Cartrivision Camer-A-Thon, Part 6 - "All Solved Problems Are Trivial" 

Miniature color cameras were not ready in that era. Still too bulky and hideously expensive. Plus, Cartrivision was only in business for two years. Not long enough to mature any of their technology. I was eagerly awaiting the portapac version of the system. Though, dreams of the Cartrivision camcorder make me wake up with a sore back.

I can always tell the comments of those who "do" from those who "don't". Great on you for keeping the craft alive too. There is a special pleasure in cracking the tough nuts in repair.

Tantalum capacitors are designed to fail catastrophically. They usually dead short and burn an big non repairable black hole right through the PCB. I refuse to design with them for that reason. Plus they are extremely toxic when they burn. In this case, the caps were not tied directly to the power line, so could not do damage. The one part did not short this time. This is the first one I have ever seen go open circuit in my 40 year career. Wired remote control. Brings back memories. Ah, the luxury.

@@videolabguy i always thought they were the best capacitors ! but i never used them much due to how bad tiny the markings for polarity are ..OK i will listen put them on the don't bother with them list

Tantalum capacitors need to be operated at 80 to 90% of their voltage rating. But, NEVER over that. We used 6V rated caps on our 5V logic power lines at Prime Image. The problem was a form of noise spikes that I call "hair". You can barely see them on an extremely fast analog oscilloscope. Not at all even on a fast digital scope. At any rate, these noise spikes go over the capacitors rated voltage and break it down over time. When they fail in that service, they usually short out and burn as I mentioned. We had a hell of a time finding the cause of the failure. We finally rented a 2GHz analog o'scope and we could finally see the spikes. We jsut changed to 16V rated caps knowing the product would be obsolete long before those caps would fail.

Andy! Thank you. I knew this chip back in the day. Couldn't recall the part number to save my life and could not find in all the internet searches. Seems to be easy to get on Ebay. Thanks again.

Thanks! Check out the OLDVTRs forum for Sony BVH advice. More experts there than you can count. groups.io/g/OldVTRS

Thank you for the excellent question. I just directly measured the current drawn on the +18V power line. It is 366mA. At 18VDC, that's a power drain of about 6.6 watts for the entire camera. The current at the photo target of the 8844 is held at a constant 150nA (0.15µA!). The tube itself consumes literally no power. It is mostly consumed in the deflection circuits, the focus coil circuit and inefficiency of the HV power supply.

@@videolabguy That sounds pretty good, USB-C can do that easily!

It is a good idea. But, vidicon cameras don't do well in that mode. The interframe lag makes for weak or even no color. I have a Sanyo camera project that will use a silicon target vidicon with a color wheel. Think electron beam scanned CCD. No lag between frames.