RCA PFR100 Projection set
 

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

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