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I don't know how extensive this list is but it has a few monitors that support 15 kHz horizontal sync:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Modeline_...nic_TX-32LED8F
Toshiba 42A3000A
Sony KDL-40W4100
Toshiba 42A3000A
Toshiba 52HM84
Toshiba 50H81
Toshiba 56HM66 DLP
Is it damaging to use the multimeter by jamming the positive red probe in the pins and the black ground probe in a screw? I could have sworn I was getting needle movement on one of the pins and then it didn't seem to do it any more. I'm clearly a complete idiot with this thing but I'm wondering if I could have screwed anything up. I'll need to do some serious reading and maybe buy something beyond this simple Radio Shack multitester.
17 inches is very close, I believe it is merely 16 inches in screen size. My old CRT was 17 inches so I lost an inch. :p You should definitely try asking your broadcasting friends, if you could get something like a Sony PVM then you would be set (I hear they're awesome).
The composite appears nice, much nicer than it did on my previous TV. It seems relatively sharp and I can make out a bit more detail than I could on my old Apex TV. Nothing spectacular as far as I'm aware, though, it's only a step up because of how crappy my old TV was.
And thank you for the list, snakesqzns, I'll have to keep those in mind in case this thing doesn't work out.
Hmm, as long as you didn't damage the contacts by forcing th emultimeter pin into somehing too samll, that shouldn't be an issue.
You're checking resistance, right? (thus touching the 2 multimeter leads together gives ~0) Touching it to one of the composite or audio ground lines should yeild similar results, assuming all are commonly grounded internally.
Yeah, I'll definitely check to see if that friend knows of any such monitors getting replaced or such. (I think most have already been replaced by LCD though)
16/17" is great, that's exactly what I could use for my room too. ;) (my dad's trying to push me to considder an LCD though due to power usage, but I really want a CRT -and lightgun compatibility if nothing else) I have seen some decent dedicated SD lcds though, we've got one at home too, but I haven't seen new ones for sale for a while (all seem to be 16:9 at least), well outside of TVs being used for demo displays of camcorters and such.
If I knew an SD LCD could properly display 240p (single feild 60Hz, no deinterlacing), I'd considder it, and that little phillips LCD at home looks like it just might do that, or if it drops to 30Hz there are at least no funky combing artifacts from deinterlacing as often seen in SD-DV recorings of game footage. (plus it has all standard AV inputs and pretty good RF noise reduction) And truely is SD only. (will not accept 480p even)
I'm not sure if what I'm using is much of a multimeter, it seems like it can only measure DC V and AC V. I'll have to purchase a multimeter when I get all the other parts. Good luck on your TV hunt, let me know if you find something awesome.
I made a similar thread over at the GameSX/NFGames forums and was told the connector was for digital RGB, not analog RGB. :(
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3967.0
I guess I'll find out soon enough, but I hope that's not the case.
just open up the TV and see where the pins go.... RGB lines should be easy to identify since all 3 will be using exact same circuits... sync will be a bit more tougher. There's 8 pins though...... perhaps 2 grounds, Csync/Hsync, Vsync and RGBenable ????? I don't know...
Hm, might be worth a shot (not that confident in my ability to keep the TV functional after disassembling it but I can try). Lawrence over at GameSX seems fairly confident it's digital RGB as he owns a monitor with a similar connection. :( That seems strange to me since it's a TV from 1986 but from all I've seen it looks like he would know better than I would.
Digital RGB??? The ony "digital" RGB video I know of (external to video chips which use RGB palettes) would be CGA/EGA's monitor output. (with each pin only giving a binary value -on/off- for RGB plus intensity, or RGB plus R-i, G-i, and B-i for EGA thus requiring 6 pins plus gnd and sync for EGA)
I highly doubt that's what such a monitor would use. (it's an anlog monitor afterall, having digital input would make very little sense, and it's almost certainly not for EGA/CGA compatibility)
Anyway, I'm not sure if I should even bother with trying to get RGB, I think I'll be satisfied with S-video, and there seem to be some good priced TVs of the size I want on craigs list right now, need to confirm the dementions and AV inpus though. (I'd prefer having composite+s+YUV, just for flexibility)
We'll see though. ;)
And good luck getting that working. (BTW a simmple multimeter should be pretty inexpensive at radio shack or such, under $10, just make sure it can measure resistance -ohms, with the omega symbol) You're positive that your volt meter has no resistance feature? (that could be understadable if it was a completely passive device)
Short of that, you could just use the volt meter and add a power sourse to the circuit. (a small battery, I don't think that should be harmful)
That and what TmEE said, but be careful when inside a TV (or any CRT device), charge tends to persist in dangerously high amounts, so stay away from the coil around the back of the tube and any contacts around the flyback transformer.
And TmEE, is there a posibility of damiage using a small voltage sourse in serise with the volt meter? (like a normal 1.2-1.5v battery) I wouldn't think so at such low values. (plus you're going through th emeter, not directly shorting the battery)
The voltmeters should not have trouble with that... only some higher voltages(100V+) will kill the thing.
Turn the TV off, then perhaps wait few hours for most caps to discharge (or short the caps yourself with something)... when opening things up, be careful with the CRT's neck, its quite fragile there....
As far as I know, CRTs use much less power than LCDs.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
If money isn't an issue, I'd consider a European LCD with RGB-SCART. I had good experience with hooking up my Mega Drive to my brother's Samsung and my room mate's Philips LCDs via SCART - although you'd need a special cable from pittys_de:
http://stores.shop.ebay.de/Pittys-Is...nkw=scartkabel (look for those with the red background)
as otherwise you'd get some serious ghosting and bleeding colors from overlapping composite/RGB signals. (Reminds me that I meant to take some pictures)...
Well, I was thinking more in terms of older CRTs, I know ones from the last ~5 years are pretty efficient (out big sanyo is cooler than out little phillips LCD with its pretty warm backlights). But the ~17" CRT monitor on my old PC was very warm, definitely dissapating a lot more heat than out ~16" LCD monitors. (which barely get warm, that phillips LCD TV gets hot though, probably not cold cathode flourescent tubes) Those are just GEM brand LCD monitors, 6+ years old. (won't even display anything below 640x480)
We don't have air conditioning, ad that CRT monitor really contributed a lot of heat in th summer.
I have a ~40 year old Portacolor that just needs the power switch replaced/repaired, but that's certainly not efficient (all vacuum tube -save a single transistor in the UHF tuner), plus it's only 10" and RF only of course. (plus lots of overscan, but I think I can adjust that manually)
That's the only TV I've ever had as my own in my room, used to use it to watch some local stations and play VCS games on until the swtich shorted out internally. (that was like 8 years ago, it's kind of a pain to replace that switch too due to the way it's assembled -outside of damaging the case) I do hope to fix that some time and post soem pictures/video playing my ~1977 VCS on it. ;)
Anyway, I'm looking more at newer CRTs anyway, preferably flat screen, Sanyo seems to have good relability. But one problem out 27" Sanyo (~5 years old) has is that it goes out of sync with camerica NES games. I though disabling the lockout chip would help, but it didn't. (looks kind of like a VHS tape being played with the tracking off) It's in composite and RF too. It's almost certainly due to the voltage spiking mechanism used to circumvent lockout. (I suppose i could open the cart up and see if I could disable that, and only use the game with lockout free NESs)
No other TVs had this porblem, including that phillips (haven't tried an HD set though). I'm not sure what other TVs it will effect, I suppose I could bring my NES with me to test on a TV beforehand though.
I think you need to wait more than just a few hours before working on the inside of a CRT:
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/crtfaq.htm#crtsdc
Some tvs can hold their charge "indefinitely". :|
Yeah, that's what I though. (though in the case of my portacolor, that hasn't been powered on for over 6 years)
You just need to be very careful not to touch the dangerous area. (basicly any leads attacing to the CRT itsself or the flyback transformer) Previously we had worked on that TV relatively soon (within a day) after use, and in one or 2 cases had it turned on while open for testing. (in one case shorting the switch to make sure that was what was dead, prior to that replacing a blown tube)
No mishaps there though.