The best solid state color TVs ever made

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

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

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

[Alex KL-1]

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

[Popester]

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