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Old 18th Jul 2021, 5:41 pm   #41
bobhowe
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

Hi John looks like you had a lucky escape like David Boynes about not selling or repairing the Sharp CS tv range kind regards Bob
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Old 18th Jul 2021, 8:14 pm   #42
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

I also recall the digital Akura sets. One particular set seemed to have an awkward remote control problem mainly in the teletext mode. The delay after pressing a button on the remote control and getting a response from the set was painfully long, probably about 300ms. I didn't solve the problem but the customer was happy to have her set back at least in reasonable working order.

Re Thorn sets, I never really had many difficult problems and quite liked them in general. I did however get my share of hassle from the 8000 series. The 8500 chassis was better though. The 3000/3500 wasn't bad once you became used to the series chopper PSU. All panels easily changed for servicing so no complaints there. The 9000/9600 series were quite good but the CRTs weren't long lived. The 9800 wasn't one of Thorn's best efforts. Later TX9s and TX10 were excellent as was the TX100. The Thomson ICC5 was disappointing though easy to repair but couldn't be relied on to keep that way!

The RRI T20 was OK to service but below average performance and reliability.
Re 20AX sets, the best were the Philips/Pye G11 and the Decca 100 both good performers and easy for servicing. I quite liked the ITT CVC30/32, again easy to service and quite reliable. I never came across the GEC 20AX and have never seen the chassis. Does anyone here own one and have any pics of the GEC?

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Old 18th Jul 2021, 9:24 pm   #43
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

The ICC5 was unfairly singled out in my opinion, it could be made reliable once you understood how it worked and realised what was wrong with it. yes it was compact and fairly complex for its time plus the use of early smd parts (mainly MELF resistors).
Poor soldering during assembly/production didn't help, also the heatsinks were part of the chassis return legs which was also common with some Sony and Salora sets of the time.

The ICC5 gets quite a bad reputation but I found them to be mostly ok, the later ICC9 was, and could be a real ball ache with nearly every smd transistor giving problems at some point in time.
Vestal 11AK series also came in for some criticism, but again once you understood the failure mode/s were fairly easy to fix plus the parts were cheap being a 'no frills design' Some of the later Sony chassis (AE6/AE7 and FE2) could be a right PITA with their elaborate protection circuits.
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Old 18th Jul 2021, 9:36 pm   #44
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

agree with others, Sharp CS and Philips A10E.

After years of loyal service from our Philips G8 and then K35, my boss came to me asking what TV I would recommend so I told him Philips. He bought an A10E bundled with a 'free' DVD player. It failed just outside warranty and I gave up trying to find the fault, it ended up going to a neighbouring dealer who fitted a new painter daughter board at great expense. The tube failed some months later.

Only saw a few sharp CS tvs and I failed on all of them. I sent the last customer to another dealer who charged him a large inspection fee and scrapped the set.

The days of tv repairs were numbered at this time as cheap flat tvs were arriving.
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Old 18th Jul 2021, 9:44 pm   #45
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Originally Posted by slidertogrid View Post
Another set I didn't like much was the late 823 varicap "electronic tuning" some sets gave good pictures but others were poor you could set the decoder up by the book and it looked ok but after not too long it had a slightly Hanover bars look to it again with critical tuning and patterning. Not for long though as the thermistor on the power board would burn a hole in the panel and shower shrapnel all over the back of the decoder panel as it failed. That usually converted them to monochrome!
Rich
Hi.

I wasn't a great fan of the A823 series either. Not the easiest to work on and inferior performance. Quite a toasty power supply board too! I blame the design of the decoder for the poor pictures. If Rank used a proven Mullard/Philips design then I think the picture quality would have been good.

Re the Hanover blinds. Yes, I had that on virtually all A823s. It was said in Television magazine that you could set up the decoder correctly only to be left with blinds. It turned out to be the chroma delay line being out of tolerance. The ITT made chroma delay lines were the only ones affected. Mullard units didn't suffer the problem.

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Old 18th Jul 2021, 9:53 pm   #46
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

Two of the early Panasonic Digital sets, Euro 1 and 2 were difficult to repair sometimes, the Euro 1 in particular, but then again so were the Sanyo ED0 and ED1.X along with the Sharp Deco 4 chassis, the latter also using the ITT digi chipset again with yet another spin of the the Philips CP110 PSU with the added problem of a shorted chopper transformer coupled with an expensive PSU repair kit also made for an unhappy life for a bench engineer.

The Ferguson IDC2 chassis combined Thomson ****** mindedness in its PSU along with the problems of the ICC9 SMD transistors mentioned earlier, and mixed in for good measure the ITT digi chipset (again!) to create another beast, thankfully there was only one model released in the UK and even these were fairly rare, they were difficult to work on as I did not have the necessary extension kit for the two digi boards, thank gawd for Ferguson technical whom were quite helpful with these!
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Old 18th Jul 2021, 10:50 pm   #47
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Ah yes, I almost forgot the Philips A10. One particular A10 repair was a simple one requiring a replacement mains switch. At the time, I hadn't experienced the Painter chip problem. The correct switch had to be ordered. Once fitted the set performed well and was soak tested for a couple of days and all was well. After about a fortnight of the customer having the set back, it started playing up with occasional/erratic AV switching. Yes the Painter chip mas messing about! The customer wanted the set repaired FOC. I couldn't do that so I cut my losses and gave a refund on the original repair but was out of pocket all the same. Just the right chassis to give you, the service engineer a bad reputation. I didn't want to see any more after that experience. Quite a nasty chassis. Philips lost the plot on that design. At the same time, I also had a nasty experience with a Philips Freeview box that became intermittent due to not being able to accept a software update. That was scrapped at considerable loss.

Worst chassis:

1. Philips A10
2. Sharp CS
3 Thomson ICC5

To be fair to the ICC5, at least it could be fixed economically and did work well. It was just not that reliable with bounce repairs often with different faults despite preventative maintenance. E-W modulator faults involving the TDA 4950 IC were very common. ISTR the chroma delay line was by way of a digital IC that often played up too.

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Old 19th Jul 2021, 12:12 am   #48
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

With the ICC5 once the modified EW coil LG11 was replaced and the usual chip TDA4950 etc. it was also imperative to also replace the 300N 250V cap CL44 with a 330N cap from the TX100 I forget the part no. but this stopped any bouncers in this part of the set, my thanks go to Bernie Hinton the Fergy TLO of the time for that useful piece of information
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Last edited by Red to black; 19th Jul 2021 at 12:32 am. Reason: added voltage to cap
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 1:07 am   #49
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

The Philips A10 was fairly reliable apart from the dreaded painter chip, I had a a fair few problems with this chassis, but not because that I couldn't replace the chip, which I did on more than enough occasions, but because of programming difficulties, mainly when version 2.0 replaced version 1.6 of the firmware embedded in the chip, my thanks go out to Robert Beaumont whom greatly assisted when I was left with a no sound problem and guided me through the re-programming Hex address procedure using pony prog with dodgy wires connected in dubious fashion to the I2C bus.

I must say here the Philips A8.0 chassis was much more reliable and gave very few problems.
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 1:15 am   #50
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

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The Philips A10 was fairly reliable apart from the dreaded painter chip.
I only ever got my hands on one of these, some minor repair got it going and a fantastic picture and sound when it worked - but after a few months I turned it on to deafening static, no picture and some other problems I don't remember (this was over ten years back now I suppose).

Incidentally, why the hell was the infamous micro on these called a 'painter chip'? It always sounded so absurd to me!
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 1:31 am   #51
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Default Re: What Was The Worst CRT TV To Work On & Why

God only knows Ben,
Sony also used the same chip with a different mask on some late AE6 chassis on their 'M board' they suffered from different problems although still thermal though, the chip numbers base value was the same.
Incidentally the Sony FE2 chassis almost used the same formula as the Philips L01 chassis, same front end and almost the same chip (different mask) doing most of the work.
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 8:45 am   #52
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Speaking of the dreaded (and poor performing) Rank A823 chassis, I remember the awful thyristor PSU which would get an attack of the 'bounces' at certain beam currents. There must have been an 'official' fix, but I can't recall it. I do recall it causing us no end of wasted bench time.
And (I know I've banged on about this before) the pictures produced by this chassis were deadly. Dull, grey and lacking any sort of sparkle or life, no matter how you tweaked it it would never look nice. Alongside say a Thorn 3500 or a G8 on the soak bench it looked truly awful.
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 9:31 am   #53
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

Perhaps the Pain-ter chip?
Actually besides that chip, the inflammable switch and the CRT it did have a very reliable chassis, though that was probably because they didn't get the chance to work many hours.
I think if you just had to repair a limited number ofcertain chassis you'd actually quite like them, especially if you know they would carry on working when they went back to the customer. For those of us who repair anything and everything then you wanted something that could be repaired quickly and not need hours of studying only to fail soon after the repair.
I agree the CS was the most hated set - I only sold a handful and lost money by having to give a very generous part exchange on all (except one - I never saw that again!) a couple of years down the line. I had a pile of around twenty in my shed, some working, all less than four years old that I sold to a disposal house for beer money. Yes, you could fix them (capacitors, jungle IC, line driver stage, line transistor, LOPT, frame stage rebuild and audio IC, all in one set) and then it would come back shortly after, complete with an irate customer who'd spent a small fortune on it.
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 11:38 am   #54
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

This was the reason I disliked the ICC** series of chassis. We ran a busy repair workshop . We would provide a swift economic repair which we guaranteed. This meant the workshop was always busy. I hadn't got the time or the inclination to rebuild a badly designed badly built set only to have it come back for a different- intermittent or serious fault. It wasn't profitable and that was the point of offering chargeable repairs.
Doing it as a hobby or as a part time side line for interest is a different matter. When we repaired a set we would give it a general check over and sometimes do preventative work, dry joints etc to prevent it coming back. This meant a knowledge of a chassis' common faults, weaknesses etc. How could you do that with some of the sets produced?
If you did all the common faults on a Thompson you would be on it all day!

We have all had that customer... It's never been right since you repaired it last... The picture isn't as good since it was repaired ( usually a low tube which they were advised about) . We haven't used it since you repaired it two years ago...
I sold up in late 2000 it sounds like I missed some fun!
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 11:54 am   #55
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

I didn't dislike the ICCs as much as some. The ICC5 could be a nightmare if it wanted to be, especially those horrible flat screen types, but another example could be fairly reliable. Once you'd resoldered the frame thyristor, replaced all the E/W components and the odd diode, together with the mains switch they could work for years. Then you'd get the 'trip three times' monster on your bench...
The later ICCs weren't too bad, with usual faults such as dry joints in the IF cans, LOPTs, shorted rectifiers and the notorious AV signal transistors in the ICC9- you just changed all of those.
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Old 19th Jul 2021, 11:39 pm   #56
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

How many years was the service life of the ICC5 sets? When were they gone? I didn't do much Thompson repair and don't remember them being very bad. They probably were fairly new when I did them.
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Old 20th Jul 2021, 7:50 am   #57
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

I didn’t see some of the horrors that are discussed, thank goodness.
CTV’s
The RBM 823 was not the easiest to work on and the picture was lack lustre but I didn’t find them that difficult. I didn’t see the power board burn up but then I left the trade in 1980. The Pye CT205, I had the CDA PCB problems but with stand offs for the valve bases and hot components usually saved them, I wouldn’t like to have worked on them when they were 10 years old though. The Pye 691/3 didn’t have that problem and were easy to fix and decent sets.
The Pye 731 wasn’t that reliable but straight forward to fix, the later 725 wasn’t a problem, the sliding rails on these sets I found ok.
The infamous Pye CT200 Chelsea chassis? Sent them back to Pye, just not good enough to retail, We had 6 to see what our opinion was of them, the Pye sales rep wasn’t happy, so I didn’t need to fix any.
ITT, Toshiba and Hitachi sets again I found straight forward.

I disliked the Thorn sets but that wasn’t Thorns problem, I would only see one or two of them a year, so each one was a steep learning curve with little service information, when I could have been more productive on other sets.

B/W
The only BW set I can think of was the Pye 40 chassis, I think that was the chassis/model number, the one with the integrated Tuner/IF strip with the flying push buttons. It didn’t work well, the IF strip was I think a disaster. It was I think due to the management at Pye wanting to be one of the first with a Hybrid chassis, their second attempt with the IF strip bolted to the main chassis was a good set. They still had some mechanical problems with the push buttons and the Ferranti model rotary tuner but the mods easy to do in the house fixed those.

Other Pye/Ekco, RBM sets from the early 60’s to when they stopped making them in the 70’s we’re fine, I saw a few Thorn, KB/ITT and other makes but none stand out as horrors.
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Old 20th Jul 2021, 8:04 am   #58
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

Yes, the Chelsea's were horrible. Unstable PSU, dry joints in IF. The version with the unipotential tubes were terrible. Cheap tat, loved to scrap them, didn't dare one second hand.
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Old 20th Jul 2021, 10:14 am   #59
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Yes, the Chelsea's were horrible. Unstable PSU, dry joints in IF. The version with the unipotential tubes were terrible. Cheap tat, loved to scrap them, didn't dare one second hand.
Like quite a few sets mentioned the Chelsea was designed to fill a role, cheap and cheerful, so it’s perhaps worth having in a collection of Pye/Philips sets even if not working.

Not every design can be excellent.
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Old 20th Jul 2021, 11:18 am   #60
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Default Re: What was the worst CRT TV to work on and why?

The later ones were better, I bought a load that had been used on a ship, they were UHF/VHF 625 with a six button tuner which was switchable. I assume they were used in the cabins and were then able to pick up local broadcasts.
They were all very low mileage and worked quite well but they must have been the last of the models made. The IF panel was different and didn't suffer from the lead through connections failing, they had two tuners side by side which plugged into the panel. They had much more gain than usual. One of the few sets that would work well on a set top aerial in Peterborough.
Like the Thorn 8000 the 18" Pye was built to compete with the Japanese small screen imports I suppose.
On the subject of Pye mono sets a lot of engineers didn't like the 11U much, they were old and available mostly free when I played around with them and I always found them easy to fix if you had the patience to replace a few old greasy wax capacitors. The Olympic that came out later did work well but had the Philips type LOPT same as the 210 which failed . At least it plugged in though! Almost as if they knew it would need to be replaced a few times in the set's life...
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