I'm going to be picking up a Sony KV-27TS27 set in the next few days.

In around 1993, it got a rebuilt Sears CRT, and looked awful all these years. I dont think the installer went to any trouble to set it up. It has splotchy color and is dark. The person giving it to me used it in a spare bedroom, so I know it has seen little use.

I dont plan to keep the whole set, and have nothing to test the CRT other than running it on a known good chassis.

I am thinking about keeping the CRT as a spare for my KV-27TS32. I dont have the set close enough yet to find out the CRT number, but I think it is a replacement for mine. My TS32 is starting to blink on start-up, so I know I am on borrowed time with it.

A68JMT50X is the early one, without a built-in radiation shield (uses an external one) A68KZJ50X is the update, and it has one built in, but for the sake of a place to mount the degaussing coils, you can keep the external shield in place. The KV-27TS27 had the KZJ originally, but I can't remember whether the 27TS32 did as well. The model number being larger isn't necessarily newer, and I can't remember which board & tube the 27TS32 had.

Not to be negative, but I am 100% prejudiced against ANY rebuilt Sony 27" tubes. They never converge right, and there is always a purity blotch.

Charles

Thanks, Charles.

I think I might try to just hook up the CRT to my chassis and see what happens after I am sure what it is.

I never knew anyone was rebuilding Trinitrons. Back in the early 1980's, the rebuilder we used in Chicago offered a bounty of some free rebuilds to anyone who could get Sony to sell new guns for rebuilding. I guess they eventually did, or someone else figured them out. (Or, did it have to wait for the Trinitron patent to expire?)

When I worked for a distributor (Cain Electronics) in the early 80's., we would get rebuilt 470BEB22 Trinitrons from Channel Master and Sony. The Sony rebuilds had an odd warranty period - 10 months. With the Channel Master tubes, you had to send the dud before you got the rebuild. They painted a white ring around the HV connection, and had red paint in the neck funnel area, something the originals and Sony-rebuilds didn't. I remember our warehouse manager opening up a newly received Channel Master rebuilt Trinitron and placing it on a workbench to look it over. If I can find my pricing guide, I'll know what Channel Master was asking for a rebuild. Our Sony price was about 229 dollars, then went up to 249 in 1984/5.

The only other Trinitron tube I ever saw replaced was one in a multi-format set. The owner bought it in New Zealand, and had us convert it for Northern Hemisphere. Sony had a kit - CRT, yoke, and a couple of coils, along with multi-lingual instructions with clear electronic instructions, but "Engrish" mechanical instructions - "Put envelope in receiver to associate approximately centered on mounting flags" or something like that. I've got an OLD copy of the instructions (on old curled-up electrostat paper) and still laugh at the instructions.

Cheers,

It's been many years since I looked inside of this Sony I am getting. I replaced capacitors in the audio section, and a tiny stand-up module that was famous for failure. I saw the label on the CRT at that time. Have not touched it since, but have only seen it turned on occasionally. We'll see.

Anybody know who was doing Sears rebuilds around 1990-1994? I did Sears service through this time, and had some real lulu's for rebuilt CRT's.

It's been many years since I looked inside of this Sony I am getting. I replaced capacitors in the audio section, and a tiny stand-up module that was famous for failure. I saw the label on the CRT at that time. Have not touched it since, but have only seen it turned on occasionally. We'll see.

Anybody know who was doing Sears rebuilds around 1990-1994? I did Sears service through this time, and had some real lulu's for rebuilt CRT's.

By the 90s, most of the smaller rebuilders were absorbed by VDC, which is as far as I know, the only one left. I have the feeling that Sears might have used VDC, unless they imported from the many Mexico plants.

Charles

Empire Video (absorbed by VDC) was still independent in the early 90's. Dunno if they did rebuilds for others, but given the market, I'd be surprised if they didn't.

1988 seemed to be the watershed year for CRTs - sets got really cheap, and upgrades to bigger screens, remote control, and MTS stereo led a lot of folks to buy new sets, rather than replacing the CRT in their old set.

Dad did an average of 2 CRT replacements a month in the mid-80s, and maintained that average through the 90's, thanks to the A63/A68 rebuilt CRTs being cheap to get. Post-2000, maybe 2 CRT jobs a year.

Cheers,

When I had my shop in the early 1980's until 1991, when I started at Sears (and moved to another state,) I could count on one hand the number of CRT replacements I did. At Sears, they were common repairs. We did 36" CRT replacements in the customers home very often. These were always 2-man jobs, at least.

I'll be getting the Sony this weekend. Then, we'll see whats up with it.

the only good rebuilt sony crt's i have ever seen were from vdc.they had a high bounty for rebuildable duds esp 330ab22.and the 710.
i had access to tons of them on a job where new ones were bought and sony didnt want the duds.the rebuild always showed just as good as an original but were hard to get perfect convergence on.they really made you work for it.