[Trance88]

Originally Posted by AndyMack

Anybody remember the notorious bad solder joints between boards in late 80's vintage RCA sets? I was the CE at a hotel that had 145 of these sets, all manufactured in 1989. (I forget the model #, silver XL100 set with analog AM/FM radio). Anyways, right about the end of 92 and into 93 I spent plenty of days fixing these darn sets - which never really had a single component failure that I can remember - just bad solder joints throughout. But with that experience, I have never purchased an RCA or GE set either for work or personally since.

The next facility I took care of had 85 Zenith 25" Concierge sets m'fd in 1995, and I rarely had a problem with those for the two and half years I was there. Sometimes the Smartcards would need to be reinstalled (sorta like a reboot), but that's it.

The place I'm at now had all 1996 vintage mexican-made Zenith HealthView sets, and those were problematic - either bad modules or the CRT's would go south, sometimes both. But those had high hours. Most of those are gone now, but we still have a dozen or so of those old sets still in daily use with the original CRT's. Couldn't even guess how many hours are on 'em. I spec'd out newer Philips 19" commercial TV's, and we purchased about 15 of them several years back. Those are all going strong with great pictures and no servicing req'd. The rest are all just LG/Zenith HealthView's, same exact model that we've used all along. The bean counters insist we keep buying them. The newer ones are hit & miss, a few have died outright within months, I've seen two with bad guns within a year, but most are still OK after a few years of service.

I'm guessing all hotels these days are quickly switching to the plasma widescreens. Who knows what kind of problems could pop up in these!