[mbates14]

Out of curiosity, Does anyone know the expected or average lifetime of a CRT before it starts to degrade?

Reason I ask is my daily driver in the bedroom which is actually now technically a "nightly driver" is starting to lose its "depthness" to the colors. its hard to explain. the picture is still sharp, but the colors are going.

Anyways, its a 1994 BPC era Magnavox 25" table set that I have had since new. When it was new, I watched it way more often than just nighttime as I was a kid then, but as I grew into an adult and it has moved with me a couple times, its just become a bedroom at night TV. I have seen this same chassis and tube used for late wooden floor model sets as well. Have serviced a few with the same common faults.

So doing the math at 10 hours a night every night since 1994 puts it around 87,600 hours. thats a ton! and thats not even accurate because if I would account as a kid its more close to 100,000 hours or so.

But I have had to service it a couple of times. the 100uf cap in the horizontal stage is known for failure in this model and it failed twice before I beefed it up, and then I had to change some caps in the STR regulator circuit along with the STR and its fuse.

its been stable for 12 years since that failure.

Just wondering what your thoughts are and how long yours have lasted? For my set being made in a BPC era, its incredible that its lasted this long and STILL running.