Found a Sony KV-1215 portable - Videokarma.org TV - Video

zenith2134 · #1 10-08-2007, 09:26 PM

Hey guys, hows it going? Thought I'd share a little about my latest find.

So, I went to an estate sale yesterday morning and found a little Sony tv in a bedroom, cord all tied nicely and antenna tucked away safely. I plug it in and it fired right up, with a decent picture. I got it for free, since 'no one seems interested in that old tv'. Thanks, I sure am.

Got it home, gave it a thorough bath in pledge (woodwork doesn't have a scratch anywhere) and windex and I left it on for a while.

After a little adjusting, the set lost brightness and the red was full-on intermittently. Found the G2 pot was practically desoldered from the vid-out board , and the r/g/b/ background pots weren't making good contact to their board. Tonight I am happy to report I saved another one! Looks great, watched some news on it just now and I am very pleased. Anyone know the year of this set? I ran a search yesterday when I brought it home, and someone suggested 1969-ish but I honestly don't think its that old.

radiotvnut · #2 10-08-2007, 10:50 PM

The Sams Photofact is 1632-2. I'd say that set dates from the early to mid '70's. Does it have a tube or solid state HV rectifier? I think the first ones from the late '60's had a tube HV rectifier.

zenith2134 · #3 10-09-2007, 09:52 AM

This one has a solid-state rectifier, so its probably a later-run unit. Clean set, it was well-cared for.

70salesguy · #4 10-09-2007, 10:00 AM

I have a Sony KV-1215 that I bought new when I was in college. I believe that it was 73 or 74.

About 1985 I got tired of it not having remote control. I bought an outboard cable box tuner unit that gave you remote control of channels, volume and on/off. Used it until 95 when I boxed it up in the original carton and stored it.

zenith2134 · #5 10-09-2007, 10:01 AM

Heres a quick shot of the tv. I was initially surprised by the weight of the set. It is very solid and heavy for a 12". The fact that the wood cabinet is so sturdy leads me to believe that most of these older Sonys were overbuilt. Then I opened it up, and found a wrap-around heatsink for the regulator and some nice big filter caps and block-resistors. This one was made to last, and I kinda feel bad I am watching Jerry Springer on it right now, heh.

zenith2134 · #6 10-09-2007, 10:03 AM

70salesguy, you should break it out again! I am loving this set. Funny enough, I have it connected to the switched outlet on my dtv cable box, so I can control power and also volume through the remote. Too bad the photo washed out its picture

70salesguy · #7 10-09-2007, 10:06 AM

At the time, the Sony Trinitrons were considered the best TV on the market.

Even in a 12" size, this TV was expensive!!!

The only reason I could afford one in college was the employee discount I received as "70's salesguy" from my employer. Lot of commissions to pay for that baby.

zenith2134 · #8 10-09-2007, 05:24 PM

Checked the date, mine is from July of '76. Silly me, I didn't realize the date was in tiny print on the back cover.

fujifrontier · #9 10-09-2007, 08:44 PM

Yep. That's one solid little set. Careful, the CRT will start to mark after a couple of hours if you leave it on the weather channel... lesson learned. Mine didn't have a severe burn but the ticker area was a teeny bit darker than the rest, it faded after normal use

I had one. I gave it away to a guy in my dorm because I didn't have enough room for it... I feel bad. It had a moderate red push and the geometry wasn't quite perfect, not objectionable, but noticeable. Wish I had kept it.

zenith2134 · #10 10-09-2007, 09:42 PM

Yeah, I completely re-did the color background settings and rgb drives, and now keep the contrast and brightness at their mid-point settings. Thanks for the tip on burn-in though, I'll try not to leave it running with a news ticker too long.

I see you are after one of these from your post in the Television swap board. I didn't realize someone was trying to sell one, guess I missed it. Good luck obtaining it, sounds like you miss yours!

fujifrontier · #11 10-09-2007, 09:49 PM

Where are the RGB drives? I remember trying to adjust the focus but it's been so long since i've had the tv, I don't remember. Can you post a pic? how did you do the grayscale adjustment?

BTW - for convergence and focus would you play with the yoke? How would you do that... the copper windings scare me

zenith2134 · #12 10-09-2007, 09:58 PM

This set, like most trinitrons- uses an HSTAT block for convergence. It controls the horiz converging of the guns, I did nothing to the crt neck adjustments, they were left alone. In all but the most extreme cases, I wouldn't tamper with those magnets, since it is a time-consuming and tedious task once you screw with em. (IMO). On this set, the HSTAT is deadcenter, connected to the fly's output and with the 2nd anode coming out the other side, connecting to the crt';s suction cup. The RGB background's are located near the antenna connections on the board under the tuners. In fact you don't even have to open the case to adjust screen, RGB background, Hstat, or vertical height.

Now, the drive controls were tough to find, in that you must put the set on its side, tuner facing upwards, with the back cover removed to access them. Make sure you don't crush the power/horiz board in doing this, BTW. The ACC control and the 3 drive's are located at the Bottom of the board with the background settings. My method is to do all the color controls and then set G2. I got great white balance and strong colors after this procedure. When I received the set, the picture was lackluster. Good luck.

zenith2134 · #13 10-09-2007, 10:00 PM

BTW have you checked out the repairfaq.org tv repair resource? I have found it very helpful for basic things like setting up greyscale, etc.

fujifrontier · #14 10-09-2007, 10:16 PM

no, i think i shall, though... perhaps if i get theo ther kv-1215 it will require adjustment

and what about vertical convergence?

zenith2134 · #15 10-09-2007, 10:50 PM

If I'm not mistaken, the yoke magnets control static convergence as with most conventional crt designs, but a trinitron tube has a couple more magnets involved. Honestly unless there is a known convergence issue, I wouldn't worry about it too much. And mostly every repair topic for crt tv's is included in that f.a.q. , so maybe it will help. Are you getting the set?