Tube Color Video Monitor at Chicago Estate Sale

[maxm]

I was at an estate sale in Chicago this morning, the guy built a recording studio in his basement, so there was a lot of interesting old electronic stuff.

The gentleman also had some older professional video equipment. I saw a rectangular tube color video monitor, sorry but I can't remember the maker. I didn't take the back off, but it did have tubes on the chassis. They are asking $50, though tomorrow after 12:00 it will be half off (I don't think anybody else will buy it). If nobody here wants it I am tempted to get it for $25, but probably have no room. If somebody would like I can hold it for a while, I only live about three blocks away from the sale.

If anybody has more information on this set, let me know, sorry the picture is kind of poor, it is from the estate sale website.



Details of the sale are here:
http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/55227.aspx

[MRX37]

Might be worth saving. It certainly can't be common.

[julianburke]

MAXM, check your private messages.

[maxm]

I want back yesterday to get the set.
It is more interesting than I thought. It was made by Ball Brothers Research Corp, Miratel Division. It looks like it must have been part of Setchell Carlson, since it has a fully modular chassis like they used in their sets (I have all the modules, I removed some in the photos). Also, many of the tubes are market Setchell Carlson. It is a video only monitor, no tuner or audio. Almost all controls are in the front, including convergence. It uses a RCA 19GWP22 CRT, dated 1969. Very nice quality, has a large regulated power supply.
Sets like this must be pretty rare, I know the consumer Setchell Carlson color sets are pretty hard to find, and I would think something like this would have been made in fewer numbers, and more likely to be gotten rid of when it was replaced.
I would like to get this set running to use, since everything is going digital I don't need a tuner in the set, should be pretty easy to work on since it is all modular. It looks like it has been worked on in the past, but based on what else was at the sale, this guy knew what he was doing with electronics. I have not tried it yet, somebody had plugged in it at the sale, though it wasn't on, but it looked like it was still in use until relatively recently.

[MRX37]

I think that thing, when it's up and running, could be made to produce a damn good picture. I'm a tad jealous, though that's okay. I'm glad you saved it.

[zenith2134]

You're lucky. That's some nice monitor.

[Hemingray]

will it take standard composite input?

[MRX37]

It could probably be made to accept S video or even component video...

[maxm]

It has two of those larger round inputs for video (sorry I don't know the name) I got some cables and adapters at the sale so I should be able to connect it to composite video with an RCA connector. The back is marked for two more pairs of video inputs, but there are none on the monitor, perhaps there was a higher end model with more inputs.
Most of the tubes are dated 1969, as are the inspection stickers on the modules, so that should confirm the date.

There are no paper caps, but a few bad looking electrolytics that I want to replace before powering it up. The chassis is very easy to remove and work on, since I can easily remove the power transformer, the rest is pretty light.
The flyback has dripped out some wax, a bad sign? I assume it would be pretty hard to find a replacement for a set like this. I wish I had looked more for the service information for this at the sale, I'm sure he had it, he had the information for almost all the equipment he owned.
I'm pretty busy with other projects and work, so it may be a while before I can really look into the set, but I will defiantly try to get it working.

I was able to find a little information about the company. It was the same Ball that makes the canning jars, I thought that logo looked familiar.

http://www.tech-notes.tv/History&Tri...l_brothers.htm

[Spinning Head]

Wow, that is a very neat find. I was tempted to go to the sale. I'm glad you got it, you are very lucky. I hope that the tubes are not odd balls. I once tore apart an old Allen-Bradley terminal that was made by Ball. I still have the 24V power supply, with the same Ball logo.

[Hemingray]

If it's anything like my NEC commercial monitor (see other post in this board), it may be able to take a 75 ohm (composite) input. My NEC can do both 50 and 75, and features two PL-259 connectors.

[maxm]

Here's the tubes it uses if anybody is interested, they all look pretty common.



-- Max

[firenzeprima]

the subject really interesting, but how many screws we took

[markdi]

wow 19 tubes !

[vinyldavid]

Those large round connectors are called UHF connectors.

Not sure what type of signal they use...but odds are it's composite.