone else loving the luggable vintage "icky" cam?
I've done many a tube with my home-built tester / rejuvenator which is based on a design printed in Television Magazine. Mine added a feature to disconnect the heater during the process, idea being that it would cool down: Smaller cathodes cooled down quickest so reduced the chance of stripping. Some tubes lost the plot again within some hours, most lasted months or years. So rarely did I do Trinitrons that I can't remember if I had any luck with those, I suspect not. Another useful tool was a home-made 25kV EHT meter which I would use to discharge the final anode before connecting up the rejuvenator. I remember that a couple of times a year we would visit an ex's relatives and I would "boost" their old TV. This carried on for some years before she dumped me. The relatives then "accidentally dropped" the TV and claimed on their insurance for a replacement.
Neat! There was a rejuvenator in the workshop where I worked; in the 6 years I was there I never saw it used.
Do you remember what issue the design was in?
Finally a good explanation how CRT rejuvenation works. I'd never heard of this technique until I saw it on Adrian's digital basement channel.
You should check out Shango066 then, he does plenty of work on old CRT TVs.
My wife has a 13" Trinitron TV from about 1980 that she still watches several hours every day, as she has done for decades. Still has a nice bright picture too. She has had numerous offers of larger modern sets, which she always declines. When TV went digital in 2009 we got a government-subsidized digital-to-analog converter so she could keep watching the Sony. Later the tuner gave out so I switched it to the 3xRCA video/audio feeds from the converter. Then the sound gave out so I routed that through the stereo. So now it is just a dumb monitor but she still prefers it to anything else. It doesn't respond to the remote anymore but fortunately there are on-set buttons for the only 2 functions she needs: On/Off and TV/Video. Several months ago it looked like it finally gave up the ghost, but I took it apart and spotted a tiny almost imperceptibly swollen capacitor and replaced that, now it is still chugging along. At this rate it's going to outlive us both.
We had about four of those monitors in an open rack to show video from our underwater ROV on minesweepers more than 35 years ago!
Hey hello @IBM_Museum! These monitors are the best (ahem, when they have a good tube)!
@@CuriousMarc Check with Sony Japan, there is a good chance you might actually be able to get a spare CRT from them, as those were made for a really long time, and Sony supported them till recently. Perhaps your viewers in Japan might know somebody who works at Sony, and know of a way to send you a NOS or lightly used tube. There probably still are regunners who can fix it as well, though they are all well on the side of grey hair by now.
Aaah.. Made for servicing. Yes, I agree! I get a nice feeling when I open up an appliance that doesn't require the removal of hundreds of differently sized screws and adhesives to get access to the goods.
I SEE THAT HACKERS SHIRT! (grin) and one of my favorites too -- the record year. Was good seeing you both and I can't wait until next year.
A trip down memory lane for me! I built my own CRT rejuvenator back in the 70s and it prolonged the life of many CRTs, but others didn't fare as well. A useful tool nonetheless.
I had a degree in computer engineering before getting a job doing data analysis. I've been through the basics of circuit design. I've solved a physics problem or two using nodal analysis. I've played asteroids on lab bench oscilloscopes. I'm over a decade out of practice, but I still enjoy the content.
I worked a lot in a TV repair shop in the 80s and early 90s and one of the most important rules of the owner of the shop was to never attempt to rejuvenate Trinitron tubes. According to his experience it almost always made things worse.
not true , i had great reslutls
He was wrong
Yes, i agree with the shop owner, trying to rejouvinate a Trini is like flipping a coin. It may work or it will kill the tube. Years ago i killed a KV-1300, so i will never try again that solution on a Sony
@@repairitdontreplaceit How often did you do it and how long did you or your customer use the rejuvenated set? I just remember that Trinitron tubes either die on impact, when you hit them with the rejuvenator, or they work for ten, twenty hours and are then weakening to an unusable state very fast.
correct, trying to rejuvenate a Trinitron is like playing Russian roulette with a bullet in every other chamber.
I still have the Sencore CRT rejuvenator. I used to use it a lot on Cocktail style arcade games - the gun being at the bottom allowed tube debris to fall into the guns and cause H-K shorts which were easily removed. Guns also could be "shocked" and they often worked for far longer than a few hours - months to years. And sometimes it killed them. Its a risk but often no net loss.
I would love to know how long it lasts before it goes back to purple
I think it’s reddening already. This is a fun experiment but not a real solution unfortunately.
@@CuriousMarc Would be interesting to let it run for a while and see how fast it degrades and then do a follow up video.
@@CuriousMarc something to note as well, some rejuvenators work better than others
@@Runco990 yeah, same as with GPU reflow, especially when done in a household oven... These things don't last.
Needs to go to Glasslinger to rebuild the CRT xD
These videos are so wonderful. Love the repair of old gear. I hope the tube behaves a little while longer.
Ive always heard from old timers that you should put CRT's on their faces when blasting them with the rejuvenation voltages. Because you're just blasting the carbon off of the emitters, that slow return back to original the original current can be caused by the carbon not being able to completely fall off, and when upright like that, could cause electrical problems if it falls on other guns.
Makes sense. On the other hand i've heard that it can fall onto the shadow mask and wreck havoc there as well. Not easy :D
@@zaprodk yeah as soon as I posted that I got to thinking about how precise trinitrons are for their shadow mask - worth considering!
@@is0p0d That's also why everybody says you can't rejuv a trinitron.
that's literally hogwash.. there is no carbon.. what you are actually doing is bubbling the last little bit of emissive coating to allow the dying dregs to escape.. no carbon..
Interesting!
Nice job on the rejuv. Now you have time to order a new CRT :) That is really what a rejuvenation or the earlier B&W tube "Brightner" was for. Keep the customer quiet for a week while the new part came in.
Also, nice ITC/Ikegami 730 Eric, not to nitpick put that is not how you hold a p[ortable ENG broadcast camera. It is supposed to be, the camera on the shoulder, the right hand through the strap on the lens with your fingers on the Zoom Servo control, and the left hand used for focusing. At least the Ikegami gives you a shoulder rest, unlike its competitor the RCA TK-76 which just sat the flat metal bottom on your shoulder.
I rememenber around 1993 our tv technician did the same procedure on our old philips tv (k12 chassis) and it got vivid colours again. It work, i know!
for a few days.. enough to gain a little time while a new crt was sourced.
Now that is a great result! Tube rejuvenation always amazes me. I hope someday we will find a way to replace the electron gun in our favorite CRTs
OMG that takes me back! My dad was a repairman since before I was born and I worked in his shop as a technician. He had a lot of B&K gear (and Sencore too) and had that tester / rejuvenator. I don't think we ever uaed it (or barely so) for the exact reasons you stated. He'd troubleshoot out until he eliminated everything but CRT and then would tell the customer honestly that he could try this but results would be temporary and not guaranteed. Of course that was the days when the recommendation would just be to replace the CRT. And before he retired it would be "buy a new aet" instead of repair.
My first real job was in a TV repair shop, I was shown the cowboy version of this which was to drive the gun hard and tap the neck of the tube with a wooden screwdriver handle. It was fairly successful and in 3 years I only saw one tube implode.
Flashback to my childhood in the 60’s watching my dad at the kitchen table working on a tv tube with his tube rejuvenator. His tube rejuvenator had a cube with multiple variety of tube sockets on the cube. Was pretty fascinating to watch as a kid.
I retubed and recapped dozens of these Sony 9 inch back in the mid - late 90s. The tubes were notorious for failing and breaking down. Retubed and recapped they would work for years again, great to work on.
I think those Sonys have AKB. They produce solid lines in the vertical blanking interval to measure CRT emissions and continually balance the guns. If you under scan you can see it, and it shows up on the scope around 3:30 (the three smaller pulses before the 100% field lines)
In other words, if you haven't tweaked the screen/drive controls and the balance is this far off, it is probably the tube.
Is that true of FD Trinitrons and Wegas? I swear I saw colorful lines when underscanning on my old Sony Kv-27FS120...
I worked in TV repair back in the CRT era..PIL and Delta's.. used TV's for sale (and rent) in a poor district.. Thee tricks were only to keep the customer happy for the week or so it took to source a replacement new or regunned CRT.. no more than that. They are nothing more (and never intended to be) anything other than a "get you home" temporary fix.
Trinitrons I know from experience don't respond well or last more than a couple of hours. There isn't much emitter on the cathodes and once it's used up that's it.
Eric is a great asset to this channel, and really hope to see more TV-related videos in the future.
Lovely to see a Sony Trinitron - these in various forms were very common in the TV broadcast industry in the late 80s/90s and I remember them very fondly.
Bringing back good memories
Love to see something like that get a second lease of life! I am curious how long it lasts!
A quick check for me to determine if it's a gun or a driver issue was to cut traces and use a jumper wire to swap a known working channel and gun. Basically drive the green gun with the red driver and the red gun with the green driver.
16:31 Cool to see different moire patterns for the colors through the aperture grille.
I've never seen this work. Excited to watch
Eric's use of the one hand rule is nice to see,
Always have one hand on your back with HV, might save you
Great job as always!
Fans of the channel should create a drinking game -- take a drink every time Marc says "doodly doo." 😉😂
I love how the revujdjvivudijation worked
Half split troubleshooting method - check the color gun drive at the tube neck pin; if bad move back halfway through the relevant circuitry and check; if good at the color gun pin - bad color gun - no further troubleshooting needed.
I've done this before with a variac and a 4 watt night light bulb at 115v. If you need more voltage you can use the variac to boost the voltage more. You know it's working because the night light bulb will kinda flicker, and it's done when you have a steady glow. If it doesn't work the bulb will be off.
Cool view of the arcing.
Ive heard that rejuvenation of trinitrons are very hit or miss, sometimes it works, sometimes it burns the cathode up instantly. So im glad that yours had some success.
Yep, i killed the blue gun of a 1972 Sony...
Incredible! The fact is that trying to rejuvenate a trinitron is virtually impossible, you always end up destroying it permanently. Only Curiousmarc can do that! 😄
Yes it's pretty hard also love your channel
Yes, I came here to post that -- never rejuvenate a Trinitron CRT. Or really anything, except as a last resort on a tube that's nearly dead and was destined for the scrap pile anyway. I see people rejuvenating CRTs that are just a little weak and I'm like "NOOOO! STOP!!"
@@vwestlife if it is little weak people can do Clean/balance like i did to my PVM that had a dirty red gun and poor brigthness , now its a perfect tube working like new
not true , i boosted many back in the day . they rejuvenate well if you know what your doing
@@repairitdontreplaceit Can you elaborate, please? What people needs to look out for when rejuving Trinitrons?
love your work!
That horizontal wire behind the Trinitron screen is something I don't miss about CRT's at all. It's there to keep the phosphors in place; sometimes they make it so thin you hardly notice it, but once you see it, you don't unsee it. And in this cute little monitor it's extra obvious for some reason. Makes you wonder what happened to it.
It's there to keep the aperture grille stable, as it basically just consists of thin steel noodles spanning the entire height of the screen. Not needed on shadow mask tubes, as that's a sheet with holes.
@@hotgluegunguy Yeah and the stabilizer wire(s) (two on tubes larger than about 17") are almost invisible, you'd never see one on a TV tube unless you look very closely and on data displays overall image quality more than made up for it in my opinion. I've taken apart a couple of dead Trinitron tubes and the aperture grill is a piece of sheetmetal spot welded to a heavy frame with slots etched into it from top to bottom, pretty impressive structure.
That was fun! I wonder how long it will last?
Excellent stuff with my morning coffee :)
@James1095 - 2022-12-01
I've had mixed results rejuvenating CRTs, the main thing I've learned is to quit while you're ahead. If you get improvement doing it once it's tempting to try hitting it again but in my experience that usually leaves you worse off than when you started. I've never tried rejuvenating a Trinitron but I always heard they did not respond well to it.
@wishusknight3009 - 2022-12-01
Do any of them ever last for any length of time though?
@fostercathead - 2022-12-01
shango066 says never rejuvenate a Trinitron.
radiotvphononut as well ...
@James1095 - 2022-12-01
@@wishusknight3009 Yes, sometimes, I've seen them go a few more years. If it's something like a TV that you're using for hours a day you'll probably buy a few months at best but for less used stuff like vintage equipment it can be significant.
@bloxyman22 - 2022-12-01
@@fostercathead If it is still useable then yes, but a tube in this bad state you really have absolutely nothing to lose.
@_hackwell - 2022-12-01
In Trinitrons and most recent CRTs the gap between the electrodes is quite small , so there's a good risk to end up with a short circuit. A workaround is to lower the high voltage and increase the max current to literally blow out the impurities. It's still quite like Russian roulette though