Expected lifetime of new TV sets
 

Was talking to a Chinese friend I've known for years. He bought an HDTV LCD set. He said it was good enough until they come out with better and bigger and cheaper in a few years. He expects it to die in a couple years. I told him Americans were used to expecting 15 years out of a TV set, before it fails so badly as to need to be tossed. He was kind of surprised to hear this.

No, he doesn't know anyone back "home" in the TV industry...

That's a far cry from the Chinese fellow who was taking a 20-mile round trip
on a fragile homemade raft to rescue a CRT-type TV from his badly damaged
house after the earthquake earlier this year. I guess this shows that all
the Chinese are equal, but some are more equal than others...

Good night.

As I sit here writing this, I have 3 of those little 8" RCA sets from about 1956 staring back at me, as well as a Philco Safari which'll turn 50 next year, IIRC. A Sony 5-303W from '63 or so sits perkily on the mantle, an eager little puppy of a TV, ready to go on the next adventure. All work. Then we have the Color sets-2 KV-4000 series sets, one w/the AM/FM/tape recorder gizmo built in. IT doesn't work, but the TV section ? Fine. They're 1982 models. The only TV in here that DON'T work is my big Zenith Roundie, 'cause I can't take it down to Terry's...In the other room I have a '48 7" Admiral that works-Not too well, but I think it works about as good as they ever did. Somehow I don't think the hi-falutin' rootin'-tootin' new LCD & plasma video display devices-it pains me to call them "televisions"- will be around in 40, 50, 60 years...But if whoever gets my Admiral after I go Tango Uniform takes care of it, I see no reason why IT-and all the rest of my obsolete technology TVs-won't work indefinately.

if they go much past the warranty period you have bought you a decent set. most everything out there is crap. not sony or sanyo toshiba you can fix those. my pick is the sanyo, great relations with them at a service center standpoint. parts are here in 2 days and we are paid within a week. steve

I have two 19" solid-state TVs, a Zenith Sentry 2 (1995) and an RCA CTC185 (1999), that still work as well as when they were new. :thmbsp: The Zenith has never had any service work done on it (still has the original CRT, which I think is great considering that 1995 was right in the middle of the time frame when Zenith TVs were showing up right and left with defective tubes; the failure mode was usually shorting, which would often take out most of the video circuitry).

The RCA, also with its original CRT and a beautiful picture, has only had two small (but not cheap) repairs in its eight years, when the RF port for the antenna/cable snapped off the tuner PCB twice (within the space of a year or so--I still have the receipts from the repair shop that did the work). I believe the technician who repaired the second occurrence of the RF port problem also resoldered the ground points on the onboard tuner, which was a major trouble spot on RCA TVs from the 1990s through about 2003, as the set has been working like a champ for some years now. I expect both sets to be around to see the analog TV stations sign off and the digital channels come on next year.

I never got too much in the habit of collecting older TVs (kinda wish I had, but then again with the upcoming digital bastardization I hardly see the point in it now). I used to have a 1965 vintage GE 12" which worked great for TVDXing and was pretty much all I used it for. Now I have 2 90s vintage BPC rigs: a Sony and a Sylvania. Both 27" CRT's and both work like new (and I bought them used at pawn shops for about $60 each).

I have a 2 year old Emerson 19" LCD set in my building with a believed to be bad LCD screen. I see no evidence that the set has been dropped. It's just a made in China piece of garbage. I've also got a 32" RCA SDTV (2006) that I just ordered a flyback for. The customer reviews for the RCA are not good to say the least. Some of these sets are not even lasting the warranty and most are dying right after the warranty. I believe my particular RCA model was a Wal-Mart exclusive (what does that tell you). I'm getting more and more "donations" from the local TV shop that are only 2-3 years old. Many of these sets are not worth repairing for whatever reason. Once upon a time, I would have been happy to have a fairly late model TV given to me. Now, I get them all the time and most of them are junk.

OTOH, I have in daily use:

1. 1980 RCA 19" XL100 color TV (CTC97 chassis)
2. 1977 Zenith CCII 17" (17JC55 chassis)
3. Mid '80's Sony 19" mono color TV
4. Mid '90's BPC Sharp 13" color TV in the kitchen
5. Early '90's BPC Sharp 19" color TV
6. 1969 Zenith 23" tube-type B&W floor model as my "shop" TV

All of the above are still going strong and I'm sure they'll be much easier to repair when they do give trouble.

The modern stuff is just designed to work and then die. No repair needed! (or possible as we all know :thumbsdn:) Too bad they don't work for very long!

In daily use, I have these sets: 1979 Zenith System 3 25", 1980 RCA ctc97, 1982 GE 17AC, 1987 MGA/Mitsubishi 13", 1977 KV1712 Sony, 1999 KV35S40 Sony.

Also use my b&w and color portables from time to time. They range from 1965-1988, most USA built. I do have a few nonworking sets, but they'll be fixed eventually.

I've had the same Mitsubishi t.v. since 1985 or so. Only had one service call on it. Forget the exact model number but it even has a wood cabinet.

Mitsubishis were a very expensive set back in '85. They usually stood the test of time. The CRTs did at least. I remember working on a 1991-ish Mitsu for a friend and a ton of p/s caps were just plain bad.

...

From my experience the best CRT sets were made in the early 1980s. Solid state had just taken over and manufacturers had not figured out how to cheapen the designs yet. My mothers 1980 Sears/Sanyo still works fine except for dirty controls. I enjoy bringing the old tube sets back to life, but do not believe they are as reliable as the solid state ones.

As for the flat screens, I do not have one yet, but I do have a 5 year old LCD monitor that has given absolutely no trouble. I see no reason that flat screens(at least LCD ones) should not last as long as CRTs do.

I think Mitsubishi TV's started using bad electrolytics sometime in the late '80's. I've had some that had so many bad caps that leaked and ate the foil on the board that I finally gave up on them. I don't think I've ever seen a bad CRT in a Mitsubishi.

On tube sets: I think the most reliable ones were Zenith "handcrafted" sets. Most of the others were built on PC board chassis and we all know what 25 years of heat will do to a PC board. I used to find a lot of Zenith tube sets back in the '90's and most only needed a few tubes and adjustment to produce a good picture.

I'll agree that many solid state sets of the '80's were reliable. I still get many that only need minor repair. My nieghbor has an '89 RCA (CTC149) that has seen hard use and I recently had to replace a cap in the power supply. That was the only repair made to that set. Not bad for almost 20 years!

Does this also apply to my 25" RCA CTC-121 chassis? The FCC-ID code shows it was designed in 1983 but my set was made on Janauary 1984.

As far as I know from Consumer Reports, in the early 80s, Sony and Mitsubishi tied #1 in reliability back then. Then Panasonic took over after 1985 and stayed #1, until 2003 when Sony, Sanyo, and Toshiba are now more reliable than Panasonic after more than 20 years of absence. I wonder what caused the Panasonic CRT reliability to drop after 2003.

I do not know about RCAs. The ones I can comment on(other than Sears/Sanyo) are Zenith and Mitsubishi. I have a small Zenith color set from around 1984 that is still going. The only repair that it has ever needed (new power supply diodes) was due to lightning. I also had a Mitsubishi set from that era that lasted at least 16 years until lightning struck the power lines and destroyed an unavailable microprocessor chip(not a great loss as the red gun was weak and smearing by that time).

I was recently asked to fix a later model 36" Panasonic CRT flat screen. All that was wrong was the AC fuse and the chassis appeared to be much better quality than the '80's and '90's Panasonics. The ones from the '80's and '90's usually had bad flybacks, a ton of bad solder connections, and weak CRT's (mainly on the 19" and larger sets). Panasonic made a chassis for GE that was to be used in 25" sets from the mid '80's. It's the one that used the TLF14423F flyback (I know some of you old TV men know what chassis I'm talking about). Every one of those I ever got had a bad flyback, weak CRT, loose connections, or a combination of the three. I finally got to the point that I would not go any further if I discovered that chassis in a set.

Here, our 1982 Zenith System 3 is still going, sometimes she shows her age a little but she is still as good as the day we got her. I also have a 1964 VT-110 Sony B&W set too. I still have a 1970 Zenith Chromacolor I'd like to get back into action. Come to think of it, one of our Olympic runners, he's a Somalian refugee from Kenya, his inspiration was running several miles to the only B&W TV Set around to watch the Sydney 2000 games. On another forum I'm on, Free Republic, I talked to someone that still uses a 1976 Zenith Chromacolor II he bought new.

Were all the Panasonic/Quasar sets from the 80s and 90s you serviced were assembled in Canada or Mexico? Maybe that's why the solder connections were poor. I have a Made in Japan 1985 Panasonic CT-130V TV/VCR combo, and the TV solder connections look very solid, tight, and beautiful to me. This one was the first 13" TV/VCR combo ever made in history and weighs a ton. Do you think a Made in Japan Panasonic/Quasar set used a better flyback?

I think most of those Matsushita chassis that I hated were assembled in Mexico. Your 13" TV/VCR combo from '85 probably is a high quality unit if it was made in Japan. I do know that Matsushita built stand alone VCR's from the mid '80's were well made and would often last for years without trouble. We had a Magnavox branded Matsushita VCR from the mid '80's and it lasted for years.

One reason flyback failures might have been so common around here is because of the high humidity. I have replaced a ton of flybacks and HV triplers that would break down and start arcing and burning.

In the early 1980s, I bought a Sony KV-1311CR monitor to use with my new Commodore Amiga. Basically a nice color TV with extra I/O connections.

As soon as Commodore started producing monitors, that TV became our daily watcher for years. It has remained in continuous use since then, and now sits on a corner of my office desk, where I watch it every day. Looks and works like new, although I eventually wore out the factory remote.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

One thing I think is sometimes overlooked is communications.

Not that long ago, if there were lots of problems with things, word didn't always get around. Now, with the internet being so prevalent, we get knowledge of problems from all over the world.

So, is stuff really worse in terms of failure percentage of units produced? Or, does it just seem that way because word travels fast and far these days?

I use a Commodore 1702 monitor as a color TV in my room and it doubles as a display for the Playstation. Since it has no tuner, I use a Zenith DTT-900 ATSC tuner for TV. It has an excellent picture.

yes there is a lot of pure crap out there now. rca & philips is one of them . steve

Perhaps, but I'd still like to see some real failure rate info like R/100 et al.

...

So far I am not all that impressed with new televisions, I Picked up a 42' Sony Grand Wega this week and considering that this was $2000+ brand new in 2004, I would have expected it to last longer without needing a major repair. So here it sits till I feel like paying $400 for a replacement "optical block". Maybe I expect a little too much, but considering that I have equipment from the 70s that still works flawlessly, and a old Sears 19 inch color set that still works perfect....

Well, the jury is out here with an LCD TV (Sharp 19" Aquos--a little over a year old), but when a TV can last longer than my venerable Panasonic 12" color TV (vintage 1985 and dropped twice with NO DAMAGE!) that will be an LCD TV that I can believe in.

My 1702 monitor is still in service, too. Our kids have logged countless hours on it with various game machines.

Phil

What's your most favorite of all that peaked in reliability? Provide the brand and model number.

Modern TV's aren't really expected to last five years.

I've found Toshiba TV's from the late 80's up to 1990 are easy to fix. They had red/brown caps that are almost always bad, and replacing them makes the tv work perfectly.

I also recently found a 1987 JC Penny TV with a "Chungwa" picture tube in it. This TV works fine in spite of being over 20 years old. Whoever "Chungwa" is, they made a decent CRT.

I had a '96 RCA 13 inch tv with a ChungWa crt in it. Agreed, it looked very vivid and sharp.

I had two Zenith 13" portable color TVs, one from 1979 and the other from the early eighties, that lasted well over ten years with no service whatsoever (except to repair the detent UHF channel selector on the '79 Zenith L1310C) and were still working when I got rid of them before I moved in 1999. I also had a Zenith 12" b&w solid-state portable TV I bought new in 1978. That set worked, again with no service whatsoever done on it, for 22 years and was still working like new (except for the detented UHF channel selector breaking and jamming the tuner on one station--just my luck, a blank channel in my area [!]) when I got rid of it in 2000. I still have a Zenith SMS1917SG Sentry 2 19" color TV with 13 years on it, absolutely great picture (I swear it's better than the RCA CTC185 in the living room), original CRT, and no service work ever being done on it.

To the poster who mentioned "Chungwa" branded CRTs: If I were a betting man (I'm not), I'd bet those tubes were rebadged and actually were Zenith, Moto (Motorola), RCA, or some other well-known brand. Whatever they were, it seems to me as if the one in your TV was made to perform extremely well and to last. Just goes to show that not all products from Japan, China, Korea, et al. are junk.

Chungwa is a Taiwanese manufacturer and has made all of their CRT picture tubes. They are not rebadged.

Orion also made good 13" CRTs

the most unreliable set i have EVER worked on is a 1989 Loewe 32 inch console, it first came with a bad flyback, then i think it bounced back like 10 times in a year, everytime with a different, nasty fault, then the CRT developed a short and the whole thing went to the landfill.

another dog was a 1988 36 inch Grundig console, but this one had a lot of problems due to previous bad repairs.

some mid 80s Philips sets with FST tubes had a very reliable chassis (the System4) but the CRTs got poor focusing early in their life.

Yesterday our town held its semiannual recycling event. It's illegal here to throw TVs, computers, or other electronics in the garbage, so you have to pay a fee to recycle them. I brought an SUV load of stuff, including an old computer and a trashed Sears color TV.

At the TV area, there were an amazing number of late-model TVs. They stacked them about five high and three wide on a pallet, shrink-wrapped it, and loaded the pallets into a semi trailer with a forklift. There must have been a couple of hundred TVs in that trailer, and this was only halfway through the day. There were several ginormous projection TVs waiting to be loaded, too.

Phil Nelson

Probably all that will be shipped to one of those recycling sites in India or China. Where they don't worry about toxic waste getting into their environment or their kids... :thumbsdn:

Agreed that the late 70s and 80s sets are some of the best in terms of reliability.

I am still amazed at my old RCA 12" B&W portable. The set was manufactured in December, 1983, was used in my nursery, it became "mine" when I was about 7 or 8 and of course, I used to like to play with it (turning it on-off-on-off, etc.) it's been dropped at least once (a light fall from my bed when my mother was moving furnature, I think she might have wanted to break it...), moved around all over the place, blah, blah, blah and it still works like a charm...with no service whatsoever ever having been performed during its entire 23 year lifespan. Plus too, it was my daily watcher from...when I began watching TV until about a year ago.

Unfortunately, the old beast is beginning to show its age. That picture tube is dying an ugly death. It's still fully functional though. I see no reason why, with a new tube it wouldn't work another 20+ years.

most 80s tvs are pretty reliable actually . As far as old tube sets , well they are nice to tinker with and watch a old movie on now and then but i dont use them as daily watchers . Modern tvs are built cheap however the prices on flat screens have come down a lot and you do get several years out of them before they break down , then there is a newer set out there and the average consumer just throws the old set up and buys the newest thing on the market. Except for warrenty work i dont see much of anyone getting tvs fixed . My friend out in Greensburg PA has been a tv repairman for 45 years and he rairly gets a set in for repair unless its a warrenty repair .

Well it finally happened, I saw one of them new flat TVs on the curb. It was an Akai LCD set, not a small one either. I have no interest in these sets so I just walked past it. But it didn't stay there for long, after I got only about a block away I looked back and saw a couple of guys picking it up.

Currently my sets range from 1946-1970, and I just have no interest in sets from the 90s and up, I like some sets from the 70s and 80s but the cheaper cabinets from that era tend to put me off of those sets. With already 25 or so sets in a 1 bedroom apt., I decided to lay off the later model sets just to conserve space for the earlier stuff I like better. But someday if I get more space I might get back into the 70s sets, or if I ever find one of those 4-tube Zeniths with SC in a nice classy real wood console. With all us old tv guys saving them, I bet in 10-20 years from now there will be more sets left around from the 40s, 50s, and 60s than the 70s-today.

Yeah, I also went to the local dump here, to dispose of an old fridge, when I decided to snoop around the TV area. Most of the sets were of the 1992-01 era for some reason. I was amazed, because they didn't look that old. I did see something that caught my eye, it was an early 1970's 25" Motorola Quasar hybrid console. After talking to the attendant at the landfill, I convinced him to let me have the tubes out of it, since they were gonna crush it anyway. So, I got a free 6LF6, and two other tubes out of it. this tv appeared to have only 3 tubes, wierd.