Late 80s Zenith System 3

[JCFitz]

The last 25"-27" Zenith sets with decent picture tubes were probably around 1985-1986.I had the advance system 3 set made from 85-86(mine was early 1985) and it had an excellent picture tube in it and it's still going strong for the old lady I gave it too. The one issue all of that model 27" had was a poor or underrated horizontal yoke connector that would burn the sweep board. Mine was hardwired in after it happened.

After that Zenith quality really went down the tubes. The later Zenith tubes would short if you looked at them wrong and they didn't last long. The 90s were really terrible with first the ones that ate regulators when the tube shorted and then the ones that ate video driver transistors. They had some in the early 90s that leaky caps like Mitsubishis except the leakers in the Zeniths were all blue in color.

And finally to the last crt ones the horizontal circuit ceramic caps literally burn up often damaging the circuit board with them.I've seen those little blue ceramic caps crack and short in other sets but apparently there's no current limiting in the Zenith power supply other than the B+ fuse and the capacitors continue to burn when the set is turned off.Only unplugging it will stop further damage. What a pos.