What a beast

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Poor quality??

They are pretty good!! -- I hope you can make something good out of it bud

It's hard to get the lighting right with a digital camera, even a high-end point-and-shoot. The Polaroid Impulse AF and Hanimex 110 cameras I had way back when were less troublesome.

Got the front of it detailed anyway, except for the base which is pretty roached by moisture. That's the only part of the cabinet that I need to replace.

[Rod Beauvex]

I love the construction of this thing. Has a very organic quality to it. Not a single IC (visible?) on that chassis. Love it.

[Jon A.]

None that I saw. Even my '73 Zenith has at least one IC. The fewer ICs the better. The newer Hitachi POS I decided to scrap, that had the most complicated guts I ever saw in a TV. I broke my own rule of not taking in any sets newer than the early 80s; hopefully that won't happen again.

Oops, my bad, there is one IC on this board (tuner?):

[Rod Beauvex]

I went back and looked at the picture again. Back in the early days, you could get IC's in silver round can formats. I don't think your set has any, but there is one in the post number 11 is a little bit vauge.

Still, even with 1 in the tuner, it's still a fairly impressive system. It amazes me how abrupt the transition from tube to solid sate was, at least for Japanese sets.

[Jon A.]

Oh yeah, even my Zenith is tube-like in its chassis construction. I plan to order an ESR meter soon so I can actually dig into this thing and try to get it going. Can't apply power straight away, not knowing the condition of the caps and risk getting instant smoke and flames. I had to haul this set home 4.62 miles on a dolly, or 7.43 kilometers to myself and any other Canadians here (thanks MapQuest).

The newer Hitachi's IC-laden boards and miles of wiring just about completely filled a box almost 10" high, about 12" across and 9" deep. The main chassis *just* fit the bottom of the box. Also, there is a sticker on the main chassis frame that says "Made in Taiwan". Not mainland china, but still a sign of trouble for me.

[Rod Beauvex]

I meant to tell you to have a look at the pic I mentioned in my previous post. It's looking a little burned to me, around that transistor I mentioned, but it may just be a combination of dirt and the lighting.

[Jon A.]

Oh, it's caked with dust and what is probably a thick layer of exhaust smoke, and the camera flash makes darker spots look a lot worse. I need to take a paint brush to the boards and maybe a can of compressed air. The parts that are darkened by heat I assume is the result of normal resistor heat.

[Jon A.]

I was thinking of using this as a parts set because it's so beat-off and its design bores me, but this is what tears it. While cleaning the deflection yoke housing I saw what looked like a melted section of the HV anode wire. It was electrical tape, which turned out to be covering a lot of the wire. I took it off in the first section I discovered, which was layered very unevenly. The wire had been cut and soldered back together, then broke as I was taking the tape off. What kind of crazy experiment might have been going on here??

Well, most of the tape looked factory, or at least professionally done. Extra insulation on the cheap perhaps? It extended from just before the anode cap to where the HV lead clipped to the chassis. I took off all of the tape. The splice I found earlier was the only one. THAT part had poorly-wrapped electrical tape that just crumbled off, as did one other section of the wire, no idea why. The rest of the tape was more rubbery.

Originally Posted by Dude111

I hope you can make something good out of it bud

I will if the 25VXCP22 is strong, just not in its present form. There's no way I'm bothering to get a flyback for such a beat-up, low-end set. The likelihood of it having a delta-gun CRT is why I grabbed it to begin with.