tube question

[radio nut]

I plan on using my 1950 (51?) crosley tv for as long as possible. I am 42 and play my set about 30 hours or so a week. I have 3 nos picture tubes. I also have 3 full sets of good tubes for the rest of it.Is their anyone that can give me an idea of what a tube should last? What is the average life of a tube? I do understand that there are variables to my question, but is there a published hours of use life span expectancy? (Radio nut)now TV nut!

[Old1625]

The last time I replaced a picture tube in someone else's solid state color set the TV was running 24/7, and was pushing 8 years of age at the time.

Maybe someone else can come up with an answer for a tube specifically from the era of your set, but I've never seen specific use life in hours advertised. Most CRT manufacturers seemed to boast "fewer callbacks" with their premium tubes. Back when your set came out there probably weren't that many hours of broadcast per day for most stations, thus nothing to watch, thus TV on only perhaps a few hours a day, max. I think the real answer to the question is God only knows; there are a lot of variables here.

If the tube you have in there now starts showing signs of losing chutzpah you have chances of stretching its use life by rejuvenation and the use of brightener transformers. I'd stacked as many as 3 of them to boost up the filaments of a 21FJP22 in an old Zenith color set I had. You could practically read by the light of the filaments, but I got another year out of that tube before I finally was able to find a replacement, and some time to do the swap and do the gray scale/purity/convergence adjustments on a Saturday morning. Those roundie tubes are big and heavy bahstids, BTW....

[bgadow]

Which type picture tube does it use? The early 10BP4 and variants, including the 12" version, seem to hold up as well as any picture tube. Larger round tubes plus the early smaller rectangular tubes don't seem to hold up well, though. Either way, with those spares you should get a long, long life out of this set...I suspect you will expire (!) before the crt's. Some sets "back in the day" had a hard life, on from Captain Kangaroo until the Tonight Show. I don't think you'll run this Crosley like that.

[radio nut]

My set has a 17bp4a, Doug

[Randy Bassham]

I think the 17BP4 is a pretty rugged tube. When I was a kid we used an Emerson table model set for well over 10 years and the 17BP4 was still bright and had good contrast when the flyback burned up one night. There were 4 of us kids and that Emerson was basically on from sign on till sign off. I still remember watching the new years day parades 1960 on it.

I've just finished restoring a 1951 Zenith table model set that has the original Rauland 17BP4 in it. The fellow I got it from said it was their first TV and they used it up until 1968 when something burned out, I later found out it was the flyback. Set's restored now and the CRT checks very good and it shows a good picture.