The best solid state color TVs ever made
 

I enjoyed reading through the worst thread, so of course my curiosity has me wondering what some of you regard as the best SS TVs ever made. I'd think reliability, performance and serviceability would be key factors.

D and E-line flat chassis Zenith, vertical chassis CC2, 1st generation Zenith System 3 with the VRT power supply and 9-153 HV/sweep module. Yes, they had issues, but they were usually easy to resolve and a straightforward circuit.

PC-chassis GE. They saved the best for last and that chassis was used in 19" and 25" sets. Usually, a few capacitors would cure any problems that they had.

C1 and C2 chassis Magnavox sets. The T991, T995, and T815 were also decent, as long as you kept spare safety capacitors on hand and resoldered all of the module contacts.

Late '70s Quasar, after the Matsushita takeover. The ones from the '80s were not as good.

I'd count Zenith CCIIs both horizontal and vertical chassis high on the list. The delta gun tubes were nearly immortal, the sets were serviceable and had failry minimal wharts...Heck many are still going today without having had the back off ever.

Also the only sets I know of that have been left on during house fires and remained working when the firefighters had the fire out and wiped the soot off the screen to notice, survived being flipped on their face in earthquakes, and other abuse that ought to kill a TV.

They did have issues with safety, and VRT caps, tripplers occasionally, intermittent connections and other small issues, but besides the first 3 parts they'd usually keep running with minor degradation of performance...often for more than 30 years.

Modular Motorola and RCA were close, but switch mode power supplies and SCR sweep respectively weren't fun for techs that were transitioning from tube to SS.

The most reliable SS chassis I ever saw was the RCA CTC44, which was sort of a production unitized chassis "prototype" that led to the later modular XL100.

We sold two dozen of these (they were pricey) and only had one ever come in for service, and I repaired exactly one more after that that we didn't sell.

RCA also had a run in the 1980s (other than the early 1981 flyback fiasco) that were ridiculously reliable. Once the more complicated chassis came out like the 140 did we see some RCAs come in, but those weren't terrible even if they weren't trouble free.

We also sold Zenith and Quasar at that time, and Zenith was always hit and miss (more misses is you ask me). The "vertical" chassis series was stout to be sure but were constantly plagued by module contact issues, and the later Triple Plus chassis could be glitchy. The nice thing about the Zeniths of those years is that they were 100% modular so as long as you could get a yellow label module, you could fix it easy. The rebuilt red label modules had about a 30% failure rate right out of the box, so I stopped buying Zenith red label boards and rebuilt them as we got them.

The Quasars were pretty good overall but they just felt like they were built out of toilet paper and popsicle sticks. They used paper phenolic boards were Zenith and RCA were using glass and they used garbage trimmers for adjustments.

Sony's of the 80s were pretty good but not without issues.

John

I purchased the following Sony color sets new back in the day. All continue to operate well without any servicing except as noted.

1968 KV 7010U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1210U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1220U.
1970 KV 1720U Sold 2004.
1973 KV 1722.
1980 KX-2501A Profeel.
2004 KD-34XBR960

I always liked the RCA CTC169 chassis and that was probably their best Thomson-era chassis. The main problems they had were capacitors in the power supply that would cause the B+ to skyrocket and blow the HOT, and those caps would sometimes blow the chopper transistor and driver IC. On those, you had to use the correct RCA parts, or the set would not hold up. I knew of one TV technician, who was not all that great, who'd slap whatever kind of old HOT that he could find on a used board in a 169, and then talk negatively about the set when it blew in 3 days and he got a callback. I tried to tell him what he was doing wrong, but he wouldn't listen and told me that he was just going to stop working on 169s. I told him to send them all to me because I liked working on them and I rarely ever had one come back to bite me.

I guess you don't have brownouts where you live... :banana:

John

Never experienced a brownout. Lucky.

Gotta go with RTVNUT
Magy C1 & 2 great sets. Sure beat the dog hybrid & the over engineered
C3 and up.

GE PC "build it right, its the last hurrah ! " Is this really a GE ?? Loved them.

First place is the Zenith flat chassii AND since they are almost the same
the CC2 uprights. In them days Buick & Caddy almost the same. The flat
chassis was the caddy.

RCA CTC169 was best RCA ever IMHO. Never junked one & awesome
pix. Kinda fun to work on. What was that diode CR4118 ?? They all
got a new one. The non modular CTC44 was great IIRC just damper diodes &
IF transistors. Great 1st gen SS set.

Sylvania is the first non modular chassis. GT Matics with dark / lite CRT
had a killer pix but if you got 4 yrs out of a CRT count yourself VERY lucky.

Admiral built very good console chassis, another case of last hurrah. BUT
the M10 13, 17 & 19" chassis was a dog. AOC days they went to no modular
chassii. For a few yrs they were very good but them they used a FBT that was guarantied to brew up at two yrs old.

Nippon sets later. Enuf fer now.
73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

So what’s the story about Sony tvs and brownouts? Certain years, certain designs killed by brownouts? :scratch2:

jr

I have witnessed some 80's japanese TV's in waiting rooms where their owners have said that these TV's have been in use for well over a decade. Especially one Sharp here in the driver's/car pool; is from mid-80's and only recently was retired due to absence of HDMI input ;) ... (was working, with great bright)!
Some serious run hours for this CRT.

I've had problems with those Sanken STR3000 series hybrid regulators on the larger Sony KV TV's from the 80's, don't recall if it was due to a brownout low voltage condition but they were a pain regardless.

Sony TVs of the 70s were pretty reliable but they didn't like running at 90V or below - in fact, when the voltage went down the current went up and they'd blow. They eventually revised the design. Before they did, rolling brownouts in New York city particularly would cause a power supply failure on an otherwise properly working TV. I can't recall the chassis involved any more - maybe someone else remember them.

What caught a lot of techs back then was that when SS electronically regulated power supplies came out, a Variac was a useful tool when troubleshooting them. Many manufacturers like Zenith, RCA, Sylvania, Motorola, etc. had flowcharts that would often recommend starting the chassis at 60V or so and bring them up to 130V measuring for current and voltage regulation after the supply was repaired and to test the performance of the regulation.

Bringing up these Sonys on a variac would destroy them even if they were properly repaired.

John

Thanks :thmbsp:

I will avoid using the variac on early Sony sets, although I think I did on a KV-9000 that got flooded, without harm.

jr

Without a doubt one of these RCA's

https://i.postimg.cc/KjtkmN8J/350-15141-1-1.webp

I have one that I picked up used for $3 at a thrift shop back in 2002. I estimate that It's ran at least 70,000 hours as a surveillance monitor from 2007 to 2018 till it was having something arcing in the HV when it's cold and first startup in the morning.

It still works and outside of a bit of burn in the picture is still sharp as a tack and the colors are bright and dead on accurate. I've still have to track the arcing down and correct it.

Looks like the venerable CTC107/8/9 series. And you're correct - other than the early 1981 run where they had a lot of flybacks fail, your example was not an aberration. They were a simple and low cost design, but they could run up ridiculous hours without breaking a sweat. When I was selling new TVs in the 1980s, one of the ways I was able to get sales was to give a three year parts and labor warranty with every new TV. Up until the CTC140 (a great performer) came out, I never had to repair a single one of those.

John

Very nice!

I have an 2000 "Sony" Trinitron. Not necesarly relabile, because that chassi model had problems with an integrated circuit and mine had a problem with the H.V. connection on the tube, but otherwise, no problems.
The older '90's problably where more relaible.
My granfather had an 1995 U.K. assambled "Panasonic" that worked up untill around 2010. He gave it away without teeling me. :( The set didn't had a problem in it's entire life and it was regullary used.

Yeah, the MCZ chip. I made a ton of money with those. :D The problem though is that counterfeit MCZ chips hit the market so we had to buy directly from Sony or Hitachi (who used them as well).

A dirty little secret is that year in and year out, Panasonic made a more reliable TV than Sony. Sony had some great chassis but always seemed to make a clunker here and there, but I can't recall Panny ever making a clunker.

John

Place I worked for sold Sony, only TV-Appliance dealer selling Sony in a "city" of 75,000. Without much fanfare, they began selling Panasonic in '85. Just before the GE buying RCA debacle and selling both of those as well through the Thomsen Era.

I have to agree, even the GE PC (?) was proof Panny could improve all things SS, after doing it for Quasar a decade before :D much as I like Motorola SS, they could be a bear sometimes:sigh:

What exactly was the problem with that MCZ chip?
"Panasonic" probably knew that they couldn't make such as good picture tube as "Sony" did, so they went making more relaible chassies - good publicity?
"Samsung" made quite relaible tv sets. I know that in U.S.A. they where problematic, but the ones for Romania where pretty lasting tv sets.

I think mine is a 1983-84 model if I recall. I'd love to know exactly how many hours are on it all total.

They're driver chips for the scanning, HV and IIRC switch mode supplies. They tend to fail every so many years.

My DA4 chassis HD-CRT Sony has 2 of them and one blew leaving me with a dead set a few years ago...I ordered a new pair (the place sent me like 5 of them for some reason so I have spares) and somehow guessed the right one first try and fixed it with only one chip...I added a socket for that chip while I was in there so if it dies again it'll take half the time to change it.

IIRC, the one closest to the flyback was the trouble maker, the other would last virtually forever.

One of the easy ways to troubleshoot them was to heat them with the back of a soldering and apply AC - if it started, the chip was bad. Thermal intermittents are such a time saver.

John

Depending on which way the intermittent went. :D

In the case of the MCZ chips, they always responded to heat. Icing them after they were working would cause a shutdown. Very handy.

John

But why "Sony" used bad MCZ chips and the competion made better chassies?

Could be many reasons. And I never was told by Sony what was going
on them. Either they didnt know or mods were to extensive.
Panasonic had a similar dog apx 1990. SMPS IC's were going. There
was a big kit. If you changed it & it blew again they would buy the set back.
Too bad, it was the TOTL set & had an awesome pix.

BTW after the first few generations of Sony they were just average reliability.
They got easy to fix & very predictable. Toward the end of CRT's they
got quite unreliable especially FBT's & CRT's

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

The chips were made by shindengen (sp?) and Sony just bought them as several companies like Hitachi and possibly Toshiba did (not sure about Toshiba, it's been many years now).

The Sonys that used the MCZ chips were not "bad" chassis specificaly, but most of the trouble we had with that chassis series was the MCZ chips, but there were also two 200V plus electrolytics on that board we used to change at the same time.

Since Hitachi had less trouble with those chips and since the Sony used two and only one near the flyback was really the one that generally failed, I think the circuit that the chip was installed in was somehow tougher on the MCZ than it should have been, but Sony never issued a bulletin for a circuit change that would increase the life time. In any case, it didn't affect every Sony and most of them were at least a few years old when they failed.

John

Ops, I posted in the wrong thread......

I think Sony was a very well made solid state built tv from when Trinitron first came out. I liked the cabinet designs from ‘68 up till about late ‘70’s. I didn’t care for their design when they had the SG613 gate that would destroy many components. TV service guys hated those chassis. You had to replace with genuine OEM part. But that said, they made sets that generally needed less service than American made brands. When I worked at the tv shop we sold RCA, Zenith, and Sony TV’s. Sony sets always out performed Zenith, but they were a close second and RCA was third for reliability. I hated the flyback problems the CTC 120 had. Memory fuzzy it might have been CTC 124. It was the flyback that was made in Mexico that they discovered the windings were wound too tight. I remember the TSG (technical service bulletin) that had you use a light bulb brought up with a variac to determine if you had a shorted flyback

My parents had a Sony KV 1800 in 1972/73, it was still working perfect when Mam died in 1994, my sister then had it for a few years, it never conked out. I remember back then British made TV's would conk out on a regular basis. Cant ever remember brown outs, we'd have the odd power cut though...