So, what did Zenith do to make their CRT's fail quicker?

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by MRX37

I could see a design goof up if the bad CRT's from Zenith stopped shortly after 1992-1993. However, this continued throughout the rest of the 90's at least. Every 1990's Zenith or Zenith made TV I've come across had a weak CRT in it. The one exception was a 27 inch Sentry 2 from 1992. From 1993 onward: bad CRT's, and not just the 27 inch ones. 19 inch CRT's, and even 36 inch CRT's... all weak.

Also, not too long ago I found three JVC TV's from around 2003-2004. not only were the CRT's shot, I couldn't adjust the G2 voltage to brighten the picture very much. The flyback's themselves had something inside them limiting how much the knob could turn. I could turn that knob maybe 1/4 of a turn in either direction.

Finally, A Philips TV from 2005 that i worked on had a "feature" to make it shut down if the screen was too dim. That sure as hell wasn't a cost cutting measure!

EDIT: Also, if a company is trying to save money, why not take a reliable design and stick with it for as long as possible? Why spend the money designing a new chassis and CRT every year? Change the case and update the look/features, but keep the important internal electronics the same.

And don't forget the Sonys that had the AKB blanking circuit that would either blank the video or cause the video to flash when the CRT got weak.

I also had a 2002 JVC "D series" TV with a bad CRT. Then, I had a fairly new 20" RCA Truflat with a toasted CRT. The green was very weak and the blue and red were dead. I think the tube was an LG/Philips. Also ran into an early '00's 19" Orion wal-mart special with a shorted green gun. I was able to swap the tube from another set and save that one.