Grump called me on the phone and asked me if I was interested in this beauty for $50 at a garage sale.

Hell yeah! :yippy:

Works perfectly and the kids LOVE it!

So tell me some history on this beauty oh fellow TV connoiseurs :)

That's an interesting set. I didn't know RCA sold a front projection set. What year is it from? Did RCA really make it? I repaired an RCA rear projection from about 1983 that was actually built by Hitachi. I assumed it was one of thier first, but yours looks older. I'm wondering if RCA made projections sets and then stopped for a few years for some reason.

I used to have a Sears (made by Sanyo) like that when I was in high school. It had a nice picture for its age and looked really unusual. It was a trash pick up from the back of a repair shop. It had a bad HOT and a few bad parts in the power supply from someone replacing the fuse with a bigger one. I sold it a few years later when I got a rear projection from the same repair shop. I'd probably bring another one home if I could just for the retro look.

iirc you have a rebadged hitachi.
probably why it still plays.
everyone elses crt's were short lived back then.

Yes, It is a Hitachi. They last just about forever!

I just picked up the same set, and it still works great after a little tweaking. Does anyone know if it is possible to replace the crts if they fail, or if its possible toupgrade the crts. The TV is a rebadged hitachi manufactured in 1982, the lenses measure 6" across. any help is greatly appreciated
thanx :banana:

Projection CRTs from the 80's to the early 90's are mostly pretty similar. There are a few different mounting methods, and maybe two common deflection angles, but apart from that it shouldn't be too hard to find CRTs that will work in it. Hopefully it uses air, or liquid coupled CRTs. Some sets used a block of clear sticky jelly which would have to be replaced with the CRTs.

iirc that set uses a common type of crt's
they just bolt to the lense/heatsink assy.

any idea what crts I could use and where I might be able to find them, again thanx for your help

any idea what crts I could use and where I might be able to find them, again thanx for your help
i have some here.
i need to know the mounting hardware and length from face to end of socket.
the pinout hasnt changed on those hitachi tubes iirc.
i have several good low hours sets from lightning damaged sets.

crts measure 11" from face to board and mounted with 4 screws top screws are 6" across from each other same as bottom 2. Let me know how much you would want for a set . Also I seem to be having problems with slight colour saturation, do you know if there is another way to focus the lenses besides the wingnuts on the top, do the screws on the bottom do anything to do with focus?
thanx

take a pic of the mounting hardware to be sure.
those wingnuts are optical focus.
you will find a block with 6 pots
a focus and g2 for each tube.
btw a good cleaning of everything in the light path often makes a big improvement.

An easy way to tell how much use the CRTs have had is to remove the lenses and look at how much phosphor burn there is. A new CRT will all be the same color, but an old one will have a brown area where the raster is. If there's only a small amount of burn in, the CRTs should have a lot of life left. These old front projectors seem to be very easy on CRTs. I've seen well used ones that still put out a good picrure after cleaning and adjustment.

I am in the process of taking off the lenses to clean everything, I just got zapped adjusting the drive on one of the crts, going to be a little more careful from now on cuz it hurt real bad. Anyways I dont see the pots on the crts but they do have a drive adjust and screen adjust on them, I also found the convergence board with 18 adjuster knobs on it. The top row is labeled for the geometry of the screen, the bottom row is labeled R1180, R1181, etc... What exactly do these ones do, I'm hoping to fix the slight blurriness. I will take a picture of the tubes for you kc8adu next week sometime, I need to wait for payday so I can get a much needed digital camera. I would like to have a backup set of crts just incase.

hi, i sold a lot of those sets new. they do seem to last forever. i have 2 now. had a coulpe flybacks to go south. and the verticle module is notorius for going out. most of the time you can resolder it. it has smd parts on it. and it has a coulpe of caps that go bad. the first one i stocked cost me wholesale $2650.00
back in 1981.
steve

had a customer bring a pfr100 to the shop after a lightning strike. he did not take the screen off. he had no tailgate on his truck. well he met a semi truck and the wind sucked it out of the back of the truck. here it went sliding down the highway on its front. but it stayed together and i fixed it. the cabinet looked rough but those things are made to last. stev

rcaman do you know what the R11** knobs do on the convergence board? How is the quality on the 2 sets that you still own? What kind of quality can I expect with the right tweaking?

OK, I took the lenses off and am going to give them a good cleaning, can I clean the glass on the crts, and if so what should I use. Anyways I can see the raster which is slightly brown, almost rectangular in shape, the blue crt seems to have the lightest brown area, is this area the burn? other than the brown I don't see anything that looks like a burn within that area.

Ok the blue crt is a 4 and the other 2 are a 5 on this webpage http://home.centurytel.net/rshannon/AVS/crtburn.htm, so it looks like I will probably be wanting to replace them sooner than later.

i always cleaned them with windex. they do play better with clean lenses and crt faces.

hi, i would have to locate my schematic. the 2 sets i have were heavy used, to me they dont have a good picture. but i am used to watching a 61" hdtv now. in terms of the technology of that ere i guess they still do pretty good. havent turned them on in a long time. they were a sight to see when new. steve

by the way i never had to replace a crt in those sets. hitachi didnt run their tubes a hot as the competition did. i used to have an ad that touted hitachi projection sets will last 7 times longer than the mitsubishi sets. mga ran their tubes almost to the max. in 87 i was hitachi,s biggest projection dealer in the memphis tn. distribution area.

I've heard a couple of people say that these sets last forever, reasuring to hear it from someone who sold them. They are built like a tank. How easy is it to change a crt, I have a basic understanding of electronics and have heard that crts can hold a charge for a very long time and am afraid of getting electrocuted. Any chance I could get you to scan your schematic if you can find it? Thanx for all your help

I have one last thing to ask, I am having a slight problem getting the convergence right, would it be possible for someone who owns one of these tvs to take a picture of the convergence board so I can see the proper position of the convergence pots. It is located under the top panel on the left hand side.

The positions of the convergence pots will vary from set to set, so a picture of another set won't help. They have to be adjusted for the exact CRTs, yokes, lenses and mirror position in your set. You have to adjust things in the correct order because the control interact. If you've never done it before, it would be a good idea to find the convergence instructions of a projection TV. They are all pretty similar once you know what to do.

The basic steps are:

1. Turn off the red and blue and adjust the green for good size and geometry.
2. Turn on the red, or blue and adjust along the center line for a well converged 'plus' sign across the screen.
3. Put up a full cross hatch and adjust for corect size and linearity along the center lines.
4. Adjust for best convergence in the corners.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until it's as close as it can get.
6. Repeat 2-5 for the remaining color.

If you replace a CRT you will also have to adjust the centering and rotation on the deflection yoke.

It's not that bad, but you need something to tell you what all the controls do. You can't get good results by randomly tweeking to pots.

I have the avia home theatre dvd with the convergence test patterns, but as you say I am not sure what the pots do exactly, would these be the same for most projection tv's.
here are the pots:

H-SIZE H-LIN V-BOW H-BOW V-LIN V-SIZE H-SKEW H-KS V-KS
R1191 R1182 R1183 R1158 R1157 R1136 R1137 R1141 R1121

* * * * * * * * *

R1190 R1180 R1181 R1160 R1159 R1138 R1139 R1255 R1120

* * * * * * * * *

The functions of those pots are pretty much the same on all projection TVs. I don't have time right now to describe all of them, but I will post back later.

you need a plumb bob and level
the level lets you stretch a string exactly level across the center of the screen.
the bob does the same vertically.
use these as a reference when setting the green geometry as perfectly as possible.
once you get the green perfect you adjust the red nd blue to it.
think of the controls as size,width center,lin ect.forget what you know about old delta gun work for now.
cover red or blue and work on getting it one with the green.
repeat for the other.
take your time and it should come out near perfect.

using string is a great idea, I was thinking that I would have to use tape, but I like the string idea. I noticed when messing with the pots that the green moved on its own, and the blue and red moved with the same pots, is this normal? It sounds about right from what you guys are saying. Anyways thanx a lot for the help its really appreciated.

OK, so i've measured the screen and attached a string cross hatch to it, i'm using the convergence test patterns on the avia dvd and I am noticing a couple of things, first this tv has a curved screen tilted forward so I am not sure how to take the keystoning into account when I measure the screen, up close the 4 sections look even, but from a distance they don't look right. The second is when I adjust the convergence I can get it right on one side but the other side is off. I ve figured out that the top row of 9 pots is for the red and blue, while the bottom row of 9 is for the green. There are 3 more pots inside the tv under the green crt, they are very hard to get at, and I no longer feel very comftorble sticking my hand in there with the tv on since I got shocked adjusting the drive on the blue crt.

i forgot to tell you. there is a slide switch on the convergence alignment board. flip it and you have a full crosshatch screen when you push the align button on the front panel. my 2 sets does not have great convergence. but i have seen some that had great convergence. good luck steve

theres a service switch on the signal powerboard, which when flicked puts a line across the screen, I don't see an align button on the front panel, I did notice a black unlabled button at the top of the front panel, but this seems to just kill the power.

sorry forgot to tell you. when you open the door to the controls there is a long black cover that is covering the finetuning controls and the customer convergence controls. your switch is located there. i just assumed you had already adjusted those. steve

forgot to tell you that set was only made 2 years. the next model was pgr100 it had a catv switch and slightly different lenses on it. pioneer used a version of this set . the next year went to rear projection with the same chassis but with electronic tuning. heavy as hell . god luck steve

RCAMAN, you just made my day, I had no idea those other controls existed under there. thank you

Just fired up my parents' 1981 pfr100 and it runs better then I thaught. The source I am using is a DVD trought the video RCA jack. Just finished to adjusting it and still have two problems:

1 - picture has a shadow that leans to the left and jitters (looks like one of the two interlaced frames is ok but the second one just jitters to the left). When it warms up, the picture gradualy re aligns in an upward motion. Tends to stay a litle jiterry at the very top edge but not very noticable. How can I find the source and fix it? Is this going to get worst?

2 - Picture is off center by about 1 to 1.5 inches and the left portion of the image is out of frame. It has been like that from day one, remember noticing it many years ago and getting greef for for finding a defect on a new TV. Where can I adjust for it? it's not a mirror or screen problem, everything is well in line.

Allready tried the knobs on the large convergence board. Cant center image. Any one know what the following pots do? I've found 2 on the conv board labeled "keystone balance" and "voltage adj". Two more on the board at the back of each gun, and found a few more very hard to reach on either side of the board located under the front control panel, under the controls that have a secret cover on them Anyone knows what they can do... please jump in!

Thanx,

Peter M

I have a 1984 sear front projection unit I just picked up. I will post the model number hwne I get home along with a picture. My question on this was it has the aluminum looking screen the picture is pretty ok however It is a little hot whites are super bright and everything almsot looks a little fuzzy brite. Anyone have any advice on how to clean up the image a little bit?

Those Do work forever! I know someone who has one (a similar mirror-flopdoor or Front Projection PGR-100WR), and it's only ever needed a vertical module. These are rebadged Hitachis. They have two solder-in modules; power regulator and vertical output. Both have ceramic boards with surface-mount components (an early attempt!!!). Never seen one with bad CRTs, but then again I haven't seen one of those sets lately.

Charles

The big problem with those was bad soldering on the ceramic modules. I had a rear projection set given to me probably 15 years ago with no vertical. I resoldered the module and it was still going last time I hear about 3 years ago. The original owner had constant vertical problems with it that no one was ever able to fix (the vertical module was replaced at least once).

Just fired up my parents' 1981 pfr100 and it runs better then I thaught. The source I am using is a DVD trought the video RCA jack. Just finished to adjusting it and still have two problems:

1 - picture has a shadow that leans to the left and jitters (looks like one of the two interlaced frames is ok but the second one just jitters to the left). When it warms up, the picture gradualy re aligns in an upward motion. Tends to stay a litle jiterry at the very top edge but not very noticable. How can I find the source and fix it? Is this going to get worst?

2 - Picture is off center by about 1 to 1.5 inches and the left portion of the image is out of frame. It has been like that from day one, remember noticing it many years ago and getting greef for for finding a defect on a new TV. Where can I adjust for it? it's not a mirror or screen problem, everything is well in line.

Allready tried the knobs on the large convergence board. Cant center image. Any one know what the following pots do? I've found 2 on the conv board labeled "keystone balance" and "voltage adj". Two more on the board at the back of each gun, and found a few more very hard to reach on either side of the board located under the front control panel, under the controls that have a secret cover on them Anyone knows what they can do... please jump in!

Thanx,

Peter M

EASY ONE if the image is good on the CRT faces, but out of center on the screen! Loosen the locknuts at each gas strut (rods that hold the mirror door open), and screw the larger barrel of each strut in or out to center the projected picture. Don't forget to re-snug the locknuts or your adjustments will be out again shortly :nono:

Charles

Thanx Kaye,
The image looks pretty centered on the CRT... Ouch that was bright! I tried adjusting the mirror struts as you described but the mirror assembly is too stiff. It wont warp enough to allow the image to center. Any other suggestions?

** Update: I've hoocked up my laptop ang got a nice frame on the screen. Turns out taht even on the CRTs the image is missing on the left side and obviously off center. Any other suggestions?

Andy: Can you give me a disciption of the boards that generaly need resoldering? I'd love to get rid of that jitter during warm-up. According to a chart inside the cover I have the following to choose from:
-remo-con pwb
-selector pwb
-signal pwb
-control /if pwb
-power def pwb
-convergence pwb

Also does anyone know how to adjust alll those knobs inside the TV? Any image service procedure floating out there? Does anyone know what Hitachi model is the equivalent... could be a source for service manuals.

Peter