I replaced the main board of this TV with brand new parts made in 2023!
Prepare yourself for something a little unusual. While shopping on AliExpress I found a brand people selling brand new CRT boards for Televisions. Could this "universale" board somehow actually work? Well I pulled the trigger and ordered it so we could find out together.
-- Links
My next project using this board:
• Restoring a Commodore ...
Manufacturer:
www.gz-yichuang.com/
Schematic, Specs and datasheet:
github.com/misterblack1/yichu...
AliExpress Link
www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
Search term: CRT TV Motherboard
New complete TV:
www.alibaba.com/product-detai...
Search term: CRT XFLAT
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Adrian's Digital Basement ][ (Second Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement2
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino
I think the language support hints at what the purpose of these boards is: repairing TVs in parts of the world where the cost of living is very low and incomes are very low. All those videos of people building something new or welding an engine block back together, they aren't just clickbait they are really doing this on a regular basis. Repair culture is at the heart of many low cost countries.
Yep, not only in countries with relatively low GDP (I think) but also those with high import costs and/or trade sanctions. Another comment mentioned that being done in Indonesia. I had already known of similar boards to allow such repairs to be done to LCD TVs, but never knew about boards for CRT TVs.
I wish we didn't throw away shit all willy nilly like we do around here. Something satisfying about making old broken down crap work again.
It’s why many cars in Cuba are vintage 1950s & 60s. They keep them repaired and running.
I love having old things prolong their live. Perhaps it is not a repair culture in the countries where they care to repair. It is a wasteful culture in the rest of the world. I know progress is nice but respect to people preserving the skills.
@@OggVorbis69 We used to be a repair culture, but somewhere along the line someone decided it was more expensive to pay someone the labor to repair than to replace. My most popular video is about resurfacing brake rotors on a rotary table, the amount of comments about how it's a waste of time and cheaper to just buy new Chinese rotors is very high. The joke's on them, I'm still running the same rotors on that car and I've made a decent amount of money off that video.
It amazes me that ALL the tremendous R&D effort in television broadcasting on analog CRTs, dating back to the 1920s, finally came down to a board that you bought for $50 bucks which has a built-in game. An amazing 100 years!
Analog television was a triumph of...something. (Spoofing bandwidth, mostly.) Seriously, the idea that sorta-kinda acceptable full-motion video could be rendered with a few dozen active components is preposterous in retrospect.
@@frankwilhoit I mean people accepted it just fine for over 50 years, we didn't know any better!
And 50$ is probably already with 100% markup!
I'm just amazed at the brain power to have come up with analog circuits to encode and decode all the signals, get the timings right, etc, and do it over the air!
some of those old circuit boards are horrifying just to look at, in the hellraiser movies a puzzle cube opens the gates of hell, imagine opening a device and inside you find a circuit board like this one 1950 8" B&W Motorola 9T1 kzhead.info/sun/odGKdr2gsYGqgJE/bejne.html
This brings back memories. I learned TV repair in school. a friend and I plowed through the books several weeks before the rest of the class and the teacher assigned us a broken TV. We eliminated point after point until the only thing left was the fly back transformer, and it wasn't putting out any power. Found a burned out power transistor, swapped it and burned out the replacement. Found the real problem and fixed that, swapped in a second replacement transistor and it should be working, but without assembling everything we didn't know for sure. Here we didn't know how to proceed. We didn't have any instrument capable of measuring voltages in the tens of thousands range so how could we test what we got there? I asked the teacher and he told me to peel back the isolation from the terminal on the transformer. Then with the power on take a screwdriver rated for 100KV and poke at the bare terminal. I asked what I was looking for and he just said I'd know when I saw it. Well the "it" was a two centimeter electrical arc jumping between the terminal and the screwdriver. Scared the shit out of me and left a deep burn mark on the screwdriver. My teacher laughed his ass off. Never liked working on the high voltage parts of TV's after that. Turns out he had that TV for several years and we were the first to get a picture out of it again. The thing is he could have diagnosed and repaired it in thirty minutes while we worked on it for days. That's what experience will do for you. And I never dug into a TV again after that!
Even witg proper tools a teacher to me even suggesting to try that is an EXTREME violation safety
@@casev799 the odds of it hurting you : high the odds of it killing you : low this is how the best lessons are learned imo
your teacher is a madman lol. woulda done that now days some kid woulda cried to mommy
@@jstegall44and teacher fired
Yep, a screwdriver makes a good high voltage tester. I was a TV engineer in the 1980s and we never had a high voltage meter either. When I started out there were plenty of TVs with line output valves with around 4000v on the top cap, you certainly knew it it you accidentally touched it! Would leave a small burn mark on your skin. Luckily the current was only a few milliamps, so no danger of serious injury or death. I like 240v mains, and I've had a few of those too!
I've spent exactly 22 seconds on your channel and the way you said "human malware" has earned you my respect sir. Keep up the great work!
That looks like a possible solution to dead CRT based arcade machines. Some of the CRT driver boards for those are full of unobtanium parts (particularly the flyback transformers). This might be a good replacement for the original board.
They've sold these for arcade monitors for a long time (like at least ~15 years or more). They lack composite, remote, etc. You would measure the total resistance of the yoke windings and there were a couple different models to order based on that (and the CRT size-- 19" vs. 25"). They worked, but longevity was pretty marginal. Probably OK for occasional home use, but we had 100% failure rate running in a commercial arcade after a few months. I suspect that replacing all the ultra-cheap Chinese caps with some better quality ones might extend the life, but I never bothered trying that since repairing the original monitor chassis is still quite achievable and tends to last decades...
I clicked the link for the one he got and one of the recommendations on that page was for one of these for 25" to 29" arcade crts XD was like $22
You can buy universal arcade monitor boards with RGB input, they've sold those for decades The disadvantage is that the screen brightness changes depending on how many stuff is in the screen since the high voltage regulator is made cheaply
@@ClayCowgill It's definitely the cheap caps. I replace the caps on most of the Chinese stuff I get simply because of that. Even Samsung products use those cheap caps. My Samsung monitor died 3 years after buying it, bad caps, replaced them and now 7 years later it's still working perfectly.
You can have flybacks custom made, just like any transformer. You can fix anything if the customer is willing/stupid enough to pay the price.
As a viewer from Hong Kong, I am surprised there are still some companies made crt TV in China. The result is pretty impressive. ❤
bs it's just the driver board not the whole crt🤣🤣🤣
@@raven4k998 Clearly someone's still making the tubes as well, since Adrian actually showed off some listings for new CRT TVs that were likely using boards just like this one.
For boards like this, it's brand new. Heck there's even one with a DVB T2 tuner! For the CRT tube: either e-waste yard ex monitor or new (IDK about latter)
Those new CTR board give old CRT TV a 2nd chance to work again, or for other special Modding projects. l am still wondering what type of market still want CRT TV/Monitor. Retro Arcade Machines for Video game？
@@MadManDarkJedipeople who like retro games love them and people who like f games love them because of the refresh rate and lack of input lag
The unsung hero for retro gaming right here. Helping keeping crt’s alive for another however many years 😊
ah ah ah ah stayin' alive, stayin alive
Years ago I found my late father working on an old wooden TV set in his shed, at the time he worked for Radio Rentals in the UK and had brought home a very old set which had been rented out to an old lady for decades, but was now beyond repair. The old lady didn't want a new plastic TV set in her living room so my father had removed the guts from a modern Furguson TV set and had modified the old wooden cabinet to take the new guts. He had just finished it when I walked in and the results were very impressive, even with a close inspection I couldn't see any of the woodwork done to match the tube to the old wooden frame and the varnished wooden panel he installed where the old controls were almost matched the rest of the set, so you had to stand in front of the set to spot the wrong wood grain and the new varnish! Those were different times, when pride in a job trumped shareholder dividends.
Lol, I thought the ending of the story had to do with the "late father." I'm glad it had a happier outcome. I bet the old lady was well pleased. And today we probably wouldn't because of time and money and the potential for liability as the product was now modified from it's original form and cabinet.
The thing that kind of boggles my mind is not only does the flyback have the 2023 date sticker on it, but the PCB has a 2021 date silkscreened on it-- meaning that the PCB design was revised that recently! Wild that there's enough demand for CRT TVs and components to be actively developing products in the 2020s.
sprite based games just pop on em
Over here in south-america, CRT tv's are still widely used, even CRT computer monitors.
I checked out their website and it seems like the product was possibly introduced in 2020. I'm 97% sure the design is a multiple-generation copy of what was once a board inside a set made by Funai. They were (and still are) a major manufacturer of white-label bargain-grade AV products, including CRT. Adrian's "Magnavox" television is almost certainly of their products, as they own that brand name. That same model got sold as Memorex and probably a dozen others too. The type of TV you'd find on sale at CVS in 2004. This GZ Yi Chuang company also sells "XFLAT" brand new CRT televisions. I will hazard a guess that there are other small factories producing clones like these with copied schematics. That type of thing is a big part of the manufacturing culture in China. Plans get shared quietly, modified, improved, cost-reduced, reshared over and over again. Personally, I think that's awesome!
You may call it janky, but i think it's a great swap and now you have a very capable CRT screen with RF! Get well soon, Adrian! All the best.
and a game!
I salvaged an old MAC clone from certain destruction, and it has a nearly pristine CRT with ultra flat front surface. The guns have seen at most a few hundred hours of operation. I have big plans with that tube :)
As a fellow geek, it looks perfectly normal to me.
so true
I remember about 7 or 8 years ago, working on a Mitsubishi 60" rear projection CRT TV from the late '90s. It had RGB convergence issues that I later discovered were the result of cracked solder. I was surprised to find out that, not only did it use convergence amplifiers from the '70s, they were still in production and I got a complete set for less than $20, shipped in under a week!
Was in the Philippines recently, and rented a karaoke machine... The crt had the buttons glued to the front the same as your set now does. They had either replaced the board like you did, or swapped the board from another tv... I love the effort and skill they show in repair there.
Hey Adrian, With your degaussing coil issue: Just replace the thermistor with the one from the original board and you should be fine!
I am floored seeing this. I had no idea they built tv sets with sokoban (usually called "box man" on these sets,) built into them. I can see how it's done, just using a special character set. Considering the tv comes with so many languages it makes sense that they'd have so much space left on this motherboard for a full game.
Yeah, there are a gazillion ports of this game, probably for all 8 bit computers, up to the latest thing you wouldn't guess. Yes, there is a Sokoban like game in Mihoyo's Honkai Star Rail (but then again they also had Breakout like game in a Genshin Impact event).
I miss the ingenuity and 'beauty' of CRT TVs, my last one was around 2008, a benemoth HDTV from Sony. I'm glad to see there's still an industry dedicated to maintaining them.
I have s Sony from 2007 that has survived 3 home invasions. No body wants to lug away a 40 pound hulk in a hurry! Maybe that's why I still have it almost 15 years later.😊
I so want to get one of those CRT TV's with a VCR player built in for my son's room. Still looking. And oh yeah, I would be buying a bulk load of VHS tapes of course.
@@mariobudal8850 Why would you do that? I can understand the feelings one gets when doing stuff with old hardware. But this is only you. Children have nothing to do with this nostalgic feelings. This is as if a child in 90s would not have gotten VHS but a Quadruplex-projector. If i were in that situation in the 90s i would have been angry 🤣
@@ElNadaInLada Oh, he already has all the modern day stuff, too. It's not like I'm isolating him from modernity, lol... He thinks it would be cool to have a system like that.
@@simeon2851 I had a 150 lb monstrosity. Sony 1080i and flat tube, I loved that thing. I endured two moves with it, that was a struggle.
30:47 That Chinese character 囍(xǐ) is the word “happy” but for wedding. 喜is its original form, but because there are two people (bride and groom), there are two 喜which becomes 囍. Interesting to see this on a TV.
Chungwa are/were actually a big name in CRT technology, I had some dealings with them in the late 2000's. Around 1996 they had built a giant plant in Eurocentral, Scotland to build CRTs (do you see where this is going??) - took a bunch of Scottish Government money to do it, hired security, got the local population excited for the new jobs, local colleges offering courses to train up production and technical staff, etc etc They only ever employed no more than a third of the 3000 staff predicted, and produced not even 20% of what the plant was capable of. The plant lay empty for a few years, eventually it was partially demolished and another company built a business park with a hotel on the site. The government even sued to get some of that start up capital back and allegedly got 8Million from a 20Million pounds investment returned. Such a shame, but CRTs by 2000 were really on the way out.
Huh! Interesting to learn that LG wasn't the only one to do something like this. With a pile of government subsidies, LG opened a CRT production facility in Wales, at a similar time, and similarly didn't provide the projected employment numbers before winding down operations and eventually abandoning the plant.
It's too bad the emergent retro market isn't big enough (maybe a few hundred a year, world-wide?) to support the economies of scale necessary to make something as complex as CRTs practical, because I imagine it would be quite stable over the long-term. Not to mention that demand being spread across numerous sizes, shapes and technology standards.
Imagine hearing that a Chinese company wants to run a factory out of a first-world country and not recognizing that it's an obvious scam.
They went bankrupt last year, and were liquidated by their long-time parent company Tatung. Their failure to enter the market for plasma display panels around 2004 certainly didn't help, and the company struggled ever since despite being one of the world's most vertically integrated LCD manufacturers.
Asianometry did an episode on this
PAL-BG, I and DK are some of the different PAL flavours. BG used in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and is your default. (B is VHF, 7MHz channel width, G is UHF with 8 MHz spacing). PAL-I is used in the UK (UHF only, and sound subcarrier 6 instead of 5.5 MHz) and DK is for another channel numbering used in Eastern Europe that wanted to stay compatible to Russian Secam. Computers and VCR’s are usually modulating on UHF channel 36 or 37 in Europe. PAL for Argentina is PAL-N and for Brasil PAL-M.
In Argentina we do actually have PAL-N, but we also have NTSC on some CRT TVs
@YourGoofySouthernNeighbour And since the late 90's, all CRT tv's manufactured in Brasil support PAL-M, PAL-N and NTSC due to Mercosul.
@@TiagoCNeves you mean Mercosur
@@YourNotTrustySouthernNeighbour In Portuguese we do say Mercosul with the 'L' as South is "Sul"
In Italy now the tv transmissions are in digital system DVT-B2. The PAL BG was abandoned some years ago...
Thanks for the trip down memory lane with contemporary updates. I have not toured the inside of a TV for almost 50 years! Yes I am a "tube jockey" I worked in TV shops from 13 years old through college. What a joy to see an TV rather that a flat screen monitor. It is wonderful to be looking into an image on a vacuum tube! You made my day!
I like that someone found a small niche market to produce those generic boards so older TVs can be fixed instead of thrown away. However, my thoughts go to those many CRT TVs kept together with hot glue and gaffa tape because the new board just didn't fit 100% :D Great video and how you feel better soon!
Cool video, Adrian. These generic Chinese CRT chassis are fascinating. They are very commonly found in poor areas of India and East Asia. They are usually paired with tubes recovered from e-waste. There's some fascinating videos from Hindi TV repair KZhead channels working on these things. Interestingly, they sometimes use high resolution tubes from computer monitors with this chassis. They re-wire the yoke terminals and do something funky with the dual focus leads. I wish I understood Hindi to better understand how they do it.
Try KZhead's subtitle translation function, won't be 100% accurate, but you'll get the gist of what they're saying.
Kinda disappointed there's no similar counterpart for PC monitors, where the tube came from
I love watching thi this project! Not something I'll tackle, at least right now, but it's awesome that in 2023 you can still get this kind of board and have fun with it. As a side note, I was in Italy in the late 80s though the early 90s, and the Navy Exchange sold multi-system TVs. We could use them with our VCRs and to watch the armed forces station plus all of the local stations. Wish I still had my Sony Trinitron 20'some incher from back then... Take it easy and get better, the vid can really kick your energy level for a while after getting over it.
Yeah these types of TVs were super common around the world it seems, but never here in the US and Canada. I guess no demand so they didn't bother.
I still have a Hitachi that can do PAL/NTSC through the tuner, but SECAM only through the AV input. I recently asked the company if they had any documentation on it since I lost mine (and also the remote control), but alas it's way too old.
I'm glad to watch this on your chanel. This is something very common here in Senegal (West Africa). This kind of "Universal Replacement Board" imported from China is still being used by TV repairer when a CRT color TV is having issues they can't fix due to IC problem that can't be replaced because the component can't be found. So what they do is they manage to place the board inside the TV case and somehow glue the IR sensor somewhere on the front panel. They don't even bother to try to install the from buttons interface, the user will use the remote at home and if it's broken he can find a replacement on the market or a universal remote. Most of time the process is way more easy than yours because it's about bigger TV. One more thing. Why China is still manufacturing this kind of board? because here in Senegal and in any African countries, analog terrestrial tv signal is still being broadcast. And even if there is digital broadcasting, many families keep their CRT TV and just buy the box that allow to receive the digital signal. There are also in many towns some kind of clandestine analog cable networks using the UHF band to distribute live TV they take from satellites digital broadcasting to users that pay a very cheap price. So the market for this kind of boards still exist here.
Awesome little "Frankenstein" TV. That would make the PERFECT retro gaming monitor stuffed inside a gaming case. I love it!
BG/DK/I formats had a lot to do with different audio subcarrier frequencies, 5.5MHz, 6.5MHz and 6.0MHz. Most TVs sold in europe since at least late 80's had 5.5/6.5MHz audio subcarrier detection built in. Some countries used 7MHz channels on VHF bands while other opted with 8MHz channels on VHF, 8MHz was a standard for UHF. Only 5.5MHz audio subcarrier could fit into 7MHz channel. DIgital TV (DVB-T/T2) and digital radio (DAB) finally standarized 7MHz channels at VHF.
It's a bit confusing if you're not technical, but I suppose most people never had to think about it? Was this confusing to grandmothers?
@@adriansdigitalbasement No one had to think about it. Once programmed, TVs kept these settings in memory. Older tv sets (at least here in Poland) quite often were manually tuned using sliders hidden behind a cover/side plate, and those programmed channels were tied to front buttons numbered 1,2,3, etc. so you could for example set BBC One on channel (let's say) 32 to number 1, BBC Two on channel 49 to number 2, ITV on channel 21 to number 3, etc. and your grandma knew which programme was first, second or third. Modern TV sets kept this feature and both digital or analog channels can be tied to specific number as you wish (there are no subchannels here). DVB-T/T2 also implements LCN (Logical Channel Number) feature in which each station can use its own logical number (similar way to ATSC except we dont use subchannels), and new tv sets follow this mode first unless a user wants to order channels his own way. LCNs are usually managed by local equivalents of the FCC, or at least the lowest numbers are appointed by law to public television and then to popular commercial networks. Callsigns and clearly visible channel numbers in stations logos are mostly American thing.
I have used british tv network names as you all are probably more accustomed to them. From european perspective it is a bit odd why american stations used callsigns so much or were tied to their physical channel numbers. For example in my home city, Kraków (eng: Cracow), we have had seven public or private networks on channels 10 (8MHz), 27, 30, 33, 35, 50, 53, but on a TV these were programmed like 1 (10), 2 (33), 3 (50), 4 (35), 5 (30), 6 (53), 7 (27) and no one even needed to know which were the real physical chanels. What mattered was an upcoming tv show was on commercial Polsat (6 on a remote), or local evening news on public TVP 3 (3 on a remote) and it didn't matter which frequency each station used.
The wiki page for PAL explains the sub-carriers pretty well, and it explains why in the UK none of our TVs had this as an option that could be changed. The whole of the UK and Ireland used PAL-I (6.0 MHz vision/sound carrier spacing). I imagine TVs in mainland Europe would need it since different countries used different PAL standards, mostly a mix of PAL-B and PAL-G. TVs sold there would need to handle both and have a way to detect or manually switch, I suppose.
B and G were the standards for VHF and UHF in most European countries. B has 7 MHz channel spacing, G has 8 MHz. @@TimGladding
The method of using 'breakaway' panels is definitely an efficiency step in manufacturing... it's far easier to place jumpers onto a panel beforehand, run it through wave solder, then break it out to separate boards than having to fiddle with getting the wires properly hand-soldered. That cap coming loose is probably precisely why other CRT sets you've poked around in have that adhesive holding down certain large components.
It's a miracle I never killed myself as a kid messing with CRT's. I distinctly remember trying to mess with that suction cup looking thing attached to the tube shortly after turning off the TV. Never knew there was 20k volts going through it. I remember trying to use pliers to rip it off.
Just saw thd title i never thught i would ever see. Millions of tvs sitting in repair shops and homes will come back alive. I hope they make for 21- maximum tv inches, HD tvs, all old models too for desktops as well
CHUNGHWA CRT's were actually very good quality picture tubes. I have some of those and one has 100k hours of operation on it and still has very nice bright and sharp picture. There is slightly burned overall phosphor but not a big deal. CHUNGHWA is my second favourite brand for picture tubes after SONY Trinitrons of course 😊
Yeah for sure this set is still super bright and it was clearly used (had some soot inside) I have since corrected the slight color purity issue and adjusted the convergence, and it looks frankly great.
Now I wonder if they're the ones still producing the CRTs for the set Adrian found on Alibaba. I doubt it, but then again who _would_ still be in business making them than the company that was the best at it in the country? EDIT: Oh wait I looked them out they were in Taiwan, so I guess not.
@@stevethepocketI think that's just a warehouse sitting somewhere with new old stock. The very last chance to get a fresh CRT.
Sony Trinitrons are not the best honestly,their chasis are complicated compared to cheap one,which doesnt have a lot of feartures which can result in the damage of the screen
@@thepostalteenager2206he's talking about the tube not chassis
If they were to make these boards with RGB inputs then they would have my attention. With how rare and expensive YPbPr/RGB CRTs are getting, this could save people a lot of money and keep normally undesirable CRTs out of landfills.
Go to Europe. Every crt has a rgb plug. Some don’t even have a composite, just scart
@@bigtitmaster That's a double edged sword. Yes, almost all European CRT TVs have scart, BUT CRTs are much rarer in Europe as most people have thrown them away, and most of the remaining ones are either HD, 100hz, or ridiculously expensive.
@@agrisimfarming I don't know what you've been smoking but you can still easily get them for free and I rarely see anything that's more modern than from the late to mid-90's. Nothing really HD or 100hz.
@@relo999 You may be right, since I don't live in Europe that info was gathered from a Reddit post on r crtgaming which i admit is not the most trustworthy source. Still, I don't think it's worth it to spend the money on a passport and a plane ticket to Europe since it would end up being more expensive than getting a component CRT in America anyway.
@@agrisimfarming living in Denmark you can get working Bang & Olufsen CRTs nearly any day of the week. I have five now and have only paid for three of them, and not very much money. Getting a PVM or BVM is a completely different story, but I know people that have some.
I’d bet there’s a decent market for retro gamers.
In the early 2000s here in Brazil there were a lot of CRT TVs with built-in games like that one. They were from brands like Philips and Sony, Sharp and some other local brands that no longer exist. It was somewhat nostalgic for me, lol...
I have one Phillps 2001, 14 inches and it is normal to this day. It is connected to a receiver and I watch everything on it. 22 years of use, no defects
Finnish TV maker Salora had a TV, Salora Playmaster, with a built-in Pong clone in 1977
A very cool board! Perfect for saving dead TVs and using them for retro sources. A great addition to the channel!
This would make sense in an arcade cabinet, probably. Or even just for testing CRT's from broken TV's to see if they're salvageable for such projects.
Never seen such advanced TV software and features on CRT. I want this TV :D LoL
40:30 PAL B/G uses a 5MHz sound subcarrier (Western Europe), I uses a 5.5 Mhz (UK and a few others), D/K uses 6MHz (Central & East Europe) Theoretically, the higher sound subcarrier allows higher video bandwidth, but that would depend on perfect separation of the chroma subcarrier and reduction of chroma / luma interference by the subcarrier being super accurate 4.43361875 MHz = 283.75 × 15625 Hz + 25 Hz is required to drop the main harmonics of the colour components in between the main harmonics of the luma, while only the most advanced decoders can make full use of it.
I thought the DK setting was for playing the Donkey Kong theme but this video proved me wrong. This explanation makes sense though.
B/G is actually 5.5MHz, I is 6MHz and D/K is 6.5MHz. Guess your numbers are the video bandwidth?
Yep! I do remember that analogue TV in Singapore used PAL B/G.
@@mikkels5724 oops, reading the wrong table column
Australia uses 7Mhz subcarrier
Awesome, I have 21" CRT TV from 1999, still working, but good to know there exists new boards if this one would fail some day :) And it's even PAL 50hz, 230V system, like mine here in Finland.
order one in the near future. I have the feeling that these won't be around for too long.
Ex Tv/Video Serviceman from Australia here, Wow !!! that went surprisingly well, I was half expecting that exercise to end in tears, but good to see I was wrong :)
As a CRT TV Design Engineer myself I am happy to see some tubes glowing in 2023. Check the filament (heather) voltage (use true RMS voltmeter) if it's too high will kill your tube quickly
The knowledge that this person has on this technology is amazing to me. Just because it is order technology doesn't mean it's easy or worthless. I just wish for us in North America, we weren't a throw away society. These crt tv lasted for ever, modern TV last 3to5 years.
I have a Panasonic plasma that is over 20 years old. The build quality is far better than new TVs and the picture is brilliant except in low light situations where there is some Corona effect.
Me too, consumerism is really horrible.
Man. You nail this one. I felt a small fraction of the ...glee at the first power-up. That is the gratification of a series of guesses, measurements, prior experiences... led you to the magic. Boom. Jonathan in Seattle
I wish these existed for PC CRT's especially if they were multi-sync. Getting a 24khz compatible system is like finding ice cold bottled water in the desert.
I wanted to tell you, as far as cutting the plastic base and things of that nature, instead of using a Dremel tool, maybe look into what's known as a 'multi tool' it has a reciprocating vibration effect, so you can put little flat cutting blades on the end and it vibrates back and forth (side to side really) and it'll SLICE right through that plastic like butter. I use mine to cut the ends of say door molding when I add tile to an existing floor and the like.. It's a great tool, the plug in version is like 30 bucks and you can put a wide variety of ends on, grout saw, wood, metal, plastic etc. etc. Anyway, just a thought!
Can you provide more keywords or even a link? I cant seem to find it.
I personally really enjoyed this video. I love watching old electronics come back to life like this.
This was one interesting project. You might tap a woodworking shop in your area that has a CNC router and have them make a custom case for this beastie. I have a routed case for my SC126 (admittedly a much simpler project), but it looks beautiful and works very well. Measure carefully, design up what you want, and work with the shop to determine how many pieces you want the case to have (probably a front from one block, a bent or glued-up mid-section, and a back), where you want your control and power ports to be, how you want to mount the CRT and board, and you could turn out a furniture grade piece of equipment. There are woodworking channels similar to Blacktail Studios (they have a KZhead channel) that might be willing to take on a project like this (but all things for a price...) Add a little laser engraving for legends and the ADB logo, and you're off to the races!
would look cool! makes me think of the old wood cabinet Marantz amps and such of the 70's too If I were to do all that I'd look for a good picture tube around the max size that board can support and work from there
Yours
Woah this is friggin amazing. The used market for crt tv in my 3rd world country is freaking horrible. The working ones were mostly disposed back with the great lcd tv shift in 2007 or so. The ones left are still being used by people of the lower class. I tried buying two and they were both used to death, not too long ago. Also the absurd pricing for good sets still kept by hoarders of the upper class. Good thing there are lots of different board manufacturers since 2020 and this new one from 2023. Might get lucky with an rgb modifiable one. Now on to hunt a 14 inch tube. But this is gonna be tough I love this video of yours. It's pure joy for us crt nerds
I am amazed , I have over 35 years of Full time TV repair experience. I would have expected deflection problems of some kind. Jaw on the floor .
I feel like even attempting this was an exercise in pure optimism... and it freakin' worked! Wow, man, awesome vid!
I've actually seen a Game integrated into a TV before. My first ever LCD TV (An old German Medion brand) had a Tetris clone built-in. Damn near unplayable with the remote, but still a neat addition. You could even play it with PiP and also while the TV was scanning for channels. Loved that thing, still have it and use it as an additional monitor on my workbench.
the more you know!!!
My LG CRT from 2004 has 2 built in games, one called balloon shooter and other is some puzzle type thing. and yes still I have 21" CRT TV still in my livingroom :D as I really rarely watch TV and havent seen point for new one.. especially as in my house there still is analogue cable tv available.
When tuning a signal here in England 🏴, auto tune picks up any signal or broadcast channels (the latter now switched off here, replaced with only digital) so the time taken seemed longer because you're only seeing 1 input and no channels. Search allows you to manually find that exact signal eg Genesis, it's faster than the auto processing time, Once finding the say Genisis, fine tune works if it's slightly grainy, it focuses that for a cleaner, smoother picture, working like noise reduction for early 2000's, hope this helps 🙏🏻
"FRANCH" Also for some reason I was really curious what that symbol was when there was no signal. Turns out its not technically a chinese word or normal character.. it means "Double Happiness" which to write out in simplified chinese would be 双喜. But it is often written in chinese caligraphy as a "ligature" made from two copies of the chinese character for joy (喜) so it becomes 囍. It was not particularly straightforward to figure this out since google translatw wouldnt recognize the tv image and writing out doesnt immediately yield the actual result.. and the result that is listed as an alternative doesnt look the same in my font. Idk why chinese has to be so complicated
Chunghwa opened a factory near me here in Scotland making CRT tubes just before LCD screens caught on, they closed down quickly afterwards, they mostly made PC monitor screens.
That's so cool. I've got custom driver boards for old 4:3 LCD from old laptops, but I never imagined they'd make drivers for CRTs.
Love your videos! You're one of my favorites on here! Hope you're feeling better! Thanks for all the great videos!
23:27 I think the firmware of your board is the same as mine, since it have the same Chinese symbol like that. I did changing a broken CRT TV mainboard with this Chinese universal CRT TV board, around 2 years ago and the TV still works until now. The TV was disposed by someone on a garbage area then I took it.
they also make these for use with arcade monitors as well , I have used several to replace cooked boards , i prefer repairing the OE monitor boards, but they sometimes go conductive, they work well and pretty easy setup
I hope you checked the acceleration voltage after getting the rest adjusted. The H Size will relate directly to a change in the HV. This was a very cool retrofit, but you didn't call out the danger of too much HV and the resulting generation of X-rays which can be really significant when you overdrive a CRT. It is a cheaper route than a real X-ray tube if you want to take X-ray photos, but efficiency is junk.
Adrian verified that the HV matched that of the original board (19.5 KV). I don't see the problem.
With 20 kV, the x-ray is not too bad, I measured it. only at 40 kV does it start to become more dangerous.
@@20kilovolt did you make that account to say that? : D
@@drwatson32bityes why?
The "logo" that comes up is a common Chinese symbol called "double happiness". If they wanted to, I'm sure they could put a complete Famiclone with 500-in-1 builtin games on there. The progress of microelectronics integration since CRT TVs were first invented has been amazing.
In Indonesia, CRT TV is still popular from low market. Because Indonesia has do finished analog TV shutdown, there is a separate market niche for old tv devices. there are vendors that produce DVB-T2 digital tv tuner boards for CRT TV that are universal, either board only, or tuner only for swap. There are also manufacturers that produce CRT TVs on a small scale, even though the big brands have stopped producing CRT TVs. Another problem is natonal channels now use widescreen which makes it uncomfortable for tube TV users because aspect ratio pictures.
I totally relate to overdoing the PPE when first powering something up. I usually end up covering my ears or wearing earplugs too because I am VERY jumpy lmao. I should make a remote air switch or something to ease my nerves.
In commercial work when you power up large panels, you need to wear ear protection, a face shield, high voltage rated boots, and a flame proof suit. You stand clear of where the panel will explode TO if it goes up and you call out to everyone you're going to energize the panel. Look up 'arc flash suit' to see the clothing required; and you can't be wearing any meltable synthetics.
@@Peter_S_ Yeah, I've seen the results of an arc flash and it is not pretty.
Eye protection even on low voltage stuff shouldn't be ignored. I've had MOSFETs explode and have been hit by shrapnel in the face. it's generally not going super fast, but still.
I remember overhauling a motor speed controller back in the '90s after its severely underpowered MOSFETs blew. I made the mistake of forgetting to replace a 1N4004 sandwiched between two big snubbers (resistor / cap in series). I get set up to do the 'light test' where we test it with a function generator in place of the tach and a light bulb for a load in place of the turntable motor. 5 seconds after powering it up a foot-tall flame shoots out of the unit (it came out of the 50-watt brake resistor I'd JUST replaced - the last one we had at hand too). EVERY SINGLE PART I'd just replaced had also blown. It certainly taught me to pay attention when working on high-voltage / hi-amperage electronics and to be careful on the first power-up of same!
@blahblahblahblah2933 better to be extra safe
For a less janky look, how about a new 3D printed case? I'm sure it would have to be several smaller panels that snap together, but then it would look kinda cool like a Lego case. Or maybe just using Lego to start with?
Serious speedrunners and vintage gamers still use CRT TVs because the frame rate is that much better compared to any flat panel.
From now on, I'm calling all sickness "human malware" 🤣 -- glad you're on the mend, and very cool project!
At 29:45 That function is very useful if you have a satellite or cable receiver and you're listening to the radio. You don't want a screen burnout and turning off your screen to listen to radio is the best option. Modern LED TVs like the Horizon brand have this feature. But i recommend to connect stereo speakers if you have a satellite/cable receiver. In some cases you need an SDPIF-COAXIAL to RCA/Jack converter.
It would be really great if one of these Chinese companies put their brand new tubes and yokes up for sale. In combination with this board, It would be a really cool project
Years and years ago I impulse-bought a small cheap CRT TV for under $100 at a local branch of a chain drugstore. It also had a built-in game and I had roughly the same reaction you did!
WOW! that's amazing! will save many CRTs with broken board or Flyback, chip, whatever problem is!. thanks for sharing!
You created a very useful troubleshooting tool for PAL equipment.
Wow that takes me back. I remember a lot of really cheap and small CRTs at the end of their era (early 2000s) had built in games. Also surprised the sets you have aren’t multi standard, may be remembering this wrong but a lot of CRTs back then supported every PAL and SECAM standard at least. Even some higher end VCRs proclaimed NTSC compatibility. Great video, I am surprised nobody has thought to import those Alibaba sets as now it seems you can get about $30-$50 for second hand ones.
I have a Sylvania TV test jig from 1974 with all the jumper cables…. for all the major brands of the day!!! Works well… chassis on the bench with the test jig on the shelve !!!! And you are all set to go 😊😊😊😊 I used it many times!!!
Genius, converting that full-wave bridge rectifier to a voltage doubler! Good stuff!
It just occurred to me as strange that TV's (especially in the later and higher end times) didn't have color bar generators or geometry pattern generators built in for when you're tinkering on the settings or in the factory service menu. Would have helped people trying to dial in their sets. I'm sure my plasmas don't. Back in the day people bought calibration DVDs and such. I don't think modern sets or even monitors do now, either.
I have a CRT TV made by Grundig (uses a Beko K2 chassis) that actually has test patterns built into its service menu, so at least some of them have it, but it's definitely not common.
By then geometry didn't need adjustment unless something went wrong. Unlike the 1970s colour TVs which had about a dozen convergence controls that needed setting right if the set got moved. I recall using my MSX computer to generate a crosshatch to do that, although back then the Test Card got broadcast several hours a day (no breakfast TV at that point).
Unbelievable, that is crazy I would say. It makes me regret for throwing away my old Panasonic TV from 1995 that I had long time ago and knowing that the tube of that tv was actually working and usable was quite a boneheaded decision of mine 🤦🏻♂️. Any way I'm really glad that analog pcbs for tubes like this exist makes really happy and yes they were not the only ones, there others analog pcb's tubes for arcade machines that I saw in others KZhead Channels. Quite fascinated indeed in my opinion.
I like the way you used an NXP post-it note. We still have a sign saying that on the fence near work but it hasn't been NXP since before they moved us there. This project reminded me of when a classmate bought a bargain £99 colour monitor for his BBC micro back in about 1982. The reason it was a bargain is that you didn't actually get a case for that money. What they were selling was surplus video cabinet monitors.
I know India wasn’t a fan of modern TVs for a long time, preferring good old CRT to it, along with PAL signal over any digital ones. (Don’t know if it’s STILL the case, but might be.) That said, I’m a bit disappointed there doesn’t seem to be any way to add a SCART port to it, which is quite indispensable on a retro-TV in France. (And probably a good thing to have on CRT-TVs anywhere in Europe.)
yes Indians love crt I am still using crt bought 20 years ago it's picture tube made in skorea 21inch LG
Monochrome CRTs were still being made in India up until very recently as industrial spares, primarily for older CNC controls like Fanuc ones which use low-frequency VGA. I believe the old Leadwell machine I ran for a while had one of those Indian monitors in it.
There were a few TVs made with game consoles built into them. Magnavox put and Odyssey 300 in one of theirs in 1976 or so. Some others included the Philips CDi, Famicom, PS2, PC Engine, Super Famicom and a TV that looked like an iMAC G3 with a Dreamcast built in. Glad you're recovering well. This board is pretty cool. Too bad they didn't include RGB inputs or SCART.
True. However, these late model boards are not usually difficult to adapt for rgb and a scart input. I agree it would be better if it were available from the factory.
@@jkeelsnc 💯 with you!
VGA / HDMI would have been nice too. Injecting those signals directly into the tube gives much better quality than running the signals from a converter to the composite input.
@@jkeelsncI disagree. The late models were easier to adapt because they almost all used off the shelf all in one chips with datasheets showing vestigial RGB inputs or allowing you to hijack the OSD blanking.
I have this weird CRT TV with a game called "boxman" built in, it's quite interesting. I wonder what other small throw-in games other TVs had? Very interesting to learn that actual game consoles got built in to some models, I suppose they're just the next logical evolution from the integrated DVD player CRTs EDIT: I should watch the whole video before commenting... this TV has the same game!
Hey bud just a thought. I know you said your woodworking skills are zilch. Other KZheadrs will sometimes do a collaboration together so they can share their skills to make something cool. Maybe you could find a woodworking KZheadr that wanted to collaborate with you. Would be cool to watch.
This is the first video I discovered from this channel and thought what is this madman doing!? Still here after more than a year ❤ I've got a couple CRTs around so it's nice to have a backup plan
This is a genuinely cool thing! A great way to bring new life and add functionality to an old CRT
I think it's kind of just-for-fun content. A digital TV box would be much more practical, even though less exciting.
CHUNGHWA is a typical Taiwan brand (from how the spell, if China will become ZhongHua), though it's made in Malaysia.
Adrian you're doing a good thing because you're preventing that television going into e-waste and your recycling it is good for the environment
Well, right after watching this video i ordered one for myself and installed in an old 14" orion tv that had only rf input. I have some bigger trinitrons and two mivar sets (an italian company that made good stuff back then) with rgb input via scart and other fancy thing but every of those tvs come with some sorta of problems. A bigger Trinitron set i own has the shittiest geometry i ever seen (and it's not flat) while the others have grounding issues and are PAL only. Well, with this board and my little orion (used a freshier tube from a Saba set with a Chungwa cinescope) i now have a nearly perfect tiny desk set. The lack of rgb doesnt bother me even if i live in a Scart-main country. The only issue i have with this board is the mono audio but im planning to do a stereo amp mod. I paid 60€ to this beauty and i think it worths every penny. And it's surprisingly plug and play.
At 40:30 B/G: was for Western Europe, former Yugoslavia, South Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, D/K: (along with SECAM usually) in most of Central and Eastern Europe and mainland China. Most analogue CCTV cameras are Standard D I: was used in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Macau L/L': Used only in France, Luxembourg (only RTL9 on channel 21 from Dudelange) and Télé Monte-Carlo transmitters in the south of France M/N: Used in North, Central and South America, Korea. South America also used PAL 60 with M/N. PAL 60 is similar with NTSC 3.58 J: Only used in Japan with NTSC. B/G uses 5.5 MHz Vision/Sound carrier spacing, I uses 6.0 MHz; D/K uses 6.5 MHz; and NTSC uses 4.5 MHz Vision/Sound carrier spacing. After 2000s until digital transition Eastern Europe swtiched from D/K to B/G. I remember the Over The Air analog channels on VHF band used D/K and UHF band used B/G. Cable companies used both formats but in the last years they only used B/G sound format.
North Korea adopted the D/K standard, South Korea NTSC, Pal M was used exclusively in Brazil, Pal 60 is not a broadcast standard - it was used for video playback only -, Pal N was used in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay only.
Hour long repair video on a CRT? Sounds great to me regardless of the results.
New subscriber! Im getting back into CRTs as an adult and absolutely loving it. Looking forward to digging through your videos. Hope to find some service menu walkthroughs and general screen honing!
That actually does look really good after your little trial and error fixes. Great job. Thanks for sharing.
The SRY and SBY are obviously gun blanking to set up tint and chroma. You adjust the tint on blue bars so they match brightness, and chroma on Red bars to match brightness, then go back and forth a couple of times so that both sets are matched, then your tint and colour level will be set perfectly. You didn't mention it but one has to make SURE there is a ground from chassis to tube aquadug . And all that was needed was a picture tube and yoke, maybe from a flood damaged or otherwise non-functional TV.
I suspect the SRY and SBY controls are related to tuning the chroma demodulator. Not 100% sure about the “S” part, but based on what it did to the image, my guess is it’s r-y, b-y color difference signals, possibly gain or offset or something like that. The demod path for color is composite -> color difference + Luma -> CSC(color space conversion) to RGB to feed the tube.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing.
That would also apply to the U.BLK and V.BLK. Since U & V represent the two chroma difference signals.
Googled around for the meanings of SRY and SBY, and found these explanations: SRY Secam black level R-Y axis SBY Secam black level B-Y axis
Good to hear your voice again; it's so pleasant. And as ever an enjoyable topic, not seen on other channels.
23:55 that symbol is the character "double happy" and it's upside down. Sometimes the cross parts are joined singly or doubly, and it's creatively reshaped to fit circles, octagons whatever it's put on as decoration. It's used everywhere. Restaurant names, clothing brands, sweets, fireworks, and especially on wedding paraphernalia to wish abundant happiness to the happy couple.
Definitely do not put that speaker in upside down. it's gonna mess with the color purity on the tube. The shielding for the magnet in that speaker only works for the backside of it. ;) You could instead drill in some holes on the side of the rear case somewhere and hot glue the speaker into the side. You could also find a smaller speaker and hot glue that in where the original went. Might even attempt to put two speakers in to see if it has real stereo or not. :P The fact the TV seems to remember what it's last power on state was when you plugged it back in a few times seems to indicate maybe that board was meant for arcade cabinets. Though those typically have only an RGB input so ... maybe not? :P
Saving the power-on hours (sometimes also temperatures etc.) is rather a warranty spyware to check if the product got abused. See SMART parameters of harddrives etc. Otherwise it can be also abused as obsolescence timer to trigger self-destruction either directly, or more hidden by wearing out the flash memory by bad or missing wear leveling.
I've heard that the new Chinese CRT televisions that the board is used in often use recycled VGA monitor picture tubes. That might be what that picture tube socket is for. It could also just be a normal Philips clone socket, though.
SVGA tubes can have much better TV picture quality due to finer pitch. I was using a Nokia 417TV (low radiation monitor with TV part) for eons, but eventually a fatal power supply design flaw fried half of the electronics (especially TV section) by negative voltage on +12V, and the mechanical construction is a nightmare to repair (PCB soldered into a perforated metal box, brittle plastic case, double sided PCB with SMD components etc.).
It's a worthwhile idea to take up the schematics for analog electronics like CRTs and replace components anyway for preservation work. Things can and will leak or fizzle out, so putting in new ones and making sure to perform patches on any damage you find is basically part & parcel. One can appreciate working on them and rejuvenating tubes for continuing this tech should things go awry with modern in the future and we need something reliable.
i'm techician from indonesia, we use many board like that for last stuff if original board can't repair. But we made many replace for elco, because low quality. The problem for that board was for long time use, because can demage your CRT. Your CRT may decrease quality picture. And also flyback low quality may leak in just 1 year use.
If it actually allows you to turn an NTSC TV into a multi-region TV, that makes this effort make a lot more sense.
One warning, though most replacement chassis these days will feature on board isolation from mains (through switch mode power supply), if you connect some older chassis directly to mains you can have a hot chassis and have to take extreme care in working on as anything "grounded" is actually live with respect to mains. Buying an isolation transformer and using it even with one that doesn't need one is best for working on any CRT chassis to provide extra safety if you are not sure as to its power supply design.
This board has built in isolation, using a switching power supply, otherwise the input connectors would be "hot", not to mention the push buttons up front!
"Hot chassis" is to do with CRT driver design, with older TVs having their CRTs and associated circuitry being driven directly from mains power, hence why Composite-modding those is considered dangerous, but this board is an Isolated chassis design (though, made in china, buyer beware, YMMV, etc.) meaning the power input is not driving anything directly but is, in theory at least, isolated by the input transformer, and high voltages derived through appropriate driver circuits with no reference to mains. Of course, as already alluded to, made in china and said transformers could be, as DiodeGoneWild puts it, super dodgy with poor winding techniques, damage to lacquered wire causing shorts or bridges from hot to cold sides, and just plain being made badly, so, there's that to be aware of...
This isn't Adrian's first rodeo.
never touched a soldering iron but your emotion about something as simple as an image on the screen made me smile again and again
Hi Adrian, great job, as always... 🤟 we're (my friend and I) just scared, what would happen to us back then, when we were repairing our B/W TVs, we learned a lot👍, we're alive, still😂, greetings from PALs from Slovenia, Europe... Keep up with your videos and Commodore😉