This is so cool. I never imagined you could yank the tube from a junk CRT and do something like this with it. What a wonderful way to recycle an old TV.
Wow! What an awesome video. This video was done better than any video I've seen on RU-vid -- On ANY subject. Nice work sir! If I ever need to make this kind of change to a machine, I'll be back to this video for sure. Thank you so much for putting this together.
The TV sizes are different in the US because they are the viewable size, not the tube size. They were only allowed to quote the proper viewing size of the tube. Most 19in TVs were actually 20 in tubes but only 19inches were viewable.
This seriously is gold! Thanks Chuck. It seems obvious when you spell it out like that! Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the insight and for sharing this with others on here! Cheers mate. :)
I did a tube swap on a U.N. Squadron cabinet with some serious burn-in years ago. I just bought several old TVs which looked the correct size and swapped tubes. Worked great! I think I may have gotten lucky with the resistance. I can't remember if I used the old or new yoke.
I've been building and fixing these arcade crt monitors for years, these days with new tubes so very thin on the ground I tend to pull tubes from later tvs as they usually have virtually new tubes in them with low hours on, it's surprising still how popular they are with arcade lovers and retro gamers, your right about Sony tubes... they can't be used. Well they can but it's a pain because of the dual focus pins, different pin configurations, voltages etc, normal flat and square tubes can be used though ive built a few of 25 and 28" flats for customers who wanted to upgrade over the traditional curved tubes
I know this is an old video now and maybe others have also suggested this - but, you cn use any SCART RGB CRT tvs. Even Sony tvs - you can make a really easy Jamma (or whatever game you have in the cab) converter to scart. You just need 3 capacitors and 1 resistor.
Wait! What? You can't discharge that tube using another chassis as ground!!! Where would the discharge current go? Through the floor carpet? There is metal on the TV chassis that is supposed to be ground for the TV. Fortunately that TV was already discharged. And "modern" CRT TV's are usually discharged by itself within 15 minutes without power anyway.
You raise some valid points and these sorts of questions and assumptions can end up filling many pages on an arcade forum for weeks! All I will add for anyone else reading this is to say make sure you adequately earth the charge from the tube before undertaking any further steps in the process. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, safety is extremely important.
Thanks Mario! Welcome aboard! I look forward to creating more content especially when there are people like you who appreciate it. Thanks for your kind words. Cheers! :)
I ordered a universal chassis from the same place quoted all the specifics and although it worked the image completely distorted I later found another tv that has the right yoke readings and had a more curved glass and it works better but still warped in side scrolling games now i just picked up another tube thats even more curved hoping it would be compatitble but the pinout is different so i cant use it. Now im still on a wild goose chase a tube that will work with the arcade chassis nothings showing up for sale anywhere.
My first crt was an rca from a doctors office that stayed on 24/7 for 8 years and it still lasted me like another 7 before the flyback converter I think it was died. I ended up getting rid of it because it wasn't worth trying fix especially before a move.
I had the same problem with the neck being to long on a Sony monitor in my Electrocoin as it barely touched my access panel in the back. So I routed out a small square hole in the access panel to let the neck clear then bolted a new, smaller board over the hole and bought myself half an inch of extra clearance. The access panel looks a little strange but it worked and I can get to my neck without pulling the whole access panel off.
That's a good idea. I know a lot of them are a very tight fit and some original cabs have a bump on the back to accommodate the neck. You don't realize how big they are until you try and jam them into a cabinet, that's for sure!
Is there a reduction in quality going from an arcade monitor tube to a television tube? I always thought arcade monitors were superior. That said, anything is better than lcd/led.
Great question. Interestingly according to a very experienced and respected local arcade tech, the arcade tubes tended to be the rejects that weren’t good enough for TV’s. So actually the other way round to what you thought!
I do find most regular TVs tend to have better geometry and clearer picture in the corners than your AVERAGE arcade monitors. However arcade monitors usually have much greater flexibility in terms of frequency ranges, higher quality inputs, refresh rates, and screen adjustments.
I am swapping out an old monitor for a TV and using one of those converters with RGB wire connector so my question is can I just connect to power cord from new TV to the original power from old monitor? With old transformer still hooked up?
I'm not a licensed electrician so I can't give specific advice with respect to YOUR power configuration. There are also lots of variables. However, the likely safest option would be to maintain the existing TV power cord as it was designed and have another standard power socket in your cab to plug it into (e.g. route a standard power board into your cab). You should probably ask a licensed electrician if you are going to attempt to splice the tv power into the existing transformer. In/Out transformer voltages would need to be checked, load differences and TV chassis power input expectations etc. Don't guess with power as transformers/chassis can melt, catch fire etc. So please consult a licensed professional.
Hey mate, im a fellow Perthian. Making my own Mame bartop at the moment. Ive got a red and black two pin plug coming off the tube. I think its the degaussing circuit. I see in your vid its white and black? I cant seem to find how to hook this up to my jomac chassis? Does it take 240v input? Any advice appreciated. Cheers, Adam.
Cool! Welcome to the channel. Apologies for the somewhat late reply (busy week) so you probably have sorted this now? If not, then it sounds like that two pin plug is the degauss circuit (if it connects to some wire wrapped around the outside of the tube). The chassis will normally pass a stepped down 100v AC (not 240v) to that degauss circuit either directly (With a manual momentary switch spliced in to activate it briefly) or through onscreen controls (if it's a fancy chassis). You probably don't want to take a guess at this due to the voltages concerned so my best advice would be to contact Joey at Jomac and ask him as he is super helpful and will point you in the right direction depending on your exact chassis type. Cheers!
Yes they are good especially if you want an easy way to play mame, however some argue that because the resolution is much higher that you won't get 'native' low resolution that a TV tube would be rated at that matches the arcade games (Not all of course as there are a lot of medium and then later high res games). Most people don't really care about the subtle differences so a PC CRT still gives you a good result (and MUCH better than an LCD). I've also found lately that the PC monitors at high res are a great substitute for a vector monitor. Clearly not the same but better IMO than a flat screen or arcade/TV CRT.... So yes there are options here for sure. They are getting harder to find of course and often getting one at 20" can be expensive these days unless you hit it lucky with someone tossing one out...a lot rarer to see that happen unfortunately.
I'm no expert either but one thing is quite certain: CRTs are not limited to any horizontal resolution so you definitely should be able to display all those pixels horizontally! There must be some way to do that.
I agree. I ‘think’ its to do with the variances of the yolk on the tube with what the chassis expects. When doing these sorts of match-ups the two may not align quite correctly. It’s also impacted to some degree by the source. Not an exact science for sure! Cheers
??? color CRTs have limited resolution by the shadowmask or aperture grill (Trinitron) pitch. Even mono CRTs have limited resolution*luminance product by their electron optics. You can't focus a 25keV beam to an infinitely small spot, even theoretically, because as the electron density in the beam increases, the electrons repel each other, causing a de-focusing effect, and further the electrons hitting the phosphor scatter secondary electrons which cause spot spreading. There is even a spec for color CRTs "TV lines" which specifies the maximum horizontal resolution possible due to the color mask pitch. Better tubes have more "TV lines" and there's nothing you can do to make a low resolution CRT into a high resolution model.
correct me if i am wrong , you can discharge a monitor using another chassis for ground? this does not sound right i am pretty sure the ground needs to be part of the chassis your discharging.
If your monitor has a frame then yes, that’s the best place to latch on to. The chassis is not usually grounded to earth (ie it’s a floating ground). My understanding is the CRT is acting like a big capacitor and once you close the circuit to the floating ground it’s enough to short out the capacitance in the tube. As such, if the tube isn’t in a chassis then it just needs another ground with enough ground potential to complete the short. Another chassis with a floating ground should allow the short to occur in the same way. I’m no expert and there is a lot of info on this, some that contradicts other information. I would seek professional advice if you are not sure. I am not qualified to give that advice but the above is my understanding. Cheers.
This is wrong. If a tube is not in a chassis, the only way to discharge it is to short the cathode to the anode. When it's in a chassis you are only discharging it by shorting the anode to ground, because the cathode(s) is (are) attached to the TV's ground via a bleed resistor. The only way touching the anode to another chassis' ground would work to discharge it, is if both chassis are attached to a common earth, say via the earth cable of the 3pin plugs.
There are actually two charges to consider, and both of them need to be dissipated. One is the relative charge between the cathode and anode, and the other is the space-charge (static charge) between all the elements of the CRT and earth. Both of these charges can be large and deadly, the capacitive charge is larger, but both need to be dissipated to make the CRT safe to handle. In other words: ground the anode to cathode and earth simultaneously.
I think some of what you're saying is true, but if the anode is at a certain potential, let's say +20000 volts, and you connect it to anything, including yourself by accident, that has around 0 volts potential, don't you think you are going to short that anode to ground, and the charge will dissipate? I wouldn't think it would matter if the cathode of that particular tube is connected to anything. If you don't believe me, stick your finger in the hole on the tube and tell me if it dissipated or not.
If you are trying to hook up to an existing arcade cab/monitor then I’m not sure if there is a converter available to convert the multi-out on the PlayStation to the RGB/Sync that the arcade monitor will require (there probably is I just haven’t done it). If you don’t have a cab then easiest way to get the same CRT output would be to simply pick up an old CRT color TV and plug directly into that. Either way perhaps do a search on “PlayStation multi-out video converters” to see what’s available for your needs.
Hi Eddie, Best to ask Jomac direct. I'm not sure if he applies 'variable' pricing and don't want to misquote him if he does! Contact details are here on his website: www.jomac.net.au/ Thanks for watching. Cheers.
Theatre of Magic the reason I asked is because he doesn't deal with us yanks over seas. was looking to maybe proxy one over. His stuff is such high quality as far as retrofitting chassis but a shame I can't deal direct.
Ah I see. Well a couple of options. 1. The Sharp Image chassis I bought off Jomac is made in the USA - Sharp Image, 9160 Jordan Ave, Chatsworth CA 91311Tel: 818-341-8000 and if that doesn't help - you could maybe try posting up on aussiearcade.com.au to see if someone would be Ok with acting as a proxy for pass through delivery. It's not something I could offer but maybe someone on there could. I hope this helps. Cheers. :)
Where are you located? ... If you are in Australia there are a couple of options. Jomac is most popular. If you are elsewhere maybe check on KLOV to see if someone can assist. You should be able to get yours repaired or worse case get a one of the replacement universal chassis that you can get on eBay (Just make sure you check the specs against your tube). Anyway, I hope you can find someone or some replacement universals to keep your CRT's alive!
Look up arcadecup online where a fellow named Chad does repairs, and look up The Arcade Buffet online and he has a RU-vid channel also. As far as I know they are still doing repairs, and The Arcade Buffet sometimes puts up 5 or more videos in one week where he has repaired monitors for people.
