advent videobeam 1000
 

i was talking to a buddy of mine that lives down in miami, he has recently come into possesion of 2 early advent videobeam 1000 projector tvs, complete with the old 6 foot concaved screens. he was told one works and the other dosent. they have been sitting in storage for 30+ years and are very dirty. he told me they were mine if i wanted them for free :D i just have to help him move them. what i would like to know, is if it is worth the hassle to scoop them up, and restore them? and if so, when i do go get them, what should i do when powering them up? variac? things to look for? he said they are the early models from the 1960s. any help would be great!

Since they are solid state, perhaps this thread would fit better in that forum.

Anyhow, here's an interesting brochure:

http://www.walvisions.com/ArchivePag...m_brochure.htm

No idea whether these were at all reliable, or what weak spots they might have. If someone offered me a couple for free, I might be tempted to tinker.

I would definitely check the electrolytic capacitors, which can fail even in newer gear than that. Presumably, they will not have the dozens of pesky paper (or plastic-coated) paper caps that need to be replaced in older TVs.

I assume the "LightGuide" projection tubes are unobtanium, so handle with care.

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

It all comes down to what shape the CRTs are in. NOS ones are complete unobtanium at this point, and I don't think they were ever considered rebuildable, even when CRT rebuilding was a viable option for most tubes.

The CRTs have the Schmidt optical system built right in, with the phosphor deposited on an internal plate in front of a spherical mirror.

The screens were the weak spot on these, other than the huge expense of keeping the sets running. If any thing brushes against the screen the portion touched no longer reflects properly. The whole screen has to be replaced, as it cannot be repaired. A lot of the screens were ruined when the owner simply tried to clean them. I would say the screens are impossible to replace today.

These projectors were bright for the era, but were very dim if you expect brightness equal to even the cheapest LCD projector made today.

Unless you were in the sweet spot in the room, the screen was too dim to view.

I'd say more of these were junked because the screen was ruined than were junked because of CRT failure.

Jas.

upstate NY in a garage I know of one good-condition Advent Novabeam with the curved screen on a stand.
And yeah, if any of the crts are unable to track properly, the whole shebang will look terrible. Me and a friend spent a whole afternoon setting up that novabeam and it looks good now. but no one wants it.

Rob-

Those Advents are nicely built, all-American design units that have many individual boards on a swing-out chassis. A good cleaning of all the board terminal strips would be a good idea if you get these units. As others said, the brightness and overall quality will be far, far below contemporary standards for projection TV.

I had a Kloss Novabeam Model Two projector in the late 80s. It was the first one that projected onto a flat screen if I remember right, with a 64" diagonal picture. Quite fun to have the big screen for a relatively low price at the time, but it had its limitations too.

i was wondering where this thread went :D glad it went to the right fourm.. i just figured id file it under early projector tvs, but then i saw there were projector tvs back to the 1940s :D thanx for the move and not deletion.

as far as i know, the screens are in good shape, i was told they were covered with something for protection. just for a little history, the tvs once belonged to famous astronimer jack horkhiemer who ran a tv show via public accsess all over the country, and was somewhat of a celebrety back in the 80s. im getting from another former AK now banned member, like myself, ke4mcl. we kept intouch after the mess with AK (not trying to revisit that) but anyway, he worked for jack and the videobeams were part of his estate from when he died, and the family dosent want them. so Ke4mcl is bringing them to me sometime in the next few weeks. im looking forward to getting these things, but im concerned on space and where the hell im gunna store them.. i guess ill cross that bridge when i come to it

They were nicely built but were not reliable. At one time all of the Gatti's Pizza joints had them. In the end we were using every other one for parts to fix the other. I think they had about a 3-4 year lifespan in the restaurants before replacement and that was stretching them! All of them always needed something and I got very tired of them early on.

Things to look for?? Everything!! I never want to see another one again!!

They were fun. First saw the 1000 in 1976 in a bar. Bought a 6 foot Advent 750 and later a Kloss Novabeam Model One-A 10 foot. Mine were reliable, but I had to constantly adjust the convergence with the built in cross hatch generator during warm up for about 2 hours after start up.

See below link for a nostalgic photo from 1977 in my home in Wisconsin. Shows the Advent 750 and to the right of screen a Sony 7010UA and the first JVC VHS vtr. To the left of screen, SAE basic amp, preamp and Model 1-B tuner with built in scope. A Marantz SLT turntable is barely visible. Also an Atari vintage Pacman model game player on top of projector.

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ent7501024.jpg

saw this same unit at jimmy rea electronics here in columbus.for the era,the picture was very good. reasonably bright with nice ,crisp image in a darkened room.very enjoyable to watch.the price tag was rather steep and i was in no way able to afford one.had several customers who owned similar units and they reported no reliability issues at all.these were not used as the daily watcher though.i am sure as julian stated that in a commercial application,they would be prone to service issues.as i remember,the units i saw were very good quality and very advanced at that time

Click on this link to Shorpy for a vintage photo of a Videobeam set, along with some other 70's vintage gear.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7572

I remember them when they came out. Also remember not being impressed by the picture.
They needed a strong clean signal to look good and Beta or VHS was almost unbearable on them.

"Not found".

I think it was only the first models that had that schmidt tube optical system. The one I have (stored away, can''t get to it now) has conventional single color tubes with acrylic lenses, not unlike a rear-projection set.

Fixed it (I hope)

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7572