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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 6:37 pm   #1
greg_simons
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Default Thorn 2000.

Well i finally got one!, only problem is it's been kept in a damp place for the last four decades, did come with the full manual and loads of spares though, I've started this thread to update you on progress.
power eht and regulator modules are under refurbishment now, all the transformers are in the airing cupboard,,,,i pleaded insanity to the wife which seems to have been accepted.
the cabinet is a mess and I'm still pondering the best course of action there but that's some time off.
I'll put some pictures up when I've got time, meanwhile I'm sourcing a bulk load of capacitors to replace all the callins ones in the set, most of which have emptied their contents onto the boaards long since.
wish me luck folks, I'm going to need it, this i hesitate to say is my first and probably last television restoration but, it's the one i always wanted to do.
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 9:45 pm   #2
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Always fancied one of these myself, however I haven't fallen over one yet. I dare say they're as rare as some pre war sets now.

Best of luck!
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 10:10 pm   #3
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Hi Joe,
Only took me 35 years to find one, nothing really, yes indeed, it's strange how sets of the fifties and sixties turn up on eBay etc but colour sets from the seventies are hard to find, perhaps others can speculate why that should be.
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 10:52 pm   #4
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Hello
I can remember visiting a local hotel for the launch of the BRC 2000 quite a few gin & T's were sunk on the house !
It is amazing how we where leading the world in those days with TV technology.
Good luck with your restoration I'm sure you will need it !
Best Wishes John
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 11:15 pm   #5
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Thorn2000. This was my first restoration, many years ago. I was 16, I'm now 62.
The Sony 1330 had just come out, the Thorn was the 19 inch version. I got it going, but the work needed to restore them now will be a lot greater than it was then. Reading posts on here tell me the line and EHT boards cause problems, they did then. Good luck with it.
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 11:17 pm   #6
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

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Originally Posted by greg_simons View Post
Hi Joe,
Only took me 35 years to find one, nothing really, yes indeed, it's strange how sets of the fifties and sixties turn up on eBay etc but colour sets from the seventies are hard to find, perhaps others can speculate why that should be.
Greg.
I did wonder if a lot of early colour sets were rented & not many lasted to end up in private hands. As mentioned elsewhere here some of the bigger hire companies tended to sell their older sets to smaller companies rather than to private buyers as this would potentially be a rental customer lost.

Maybe by the time the independents had finished with them spares were in short supply & newer sets were cheaper & produced a better picture, so a lot were scrapped rather than sold on to the general public.
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 11:31 pm   #7
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I had one when they first appeared - a marconi 19" version. Only problem I had for a few years was a regulator which I think was for the EHT which I changed about 3 times under guarantee - SO34 rings a bell, and it was supposed to be a specially developed device for this use by Texas - In desperation one Saturday evening I fitted a 2N3055 and it worked - for the next 10 years.
Other than that I only changed a couple of tant caps - and soldered up the 405/625 switch on the timebase section to stop it burning up the contacts.
Today there will be many other tants to replace as well as many Callins electrolytics. Good luck with your project -they were quite good back in the day.
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 11:38 pm   #8
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

The first 2000 I saw was on a high shelf in the corner of the Granada TV Rental training room in Bedford.

The chief trainer, Alan van Gortel, had a cunning relay box fitted to the set so the trainer, from his rostrum could demonstrate many fault symptoms on the set.

Sets on the benches for fault-finding were also similarly equipped.

More ominously, the 2000 was used to deliver a colour blindness test before colour training began, and anyone who failed got their P45. Happy days(!)
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Old 22nd Mar 2019, 11:46 pm   #9
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I think the reason the sets from the late 60's onwards haven't survived in great numbers was because by the time they were old in the late 1970's the throw away mentality had started. also of course in the case of a Dual standard colour set it was too big to put in the bedroom as a second set or the loft as a spare set.
A lot of sets from the 1950's were smaller and when they became obsolete became second sets the owner had usually looked after it and probably remembered how expensive it had been when it was new so it was carefully stored and forgot about for decades. look how many TV22's and Ekco portables still turn up today.
A lot of early colour sets were stripped out when they became old and unreliable and turned into cocktail cabinets and the like.
When I first went into the trade in 1977 the first generation colour sets and dual standard mono sets were almost being scrapped on sight. Due to the amount of colour sets being sold and rented there was a constant stream of single standard mono sets coming in so the Dual standards were scrapped even if they still worked, especially the earlier rotary tuner sets.
I bought loads of dual standard GEC colour sets as they usually worked I avoided G6's due to the complexity the valve decoder and the LOPT I avoided the Thorn 2000 because it seemed complex at the time with special transistors .

I manged to get a 2000 for my collection a few years back it's in great condition and works well after the caps had been replaced. After 30 years in the trade they are far less daunting now.
Good luck with your restoration I will follow with interest.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 12:18 am   #10
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I was never a fan of the picture quality of the Thorn 2000, compared to many single-standard valve and hybrid sets of the time.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 9:39 am   #11
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Good luck. They are a cracking set when they are working. Mercifully the jelly pot transformers are among the most reliable known to mankind! I wrote an article on restoring one for the BVWS mag in 2017 which might be helpful to you.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 11:42 am   #12
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I'm glad you've started on the beast. I wish I'd had the time to do it but I think the realisation dawned that this was too great a task and it needed a brave person with endless patience - and capacitors!
The good news is that I think it had a relatively trivial regulator fault when the original repairer got it back in the Seventies. That means that instead of all the panels having been swapped and messed with, things looked OK - no shorted power transistors and a hopeful looking tripler. The three bottom panels took the brunt of the dampness, I'd say.

The cabinet, however...
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 11:47 am   #13
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

We had one (a 25 inch) at home. The biggest challenge was keeping it converged. I don't know how many times I had the back off and the convergence panel up, turning those 'rough' preset pots. You would finally get it as good as it was going to get, turn the set off, turn it on again later and you'd be back to square one...

Anyway, the standard change switch finally did for it - although I was not there to see what happened. I was away and when I retuned it had gone and had been replaced with a Single Standard 3000 set. Shame, I liked 405 line, especially with all the associated big Band I and III aerials.

FYI: The set was fed on UHF with a signal from a J. Beam PBM18 group C aerial pointed to Winter Hill transmitter on Channel 62 (BBC2) initially.

I thought the picture quality was good in terms of colour when compared to other hybrid sets I saw. So I hope your restoration goes well, the set is worth it in my opinion.

Last edited by SteveCG; 23rd Mar 2019 at 11:48 am. Reason: spelling
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 12:08 pm   #14
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I tend to think the colour difference outputs on the conventional hybrid sets was better suited to the tubes of the period. I remember having 19" versions of the 2000 and the GEC 2028 side by side and I must admit I preferred the GEC's picture. For the 25" sets, a well set up G6 could beat all others IMHO.
That's not to say the 2000 wasn't good, and a well set up one did give an excellent picture and, convergence aside, would carry on doing so because of the cooler running. However, one day you'll be needing to add raster correction, though that's a bit in the future, I think.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 2:29 pm   #15
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

I imagine the complexity of colour dual standards condemned them by the time solid state single standards were common, not helped by some smooth talking salesmen pointing out the relative reliability of these newer sets to a customer who was having to call an engineer out a lot.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 3:14 pm   #16
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Welsh Anorak View Post
However, one day you'll be needing to add raster correction, though that's a bit in the future, I think.
I imagine the lack of pincushion correction would be even more noticeable on the 25" version. As the convergence board is designed to accept the PC correction components, I wonder if Thorn ever intended to fit them for general use? Maybe they were only fitted when they were used as monitors?

I can't imagine many customers would have noticed anyway and it meant a few less components to catch light! I seem to remember transductors were not the most reliable things. Was it in the G8 they had problems?

Once the 2000 was in production, I imagine Thorn wanted to get the 3000 ready to replace it ASAP as the story goes that they lost money on the 2000 which I can well imagine they did!

Good luck with the restoration, Greg,

All the best
Nick
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 3:40 pm   #17
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

We're used to monitor quality pictures on even cheap TVs now. Back then if it was colour it was magic to most people. Over saturated, mis-converged (up to a point of course), but in colour. With practice and patience it was possible to get reasonable convergence in an ellipse stretching from top to bottom and side to side, corners were more problematical, but there's little going on there.
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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 4:18 pm   #18
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Welsh Anorak View Post
I tend to think the colour difference outputs on the conventional hybrid sets was better suited to the tubes of the period. I remember having 19" versions of the 2000 and the GEC 2028 side by side and I must admit I preferred the GEC's picture. For the 25" sets, a well set up G6 could beat all others IMHO.
That's not to say the 2000 wasn't good, and a well set up one did give an excellent picture and, convergence aside, would carry on doing so because of the cooler running. However, one day you'll be needing to add raster correction, though that's a bit in the future, I think.
Hi Glyn
I agree the single standard G6 was a very superior CTV, way better than the rest, I loved them and the G8 in all its iterations then they blew it with the horrible G9, still back to the 2k, it was very brave of Thorn to produce a fully solid state CTV at the time, may be right in saying some of the power semiconductors were doing duty in the radar industry and were commandeered for use in the new CTV. On the pincushion subject I wonder if the R and D costs were so high that they felt obliged to pinch a little back and leave it out unless it was a problem for some customers like the BBC.

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Old 23rd Mar 2019, 5:04 pm   #19
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

On the very early 2000s the line/EHT output transistors had a square base with four fixing holes which were superceded by the TO3 case. They say that the transistors supplied by Texas originally weren't up to their own specification and couldn't stand up to the demands of the TV. Luckily this was put right before production of the 2000 started.
The BBC devised their own modification to add raster correction. I have a copy of the data for when you need it. It seems an odd thing to cut back on as all the large screen hybrids had it! I wonder if the experimental Thorn 1000 used it...
I learnt about colour TVs by buying an incomplete ex-rental dual standard G6 and worked on it till I got it going. The local tech used Thorn 2000s as their teaching set. I wonder what the newly qualified technicians thought when they found they had to work on a G6?
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Old 24th May 2019, 3:02 pm   #20
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Default Re: Thorn 2000.

just a quick update on progress,iv'e not been idle these past weeks, some photos of work so far, nearly all panels cleaned and refurbished, even the pots had popped their sliders due to the damp, those with sharp eyes will note some odd parts still required here and there.
might have found a carpenter to help with the wreaked cab but meantime the next major task is to get the chassis up to the house to check over and clean.
greg.
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