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

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

I remember when CNN had respectable news coverage. Nowadays, it might as well be Entertainment Tonight. No substance, all flash. I remember when NBC had excellent journalism and better than average news content. Today, Fox is on a par. CBS and ABC have much better newscasts. Every broadcast network needs solid Radio Network facilities which can deliver the news when TV fails to. We need pre-1959 Radio News and Mutual News back to provide a strong backbone when TV isn't able to broadcast in the event of national disaster or emergency. That aspect is a disaster itself.

I remember Mutual as well, I have some MP3's of the CBS Mystery Radio Theater that has Mutual on them, IIRC.

[Zenith26kc20]

The infamous Zenith tubes developed shorts from control grid to screen grid. I have placed a 630 volt mylar cap on the screen grid and a 100 mfd @ 25 volts on the control grid. When the short appears normally the affected gun goes full bright, overcurrents the power supply and kills the regulator IC as well as killing the catode. If the tube is good when the parts are added, when the short appears a loud snap will be heard, the tube goes dark then comes back on. I've kept many alive doing this.

[PioneerGuy75]

I heard somewhere recently that the "Average" designed life expectancy of an electronic item is 2 years.

Wow.

No wonder stuff is so cheap.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by PioneerGuy75

I heard somewhere recently that the "Average" designed life expectancy of an electronic item is 2 years.

Wow.

No wonder stuff is so cheap.

BAH!!!

If it doesn't last at least 10 years, it's a piece of shit. 20 is even better, and 30 means they weren't fucking around when they built it.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by MRX37

BAH!!!

If it doesn't last at least 10 years, it's a piece of shit. 20 is even better, and 30 means they weren't fucking around when they built it.

Well, I have a 1982 Zenith System 3 that we've been using since early 1983 and it has been in daily used since then with a couple of minor repairs. It is our main TV.

[PioneerGuy75]

"average"

[eberts]

By 1990, Zenith already knew TV as it was then was in end phase.
They had already borrowed money from a Korean company using 55% of stock as collateral.
That means Zenith got a huge deposit on the sale of the company.
Zenith stated in their annual reports that they never made a profit in 20 years.
Governmental regulations regarding X-Rays and radiations also contributed to the degradation of picture screen quality, beam currents were lower compared to older tube designs.
I am sure equipment was no longer being maintained to the highest standards.
There is a video on you tube that explains why the "new low cost" tube Zenith was designing failed, it was to be completely assembled by robots and machines. "The human finger is hundreds of times more sensitive than any machine is capable of."
Looks like to me all the Korean company got in 1995 after the bankruptcy was a name, and an empty bag. Zenith name is great for marketing.
Electron guns were not designed or made to be cheap, the "shorting out" problems so common then in "inline" guns was an unforeseen event caused by close tolerences of the new design.
By then, "why bother pouring more money into research, use up what we got, cause the door is gonna close real soon."

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by eberts

By 1990, Zenith already knew TV as it was then was in end phase.
They had already borrowed money from a Korean company using 55% of stock as collateral.
That means Zenith got a huge deposit on the sale of the company.
Zenith stated in their annual reports that they never made a profit in 20 years.
Governmental regulations regarding X-Rays and radiations also contributed to the degradation of picture screen quality, beam currents were lower compared to older tube designs.
I am sure equipment was no longer being maintained to the highest standards.
There is a video on you tube that explains why the "new low cost" tube Zenith was designing failed, it was to be completely assembled by robots and machines. "The human finger is hundreds of times more sensitive than any machine is capable of."
Looks like to me all the Korean company got in 1995 after the bankruptcy was a name, and an empty bag. Zenith name is great for marketing.
Electron guns were not designed or made to be cheap, the "shorting out" problems so common then in "inline" guns was an unforeseen event caused by close tolerences of the new design.
By then, "why bother pouring more money into research, use up what we got, cause the door is gonna close real soon."

Some facts in your post are wrong.

Zenith didn't go bankrupt until I believe either 1998 or 2000. 1995 was when they sold 55% of ther stock to LG.

Governmental regulations concerning X rays and beam current don't explain why RCA, Magnavox, Sony, and various other TV's from the 1990's still have good working CRT's, or at least better then their Zenith equivelent.

The rest of your post may be accurate, but I don't know for sure.

[MRX37]

I just remembered something.

I think the bad Zenith CRT's started as early as 1991.

A friend of mine had a 27 inch "Bell & Howell" TV manufactured in 1991. Eventually he bought a new one and gave me this TV. As it was the only 27 inch TV I had at the time, I was glad to have it, even of the picture was tinted green, and the corners of the image were badly out of focus.

Thinking back, the casing looked a lot like some other early 90's Zenith TV's I've found. It was a greenish silver color, but the styling, and the square buttons were the same as Zenith TV's all the way up to 1996. The channel numbers had the same font. It even "sounded" like a Zenith, meaning you could hear the CRT scanning. I can't describe the sound, but early 90's Zenith's make this same sound... you can really hear it when the raster is static or otherwise unstable.

And this Bell & Howell TV? It died on me about a year after I got it...

[andy]

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[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by karmaman

MRX, I hate to jump into this, but give me an actual example of software meant to fail.

The only software that does this is free demos of commercial software or unactivated versions of Windows.

Also the caps thing... most boards that have shitty caps these days are ECS boards, and those have been known shit since the stone age.. All the good manufacturers have learned their lesson and use good caps (Samxon, Nichicon, Rubycon, Nippon Chemicon, Matsushita).

Also, many motherboard manufacturers ended up buying counterfeit capacitors that they believed were genuine, through no fault of their own. Unscrupulous suppliers screwed them.

[peverett]

Dishonest suppliers have been around for a long time. Back in the 1950s some dishonest suppliers would wash used tubes and sell them as new. This is the reason for the water eraseable numbers on many 1960s vacuum tubes.

[ctc17]

Just found a 1994 model Zenith out on the curb. The cord is cut off. I wonder if this is one of these.....

[ctc17]

I just tested it out and it works but the picture is so dim I have to be in a totally dark room to see it.

Was that the problem with these or was it mostly guns shorting out?

[radiotvnut]

CRT is shot. You might try cranking up the G2 control on the flyback. Otherwise, put it back on the curb.