one of those "who'd a thunk it" things...
 

Eight years ago I was needing a small TV set for the bedroom. I hit the usual spots and there wasn't much choice in 13" sets. I did want it to be stereo and to be able to receive all the cable channels. If it did DVD's, that was a bonus. I found this one at Wally World for $75 in the closeout/defective pile. It no longer had its box, but the remote, antenna and manual were still present. There was a note taped to the screen that the remote was inoperable. So, I took a chance and bought it. The remote was an easy fix. I can't remember what it was, but it was something like a disc cap or resistor. The set was rather dusty and smudged up, so I took it apart and gave it a proper scrubbing and was surprised to see gold-banded resistors and Nichichon caps on the board! It gets about two hours of play in the morning and again in the evening before bed. I would have never thought it to have lasted this long, but its still going.
It has decent audio from its twin 3" speakers and very good DVD performance. Who'd a thunk it!?! :scratch2:

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1325437383

Is that an Orion-built Emerson? It looks like it has practical placement of the speakers. The Funai-built sets have tiny speakers placed on the bottom and they sound very tinny.

I'm not sure, but I think it was made by Orion. Oh and get this, it has a coaxial digital out on it!

Hey Dan
If it was an Orion, I'm not surprised. They made the crt in my 1981 Portland 19" color..rest of that set was Daewoo. still looks very good.
Over Funai, IMO, these dvd portable 13inchers were more reliable...
Great plus that its got coax s/pdif out

Nice pic BTW!

Rare to find quality electronics at Walmart anymore. Nice score on this.

Well, remember...this was eight years ago! :yes:

I worked on TV's for several years and I can't believe how well these sets perform and their reliability. I worked on color sets when they started selling well in the mid-sixties. They needed repairs at least twice a year. Three times or more a year for Magnavoxes and Sears models.

I realize that smaller CRT screens are going to almost always deliver better pictures, but this one on strong signals and DVD is astounding.

It's kinda like the late 80s 19" Quasar I use out in the shop. Picture on it is quite strong.

...or like my '76 store-brand XAM.
Sometimes they just last seemingly forever

I thought I'd give this old thread a nudge. Anyone else have a cheapo set that's proven itself to be reliable with a good picture?

Actually.....ALL of my little "Coby" style chinese sets. Once I GET them to be in good shape, they seem to never degrade so far. I've had them SHOW UP broken and abused, but in the six years or so since I found and rescued the first one....not one of them has broken yet. I use the ones that have RCA jacks quite often and I've never had to open one up after whatever initial attention it needed.

Almost all of the other sets "drift" in some direction or another....geometry, dirty tuners or whatever, especially ALL the old Sony sets.

I saw a magnavox similar to that one at the local thrift for 12.95. It even had the flat crt, a digital tuner and the dvd! The hoarder in me really wanted to snag it, but the voice of reason (aka- the wife) reminded me that we didn't need it, lol.

Got a 2005 Durabrand DWT 1905 I'm holding onto in case the '99 GE mentioned below takes a dump. It looks surprisingly good as well.

Found a $10 GE 13"set at SA thrift store that WOULD stay on channel 4 if unplugged, which is just what my 90 year-old customer does to both it and the RCA converter box when not using it. I put green paint on the power buttons she needs to hit to get the TV and DT box on, white paint on the volume and blue on the channel button. Living on a hilltop, she gets 44+ channels with an Antennacraft HBU-22 in the yard. Who needs cable?

Back in '03, my Brother-in-law bought a 24" SPC Apex TV for $129.99. He was going on about what a good deal he got on it and that it even came with a two year parts and labor warranty at no extra charge. We all know that Apex is considered BOTL Chinese junk and I was thinking, "This thing will be doing good if it last until the warranty runs out". Well, it lasted until last night. They were watching it when the TV suddenly lost vertical deflection. He said that he changed channels and the picture came back up and then collapsed to a line again. He decided to get a flatscreen and said I could fix/sell it or use it for parts. I opened the TV and found one pin on the vertical IC that had next to no solder on it and was wiggling. I resoldered the vertical IC and the TV is now working again. The picture is not bad, considering it's a ten year old low end Chinese TV. I guess some of that cheap Chinese junk actually lasted.

I have a 27" HDTV CRT Prima built set. Uses a Samsung tube.

It's yoke also had bad solder and had a collapsed vertical too.. Sadly, I had given that TV to my mom when this happened, and she hadn't realized it did this until the phosphors were damaged.

I was able to fix it, but there's a permanent dark band across the middle of the screen. Only visible on white screens. (Oddly the burn isn't sharp as the line was, but a thick burn mark, about 2" thick).

TV still works.

I have an APEX 20" from 2001 in storage also. It still works, but has a weird geometry issue since new. The picture is rotated correctly on the top, but on the bottom it's skewed a little as if the rotation is off there. The tuner on it is shot, it doesn't tune anymore. It tries but the picture is just so fuzzy on most channels (but not all).

How about a more pricey set with a very poor picture?
The early to mid 90's, Zeniths with the CRT problems. Great picture for the first two years, then yuck. :sigh:

Celt, I have one. A 1994 plain jane mono Zenith 19" that still works fine and has been through hell, when I say hell I'm referring to my teenage years:sigh:. My mom got it for me for christmas of '94.

Did you ever remove the back and see if its a EIA 1101 sourced CRT.
That was one of the last 19" sets, Zenith built. Maybe they bought the CRT's from someone else.
The begining of the dark days of Zenith. :sigh:

Your set wouldn't happen to be one of the mid-'90s Sentry 2 table models, would it? I have one I got as a birthday present in 1995. It still works as well as the day I got it and even has the original CRT, although for the last 13 years it's been in storage in my bedroom.

The last time I tried my Sentry 2 table set, it was still going strong, with every bit as good a picture as when the set was new. Say what you will about those mid-'90s Zeniths with their troublesome CRTs, but mine seems to have gotten past all those problems....why, I'll probably never know; maybe I'd better not even try to figure it out, and just be thankful the set has gone this long with no problems. Maybe I was lucky and just happened to get a set with a good tube.

I suspect that if you don't use the set, the tube is not going to wear out very fast. :)
But seriously, how many hours do you estimate the CRT has been operated?

jr

Well, I used the TV every night (how many hours I put on the tube, I don't know) for four years, then when I moved I bought a new RCA CTC185 and put the Zenith in storage. The most the latter TV has been used in the last 13 years, not counting short tests every once in a while, was two weeks, when my RCA was in for repairs. Since then, the Zenith has only been on for a few minutes every month or so for testing.

For grins, a little estimation and calculation... "nights" = perhaps something like 5PM to midnight = 7 hours per night times 365 days per year times 4 years which equals 10,220 hours. In addition, 2 weeks (14 days) at perhaps 12 hours per day which equals 168 hours. The additional "testing" perhaps adds another 20 hours or so total. This adds up to an estimated 10,408 hours. A heavily used set might get that many hours use in 2 to 3 years! For a 18 year old set, your Zenith is practically *brand new* ... cherish it!

jr