View Full Version : CNC Trinitron computer monitor hack


freakaftr8
10-12-2012, 11:12 AM
Hey all, thought this was kinda cool so I posted it here.

About 10 years ago, one of our CNC grinders VGA monitors went up in smoke. So its a 14" and I was trying to find a suitable replacement to fit into the wire frame of the cabinet. So I happen to come across a 14" early 1990's Sony VGA computer monitor. So I hacked the cabinet apart and retrofitted the CRT and mainboard into this thing. And the picture quality is very impressive to this day! Way better than the Tatung crap they put in this machine to begin with. The only obsticle I had to overcome was the flatness of the sides of the CRT. So I fitted in some grey foam. Similar to what they used as a filler between the CRT and plastic frame of the panel to begin with.
The neck of the Trinitron CRT was like 1.5" longer and it just barely fits in the cabinet with the back access door closed. But this Trinitron CRT has been Guess it has to say something about Trinitron quality. The CRT has been run hard for 10 years or more now and never shut off and it's still impressive!
Running at 640x480 resolution.

Just thought id share this. lol

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab17/infinitereality919u6/anca1.jpg

On the other hand the other machine you see here has been through 3 monitors, and this 3rd one looks horrible now. Retrace lines, shrinking horiz, vertical foldover..

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab17/infinitereality919u6/anca2.jpg

BTW if you notice I affixed the SONY label onto the panel and painted it black to match. lol

lnx64
10-12-2012, 12:06 PM
Nice hack!

It looks like the CNC machine runs OS/2, if I'm not mistaken.

freakaftr8
10-12-2012, 12:18 PM
Nice hack!

It looks like the CNC machine runs OS/2, if I'm not mistaken.

Actually it runs a version of unix called qnx.

lnx64
10-12-2012, 12:34 PM
Hmm, I knew QNX was a real time OS made by RIM that was unix like, didn't know they actually had a unix version of it.

freakaftr8
10-12-2012, 02:59 PM
It is qnx. Just an early version of what RIM uses on thier blackberry products.

lnx64
10-12-2012, 03:03 PM
I'm not doubting it's QNX, I believe you.

It's just I think it's Unix "like", but not really Unix. It's missing a lot of what makes Unix, even Unix.

freakaftr8
10-12-2012, 03:10 PM
Very true. I've been I. And out of this system and have learned great knowledge of it over the years. Actually I worked for ANCA in Michigan for a while and learned more abou it then. Mainly software updates and system mods. The such.

Sandy G
10-12-2012, 03:56 PM
We ran into the same stuff end of the 90s-early Aughts when a bunch of the '80s swoopy-hi-tech gizmos' super-duper monitors started bitin' the dust...Big Fun tryin' to find parts for a 15-yr old obsolete "Dedicated" monitor-And a lot of the places we'd bought the stuff from originally had thoughtfully added their own little "Tweaks" so you had to go back to them & buy one at 4-5X the price of a std monitor...An' don't even get me started on Your-A-Peein' stuff...Funky voltages, different scan systems, parts originally sourced from Outer Baluchistan...We had a lot of Swiss & German stuff, & yeah, it IS built somewhat better than our stuff is...And as long as you spend half your production time cleaning & maintaining it like the Krauts or Cheesemeisters do, it prolly won't break down...But if you run it in a "Bop Til You Drop" mode like we did, it WILL take a giant, smelly Crap...And may God have mercy on yr Soul then, boy, if you were the Purchasing Agent who was responsible for keepin' that fancy-pants shyte rollin'...Your-A-Peein's-ESPECIALLY Der Schwiss, DON'T understand the American concept of "Get-R-Done-YESTERDAY, Dammitt !"...And the whole continent of Yoorup goes on Vacation in the summertime...All the Krauts go to France, all the Froggies hop to Der Fodderland..Der Schviss go to the Riviera or Sicily...Rotsa Ruck tryin' to prize a 20 yr old part outta 'em THEN...You'd get to talk to the Assistant Parts Manager, who normally operates the Broom Closet.. Glad THAT part of my life is behind me...(grin)

Reece
10-12-2012, 06:11 PM
Sandy G: :lmao: :lmao: :thmbsp:

StellarTV
10-12-2012, 11:11 PM
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta Tung! I used to deal with the industrial Tatung monitors in the slot machine biz back in Nevada. They would run 24/7 for years at a time 'till the CRTs were absolutely DONE. All the electrolytics were dried up. Yep, all of them, and the casinos would still want the monitors "repaired." When those would come in we'd say, "Looks like we've been Tatung'd!"

Nice work!

wa2ise
10-13-2012, 10:18 AM
We ran into the same stuff end of the 90s-early Aughts when a bunch of the '80s swoopy-hi-tech gizmos' super-duper monitors started bitin' the dust...Big Fun tryin' to find parts for a 15-yr old obsolete "Dedicated" monitor-And a lot of the places we'd bought the stuff from originally had thoughtfully added their own little "Tweaks" so you had to go back to them & buy one at 4-5X the price of a std monitor...

Reminds me of a stupid little company I worked for around 1979. We made machines that would take the video output of a cat scanner in a hospital, and expose it onto Xray film. As doctors back then were used to looking at and handling film and storing it that way too. All this machine was was a modified B&W video monitor (the kind intended for security systems), a lens and shutter, and an electronic controller using an 8060 microprocessor. Not 8080, this was a National Semiconductor 8060. And the mods to the monitor would turn off (blank) the CRT unless a picture was to be captured, and some circuits to allow an exact number of frames to be unblanked. To avoid that banding you get when taking pictures of a CRT TV set showing a picture. I think this company folded years ago, for laughs look at ebay for stuff from "Matrix Instruments". http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matrix-Instruments-Video-Imager-1010-2-/390472989195?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5aea00fa0b

A friend there summed it as "A standard issue job at a typical company that made a boring product".

Sandy G
10-13-2012, 12:14 PM
I worked in a gravure printing plant. We had several 8 color presses-Each "Press" was actually 8 individual single-color presses ganged together, w/a common driveline. Keeping the 8 color jobs in perfect registration-Where all the colors lined up EXACTLY, w/NO over or underlap, was a continual fight. We had ancient machinery, a building that was built circa WW1, & were trying to do this w/1940s-'50s technology. In the eighties, several companies came out w/microprocessor control registration systems that, when they were working PROPERLY, were The Bee's Knees. But after age, wear, etc were factored in, you rarely got "Nirvana" anymore. Management oversold the system's capabilities, & that was also when "Quality" became such a God, as did God's younger brother, Cost Reduction...Our customers wanted more & more for less & less, & each generation of new electronic gizmotrons became more & more complicated & expensive. My company had a proud tradition of NEVER telling a customer No, & we ultimately ended up being squeezed out of business by monopolistic suppliers & equally monopolistic customers. We basically had about 5 or 6 customers, & were only allowed to buy from one or 2 suppliers of each different kind of paper & ink...Ours was an EXTREMELY specialised business...

Einar72
10-13-2012, 05:37 PM
Reminds me of a stupid little company I worked for around 1979. We made machines that would take the video output of a cat scanner in a hospital, and expose it onto Xray film. As doctors back then were used to looking at and handling film and storing it that way too. All this machine was was a modified B&W video monitor (the kind intended for security systems), a lens and shutter, and an electronic controller using an 8060 microprocessor. Not 8080, this was a National Semiconductor 8060. And the mods to the monitor would turn off (blank) the CRT unless a picture was to be captured, and some circuits to allow an exact number of frames to be unblanked. To avoid that banding you get when taking pictures of a CRT TV set showing a picture. I think this company folded years ago, for laughs look at ebay for stuff from "Matrix Instruments". http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matrix-Instruments-Video-Imager-1010-2-/390472989195?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5aea00fa0b

A friend there summed it as "A standard issue job at a typical company that made a boring product".

I think the company I worked for in 1985 used these in the ultrasound console I worked on. Didn't you put a sheet of X-Ray film in a little rectangular holder and stuff it in the hole in front? I remember it made recordings of the open patient file's CRT display info on the film. After the shoot was over, I would take the film holder and stuff the film into the processor and included the resultant filmrecord in each unit's "Jacket" or DHR, for the clinical reviewers to look at. Jeez, I'd forgotten all about that gizmo... Outfit was called ATL Ultrasound at the time, it was the UltraMark 8 (Philips still runs the place today).

wa2ise
10-13-2012, 06:50 PM
Didn't you put a sheet of X-Ray film in a little rectangular holder and stuff it in the hole in front? I remember it made recordings of the open patient file's CRT display info on the film. After the shoot was over, I would take the film holder and stuff the film into the processor and included the resultant film record in each unit's "Jacket" or DHR, for the clinical reviewers to look at.

That was it. This company introduced me to video engineering, but I didn't get to do much except solder wires there. Later on, I got a job at RCA's Smirnoff Lab, and invented a bunch of TV patents.

W3XWT
10-14-2012, 09:38 AM
If the RIM BB OS is derived from UNIX, no wonder RIM is so close to being RIP!

wa2ise
10-14-2012, 09:01 PM
Reception Reports for Channel 37 TVDX Can Not Only Get You a QSL Card, but a One-Way Trip to the Planet Davanna ...

I'd doubt that the Davannan FCC would allocate channel 37. As the Davannan radio astronomers would want to keep that channel clear, just like ours. :D

ischmidt
10-14-2012, 10:29 PM
If the RIM BB OS is derived from UNIX, no wonder RIM is so close to being RIP!

QNX is a custom real-time OS where they later added POSIX compliant APIs. It's not Unix at all. And given RIM's market share evaporated to competitors running BSD UNIX (Apple) and Linux (Android) I don't really get that statement :)

As far as 1980s "embedded" CRT monitors, spare a thought for the guys keeping old arcade games running. Those have the added hazard that the CRT often gets burn-in well before it loses emission, but other than that the problems are quite familiar to VK readers - dead capacitors, shorted horizontal output transistors, and the occasional flaming flyback.

lnx64
10-14-2012, 10:41 PM
Yeah flaming flyback transformer, I sure know about that!