Funai Longevity
 

I'm curious - what's the longest running Funai set y'all have seen?

I'm asking this because I've stumbled upon a lot of fairly new yet broken Funai products in the last month.

My neighbor's Magnavox DVD/VCR combo died last week, just refused to power up again - it was 2 years old. Three days later I'm telling my brother about it, he has the exact same unit, and he presses the power button and nothing happens - that one was one year old. Both had seen limited use.

I was given a Magnavox 13" color TV with the DVD player, made Dec 2005, hadn't turned on in over a year. Couldn't get it to power on, fuse wasn't blown, just pitched it as it was filthy from sitting in a warehouse.

Now, my own Durabrand 27" set from 2005 is starting to get the bends in the picture.

They're all crap from what I've seen. Maybe 4 or 5 years.

I don't think I've seen a Funai TV over 5 or 6 years old that was still working. Most don't last that long. Cold solder joints, low grade caps, flyback failures, vertical deflection failures, etc. are the norm. My church had a 19" Funai built set that was used for maybe 1.5 hours every Sunday as a broadcast monitor. After about a year, they hit the power button and it fired up and shut down. They gave me the set and I found a shorted scan diode feeding the 200 volts to the video output circuit. The diode was a little glass 1N34 looking device. Not what you'd expect to see in a scan circuit. And, they generally don't take a power surge very well. Also, the power supplies are not protected; thus, often frying the rest of the set when they run wild and send several hundred volts through the rest of the chassis. I will say that I've never seen a bad CRT in one.

Their VCR's are even worse. I rarely see one over 2 years old that's still working. Many don't make it to one year.

I've resurrected a battered 9-inch combo set made in 1997, where it's AC power supply was completely dead. Turns out it was a bad cap, but the PS board could pass for extra crispy (burned looking) especially around the cluster of resistors. The only thing decent on those sets are the Samsung CRTs.

Funai's DVD players seem to defy the odds in reliability, but that's not saying much for a plastic fantastic box.

When I find my stopwatch, I'll go to the store any buy a Funai, set the watch, and turn the TV on... I'll report back in a minute or two from then :)

Charles

What about older Funai products? i know they're around since at least the late 60s but they were mainly making simple things like radios and tape players back then.

80s Funai were the best...
 

Without any objections, the 80s Funai products (TV/VCR combos and VCRs) were the longest lasting products ever made by them. Technicians would seldom see any 80s Funai product coming in for repairs as they were rated high in reliability by Consumer Reports back then (although they do suck now today). I have a 1985 Symphonic VCR (Funai's first VCR) that is still running fine today, as well as a 1988 Funai video cassette player. All it just needs is belts after more than 20 years of use. The 1985-1988 Funai VCR chassis was built stronger than Hitachi's six-belt chassis and Sharp chassis, in my opinion. Funai was the first VCR manufacturer to use a geared idler, which never fails to turn a tape. Many of you probably have never seen an old Funai product, so the bashings of Funai will continue today.

Sorry to say, but I do see quite a number of 20 year old Funai VCRs still running fine today (not including mines).

I didn't realize they were producing stuff that far back. My Dad had a Symphonic VCR hooked to a Candle 19" TV in the late 80's (they came with his 2nd wife.) I think he was still using the VCR until around '99 or so.

Of course, a lot of companies, even those who focused on budget-grade products, built better products 25+ years ago.

Those old 1980's Symphonic VCR decks were excellent, especially for being economy decks. Easy to work on and reliable. Well built. Their modern TV sets last less than one show in lightning country. Very underspecced diodes.

Yep, I've fixed a good many Funai TVs with shorted diodes. Have also fixed a good many where the main filter cap was blown out the top and the fuse was blown. Like you said, very under rated parts. And, I've seen others where the power supply was so heavily damaged to the point where I junked the set. About the only way I'll fix a Funai TV is if it's a simple, "hit me in the face" 15 minute fix. Wait, it's almost to that point with ALL brands of BPC and SPC TVs.

I have an Emerson 19" combo VCR DVD TV unit that I have had for about ten years now. Even with daily use it is still going strong!

Bought it "refurbished" at Big Lots!

Funai.:thumbsdn: I bought a Symphonic(funai) 9" tv/vcr combo. It lasted through the one year warranty and that was about it. The other day I bought a Magnavox dvd player. Found out it was made by Funai. Immediately returned it to the store. I don't know what all products that Funai is making for Magnavox, but beware.:yikes: Don't know exactly what this company's deal is or whether they used to make a quality product. Could be quality control, cheap parts, poor assembly techniques. All I know is my personal experience and I've heard lots and lots of bad about them.

Let's see how many names I can come up with that are actually Funai built. This should save you some trouble the next time you go shopping.

Symphonic, Sylvania, and Emerson are actually Funai. I do know that Magnavox DVD players, DVD/VCR combos, and DTV converters are Funai built. I'm not 100% sure; but, I think some Magnavox TV's are Funai built. The later model Philco branded DTV converter boxes are made by Funai as well as later Sanyo VCR's. Also, many of wal-mart's Durabrand TV's are built by Funai.

As far as other brands of VCR's and DVD/VCR combos, if it's in an all plastic case and weighs less than 3 lbs., it's made by Funai.

I hate to admit this; but, I actually bought one of those last Emerson $40 wal-mart VCR's. After a few months of use, it got so it would stop playing in the middle of watching something. The last straw was when it ate one of my tapes. To the trash it went. My neighbor bought the same VCR under the Sanyo brand and had to take it back because it was dead. The clerk didn't act surprised that the VCR was coming back. She said those came back quite often. Those VCR's are handy as a tuner for use on non cable ready TV's and for use as an RF modulator when using a DVD player on a jack-less TV.

I have a 13" Emerson DVD/TV in the bedroom that I bought in 2002 that get's several hours of play every day. Knock wood, but so far I haven't had any problems with it. Can't say the same for the Panasonic and Sony sets I owned, which either died within weeks or months of purchasing them.

Okay... brand new Funai here. Starting the stopwatch and powering it up...

Mmm hmm, so far so good...

Oop! There it went! 52 seconds! Hm, their quality must be improving...

Seriously, I have yet to find one Funai that works.

my son works for a refurbisher.he says that a good portion of funai items will fail within the year and they are running about a 20% return in 30 days after purchase.sets will work approx 1 hour and cease!i have a few funai dvd players and they are 2-3 years old and seem to work fine.also a couple of tvs that plug along and they are almost ten years old.even so,not a name i can be comfortable with.remember the days of zenith and rca?i quess we will never see that kind od quality again.

I have no idea who actually made the JVC 27" set I have in the front room, but so far its been a good set. For all I know, it could have been made by Funai or Gold Star.

Give me a break on your falsetto story. :boring: I will never consider Funai as the worst of the worst manufacturer. Why don't you try the Chinese brands, like Haier, Apex, Polaroid, Coby, Sansean, and use the stopwatch?

All JVC CRT TVs have been made by JVC since the beginning (except some 13" sets and combinations).

It's cheap parts that Funai used that dropped more than 90% in their quality since the 80s.

This thread has now outlived many Funai products. :D

Not all Philips/Magnavox products are made by Funai. Funai will only make Philips/Magnavox products for Wal-Mart/Sams Club stores only. If you go to Target, some Philips/Magnavox products, including DVD players, are made by Philips themselves. The Philips-made one is better made. It's worth going to Target.

You'll be surprised to know that ALL Toshiba DVD/VCR combo players/recorders are now made by Funai with starting price at $94.99.

I still haven't found a working Funai. Just ones that won't power up.

Found working RCA's, working Zenith's (pre 1990's), Panasonics, Toshiba's, various other brands of TV's that either worked, or weren't too hard to get working, and I did actually find a working Coby boom box once.

And don't leave Lennox Sound, Westinghouse, and Vizio off the list. Aren't the Westinghouse and Vizio brands made in China?

The local Winn-Dixie grocery store used to sell Haier TV's. A friend of mine got 4 or 5 that were customer returns from the store manager. The only one I was able to fix was a 13" set. There was a damaged trace where the AC cord attaches to the PC board. The picture wasn't that great even after I fixed it.

My Brother-in-law has a 24" Apex set that he bought in 2003. I think he paid $129 for it. Much to my surprise, it's still going. I think his is about the longest running, without a problem, Apex TV that I've seen. OTOH, a friend had a similar set that just died when it was only a few months old. The store wouldn't honor the warranty and said he'd have to ship it back to the factory for service. He ended up getting me to fix it and the problem turned out to be a shorted diode in the 130 V B+ line. He was not happy about this, saying "my grandmother had a big Zenith that lasted 25 years before it died". I reminded him that the Zenith was a much better built set and it cost more than $129.99. Also, I just came into an Apex DTV converter. It's performance is worse than the Funai built Magnavox.

I can vouch for a Coby DVD player being a perfect trash heap topper. I tried to fix one that was given to me by a friend of mine and when I opened the unit, the hair-thin wires separated from the joints and are almost impossible to resolder. The laser voltage pots are in a bad spot, the machine's housing is equally all-plastic. It became fast friends with the contents of my trash bag. By the way, this paragraph has outlasted a typical Coby DVD player.

Compare that junker to any Funai-made DVD player (and only the company's DVD players). The Funai is a better value for its reliability and durability amongst its class. Heck, even a Venturer-made DVD player is a smarter choice than a Coby.

Yeah, my Brother-in-law also had a Coby DVD player that crapped out after about 5 movies. He couldn't understand why it died so fast since he paid the high price of $24.99 for the thing. He's one of those guys that always searches out the lowest possible price and then complains when the item dies in short order.

I've replaced shorted rectifier diodes and bloated caps in DVD players. Other than that, I've not had much luck repairing them.

Yikes! $25? That's drugstore prices! Around here, a typical Coby (GPX, Curtis, or other low-end brands) ranges $14 to $20 at a discount/electronics store worth their salt. Yes, those undercut many of our local thrifts' prices, which often have the same models.

I have worked with a Durabrand-badged Venturer STS75E HTIB, adjusting the laser pots (which are clearly marked CD and DVD at an easily accessible location, :thmbsp:) and got it working well, even changed the region code--which happened to automatically enable VCD playback, which is very unusual to me. The downside, Dolby Pro-Logic processing cannot be switched off, a serious PITA when you just want to use it with only TV speakers, and a lot of suspicious caps throughout the unit.

Any of you remember the Koss/Oritron players? Worse than Apex, but not as bad as Coby. :puke2:

My cousin just bought a Funai built Magnavox DVD player at wal-mart for, I think, $29.99 + tax. At one point, one of the local electronics stores was advertising DVD players for $17. No brand name was given.

Currently, I have an Apex DVD player. I got it, a sharp VCR, and a lawnmower all for $75 when my neighbor passed away. The only time I've fired up the DVD player was to make sure it worked. At this time, I don't even own any DVD's. The Sharp VCR works fine. I use it everyday to record shows off of RTN.

My Sylvania 6427GFF (Funai but not PRC) still going strong, heavy use since 12/26/2005 (I know, that's not saying much for it).
Hope it never dies - color gamut in DTV is beautiful, but I am not optimistic it will last as long as my older sets have.
One more note - in the time I bought it, many were saying that the Funai models were being returned far less often than some of their competitors of the day.

I'd need a stopwatch that can measure Planck time epochs, the shortest period of time known to man, 10^−43 seconds... :D

I bought a 13" Apex for my bedroom in 2002 after my 1984 Samsung built Philco 15" died and it's still going strong with no problems. Granted it doesn't get tons of use, maybe an hour a week.

I'm new here and have an appreciation for vintage TV's but have no idea about repairing them aside from giving them a whack on the side;). Still have the old Philco and would love to see it work again. Maybe someday I'll meet someone who wants to mentor a clueless newbie:thmbsp:

Funny how that always seemed to work... :scratch2:

The slap on the side often works because so many TV's develop poor solder joints all over the place. Combination of heavy use, poor manufacturing, and heating of the circuit board(s)

Old TV service tech here.

Symphonic stuff in the day just ran and ran.

Funai is one now that I wont touch. I always lose money when I try to fix them.

Funai made a 13 inch color set for Emerson that was a real workhorse back in the 1980's. It was good looking too!

000

I think the old Funais like to run and run because they used little amount of PC circuit boards that are smaller than the heavy VCR chassis itself. They were simple-designed too.

I bought a van today that has a new Durabrand CD radio in the dash - don't know if Funai builds those too but it's the cheapest radio I've ever seen - there is no way to control the balance, fader or tone.

I wanna say that Lennox Sound builds their audio stuff. Yeah, real top notch audio equipment.

I wish some of these companies would change their name to a truthful one: Press't-Shit.