B&W HDTV in cabinet that had no chassis

[wa2ise]

Lets say, for whatever reason, you have an old TV cabinet but the chassis and CRT is long gone. Say like this one (borrowed from a current thread, where the owner is restoring the chassis)


Okay, you may have a digital cable box with an HDMI connector. You can get a HDMI to VGA converter for not a lot off ebay, and a monochrome CRT VGA monitor (most are smaller, like 9 inches, like a IBM 4707 E01 Monochrome 9" Monitor, be sure it's not green or amber phosphor). Black and White, to be in keeping with the look the set had in its day. A cabinet like the one pictured would have plenty of room to accommodate the VGA monitor CRT and chassis, maybe even its cabinet. Monochrome monitors are likely to use pots to adjust contrast and brightness, and it would be fairly easy to somewhat remotely mount those pots at the respective holes in the TV cabinet. The contrast pot may be somewhat fussy, wires too long may roll off the video bandwidth. A pot on a long shaft may work better.

A speaker, audio amp, along with a volume pot would take care of the sound.

[jbivy]

I think this would be a fun little project. I know I see vintage tv's, without the chassis, on Craigslist all the time. Ive been thinking about buying on and making it into my bedroom tv, with modern internals.

As long as the cabinet came from a common tv, or from one so rare that finding a chassis would be impossible, then i see no qualms in building one of these.

[Eric H]

I did something similar with this empty Admiral cabinet.
I picked this up when I bought a Predicta off eBay, when I went to pick it up the seller threw in this faded, gutted cabinet.

The Screen mask was too fogged to be usable so I removed it and found a CRT set that had a tube that fit perfectly in the space, a later model Sony with 480P inputs and a flat faced CRT.

I removed the Sony from it's cabinet and built a wood frame to hold the CRT and chassis, no mods were done to the cabinet.

I made a set of dummy shafts to hold the knobs but haven't got around to finishing it yet. I drilled a small hole in the on/off knob and mounted the power indicator LED inside, power can be operated by pressing the knob, other functions are controlled with a remote since there are no pots on the Sony.

[Kamakiri]

I'm doing the same thing with my CTC-7 Pensbury cabinet now. I got it with no picture tube, no chassis, just a flawless cabinet.

Until I get the proper chassis for the set, I made a very convincing fake slide-in jig with a SS CRT and chassis and the controls coming out the back. It's too nice of a cabinet to just have a big empty hole in it, and too special to alter for any other purpose. So I came up with a smart compromise

Still have to finish up the speaker board I made....when it's done I'll take better pics

[Kamakiri]

Here's the set in "finished" form.....

Above all, I wanted the "conversion" to be completely reversible, leaving the original cabinet untouched and just working the BPC guts around it.

The BPC I got is a 24" Symphonic set. Ideally, another inch would have filled out the mask completely, but I worked with what I had.....figuring that this isn't going to be permanent anyway.

After discharging the HV, I cut the bottom of the cabinet out so that I could mount the control board in so that the buttons could be used. The buttons on the board were mounted flat on the board, meaning that I pretty much had to use the face of the unit.

I then bolted the cut out section with the main board on to the side of the BPC cabinet (albeit crudely), and then made a back out of fiberboard and scraps of wood....primarily so that reaching your hand back there wouldn't induce a shock by reaching for something you're not supposed to. And I have cats

Only thing left to do is to desolder the remote sensor and mount it so that it can be accessed through the old channel window, but I might not bother since I use an agile modulator anyway.

Until the guts come my way, I'll enjoy the cabinet just as it is