Am I crazy to collect these?

[Eric H]

Wow, scored a really old one today!
This one is from 1997

It is styled somewhat different than the others and seems to be built slightly better however I can't get it to power up at all so far.


Jimmy, a Turquoise one would be awesome!

[Telecolor 3007]

Romanians love them because they are cheap Wonder, what is the life duration of the C.R.T. at thing like that?

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Wonder, what is the life duration of the C.R.T. at thing like that?

I don't know, I thought about taking one to work and leaving it on 24/7 and see how long it'll go.

Got the latest one working tonight, it had a cracked foil where the power jack was soldered to the board.

I like the little red pilot light on this one that tells you it's on!

[fsjonsey]

Has anyone thought about building little retro wooden cabinets to fit these little chassis into, to make miniature models of vintage tv's? Maybe you could replace the thumbwheels with real knobs and fix a larger speaker, or even a small tube amplifier circuit similar the ones in AA5 radios? Of course then you would need the power supply for the amplifier... Or better yet, trying to make a homebrew tube chassis to drive one of these little crt/yoke combinations? Now that would be cool. These seem to be the best source of new production b&w CRTS around. Best part is they are dirt cheap

[Eric H]

I opened up one of these the other day and it had the name of the company that made the tube, the Jin Cheng Glass Tube company or something like that.

Wonder if Mr Cheng could run off a few hundred 3KP4's or 7JP4's?
There's not a lot to them really.

[Sandy G]

Or a few 15GP22s....<grin> I think if you waved enuff money in front of them people, they'd figger out a way to make about anything you'd want...

[wa2ise]

I want one that can decode ATSC digital HDTV off air, and with a 5 by 3 B&W CRT....

[fsjonsey]

How hard would it be to build an all tube chassis around one of those little CRT's? Think... modern production all tube tv.

[Arkay]

Convince them there is a market and profit to be made --by placing an order for X thousand of them-- and I'm positive you can get a tube TV manufactured in China today. All the parts (including tubes, although perhaps not the right ones currently) are in production, somewhere. Problem would be convincing enough people to buy them at the price you'd have to charge, to be profitable. 99 percent of the general population, alas, would see them as a silly anacrhonism.


The one way I could see this working would be to have a retro-chic design that people would like enough that they would want to buy them. It couldn't look EXACTLY like an old TV, or the market wouldnt' be big enough. Something very cool looking that would make non-TV-nuts drool a little, might.

[Captain Video]

Originally Posted by fsjonsey

Has anyone thought about building little retro wooden cabinets to fit these little chassis into, to make miniature models of vintage tv's? Maybe you could replace the thumbwheels with real knobs and fix a larger speaker, or even a small tube amplifier circuit similar the ones in AA5 radios? Of course then you would need the power supply for the amplifier... Or better yet, trying to make a homebrew tube chassis to drive one of these little crt/yoke combinations? Now that would be cool. These seem to be the best source of new production b&w CRTS around. Best part is they are dirt cheap

Hey, that's a cute idea! I liked that! It would be neat!

Imagine using one of those TVs to build a miniature Philco Predicta!

Things like that could be very interesting as display pieces, and also useful as special effects props - for example, imagine a movie in which there's a scene in which a 1950's TV set explode, a miniature like that could come in handy...people at ILM could easily build something like that.

[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by Eric H

I don't know, I thought about taking one to work and leaving it on 24/7 and see how long it'll go.

Got the latest one working tonight, it had a cracked foil where the power jack was soldered to the board.

I like the little red pilot light on this one that tells you it's on!

WOW! That set looks like its made almost entirely of discreet components. Not a single IC to be seen anywhere!

[pmsummer]

Originally Posted by Eric H

I'm thinking in 50 years they could be the Catalin of Televisions, worth literally thousands of dollars and that extra money will come in handy when I'm 97 years old :

True, but so will a loaf of bread.

[jhalphen]

Hi! to All,

Remember this little RCA 9" salesman's sampler set ?

Best Regards

JH

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by jhalphen

Hi! to All,

Remember this little RCA 9" salesman's sampler set ?

Best Regards

JH

Yes, my dad had an RCA with what I believe was that chassis but it was in a blue plastic case.

I see lots of them with that 60's psychedelic pattern but no blue ones.

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by fsjonsey

Has anyone thought about building little retro wooden cabinets to fit these little chassis into, to make miniature models of vintage tv's? Maybe you could replace the thumbwheels with real knobs and fix a larger speaker, or even a small tube amplifier circuit similar the ones in AA5 radios? Of course then you would need the power supply for the amplifier... Or better yet, trying to make a homebrew tube chassis to drive one of these little crt/yoke combinations? Now that would be cool. These seem to be the best source of new production b&w CRTS around. Best part is they are dirt cheap

That was the idea I was thinking of when I salvaged the CRT and chassis from a TV/VCD boombox with a broken case, then I remembered how bad I am at woodwork.

I've thought of grabbing 9 of them and making a mini video wall. These CRTs have no mounting ears, so you could mount them edge to edge. Then drive it all with a PC. This guy uses the RGB lines indivdually to drive 3 B&W CRTs, so 2 dual head video cards could drive 9 CRTs.