Akai 3" VTR Monitor Becomes a TV

[jhalphen]

Hi to All,

The Akai VT-100/VT-110 quarter inch VTRs were quite popular in western Europe and in France. This little machine usually includes a cute little 3" B&W monitor. For decades i had been toying with the idea that it would make an original TV, so i finally got down to business.

Not being a VTR collector, i did not want to bungle a perfectly good VTR + monitor combo which is nice to keep complete as a collector item. A few months ago a "Sidecar" VM-100 Akai monitor appeared on E-Bay France, so i purchased it.

Essentially the transformation is easy: you need to find the pinouts of the specialized docking connector used by Akai to connect the monitor to the VTR, so i purchased on E-Bay US the service data for the VTR.

Once the connections were identified, i installed a video input socket, an audio input socket and a power supply connector (12VDC).

Here are the results. The VM-100 monitor is connected to a Shinco/IT'S standalone A/V receiver which receives my PAL B/G transmissions or NTSC transmissions for US NTSC monitors.

After changing a few caps, i was pleasantly surprised by the high quality, razor-sharp B&W pictures. This is a quality Japanese monitor made in the late 70s and no cheapo 10$ Chinese TV.

Just a fun little project to display again pictures on this tiny collectable monitor. For you guys in the US, just connect to the 525 output of a small ATSC receiver box.

Last picture shows the little Akai with "friends" including a 5" Audiosonic color set and a Panasonic CT-101.

*To be complete, a standalone tuner was made by Akai (see last pix) but only for the US & Japanese markets, to my knowledge.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France