Last TVs Made in America ? - Page 2 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

radiotvnut · #1 02-05-2010, 11:08 AM

Every solid state CM TV that I've seen had a Japanese NEC chassis in it. I had an early SS CM combo from '74 that used an NEC chassis.

jr_tech · #2 02-05-2010, 03:28 PM

"Probably the closest I can think of would be the Sony consoles, which were "assembled" in San Diego, CA through the early 90s. I'm sure the board came from abroad, but the CRT was made at one of two plants here and in Mexico, and the wood cabinets were mainly built in San Diego."

Sony may have indeed, been the last to produce consumer CRTs in the US... Does anybody have a shutdown date for the Sony CRT plant in San Diego?

How about the Rauland plant?

thanks,
jr

Spinning Head · #3 02-05-2010, 07:29 PM

In the late 90s I had a job that took me to a metal fabrication plant in Bensenville (I think). They were making the metal ring band for 27" and 32" Trinitrons. I have no idea where the CRT plant was. But found it interesting that there was some CRT component manufacturing occurring here.

jr_tech · #4 02-05-2010, 07:58 PM

"They were making the metal ring band for 27" and 32" Trinitrons"

Those were really tough bands to cut off the tube!

I found this 2009 article that states that... the Sony US CRT plants were shut down about 5 years before...So that pretty much pegs it at 2004. I was not aware of the Sony facility in Pittsburgh.

http://www.allbusiness.com/company-a...2874083-1.html

jr

freakaftr8 · #5 02-06-2010, 08:26 PM

BTW, I thought those RCA/GE BPC sets back in the early to mid 90's were built here in the US somewhere. Those sets had awful tuner issues.. I fixed a pile of them in the past.

radiotvnut · #6 02-06-2010, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freakaftr8

BTW, I thought those RCA/GE BPC sets back in the early to mid 90's were built here in the US somewhere. Those sets had awful tuner issues.. I fixed a pile of them in the past.

Believe it or not, I still get those in with tuner connection issues from time to time. It's hard to believe that some of these sets are pushing 20 years old. I think it was '92 when these came out and I remember it quite well.

freakaftr8 · #7 02-06-2010, 10:09 PM

Wow! At least the CRT's and FBT's were made well obviously

radiotvnut · #8 02-06-2010, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freakaftr8

Wow! At least the CRT's and FBT's were made well obviously

Yes, they held up fairly well. Can't say that for the newer RCA's. The flybacks started going downhill with the CTC197 and really got bad with the Chinese built M134, ATC series, and other chassis sets made over the last few years. Also, I've seen some newer RCA's with weak/shorted/arcing CRT's.

kx250rider · #9 02-07-2010, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Yes, they held up fairly well. Can't say that for the newer RCA's. The flybacks started going downhill with the CTC197 and really got bad with the Chinese built M134, ATC series, and other chassis sets made over the last few years. Also, I've seen some newer RCA's with weak/shorted/arcing CRT's.

For some reason, I had it in my head that those RCA/GE chassis were made in France... The CTC-175/177 was a very easy set to work on, and as others said; virtually trouble-free outside of the tuner shield can being used as an inline ground connector for the whole board

.

Charles

bgadow · #10 02-06-2010, 10:10 PM

Seems like I've seen US made RCA's from well into the 90s-certainly their consoles.

I think that Sony plant in PA was the former VW plant?

The Three Rivers plant was still around early in the 2000's, doing contract assembly for Samsung for one. You should be able to find the story on the web-apparently, their congressman got a bill put in that levied a tariff on all Chinese-made TV sets, and the proceeds were to be divided amongst all the American-owned TV manufacturers. (which consisted of, well, Three Rivers!) That would have kept them alive but the deal fell through so I don't know what happened from there.

In 1990 my father bought a new GE and my grandfather bought a new Sylvania. Both were assembled in the US.

Charlie · #11 02-07-2010, 08:51 AM

Even in the early 60's... CM used Matsushita oil-filled capacitors in their black & white TV chassis.... .047's, .01's, etc... those were Japanese... and actually held up quite well in my set. I think their stereo chassis also used them (still installed in mine). I've also seen CM tubes that were marked Japan.

Even in light of this, I remember as Charles mentions... they used to say they were all-American made. Woods TV was the BIG Curtis Mathes store for Beaumont... and I recall them talking about that in their TV ads... made here in America. I guess they just neglected to include "with parts from Japan"

jr_tech · #12 02-07-2010, 12:20 PM

"made here in America. I guess they just neglected to include "with parts from Japan""

Depending on how the decision was made to use these parts, I am not sure if I would take issue with off-shore parts used in "American Made" products. Did C-M have a component engineering/evaluation group?

A CE may have chosen the Japanese-made caps as the best possible to use for a particular high stress applications.

Or a bean counter may have said "buy the cheapest parts you can order".

jr