Going to do my first tube swap!

[Jdurg]

I am so psyched!  I've been trying like crazy to find a 25", Standard Resolution Arcade Monitor.  Being in lowly SE, CT, it's a pain in the ass trying to find a seller locally.  Craigslist has also been a drag as folks there are selling complete cabs and I only need the monitor. 

I expanded my search into TVs, and thought I found a perfect one.  An RCA 25" TV that supposedly plops directly into a WG K7000 chassis.  Sadly, the person never contacted me and deleted the listing once I sent an e-mail.  Arrrrgh.   

Perseverance paid off, however, as this morning I found someone over in Massachusetts who is giving away a free Sanyo 25" monitor with "universal remote" and "v-chip", which means it's newer.  It's not a flat screen which is great, and I only have to drive 1.25 hours to get it.  Once I get it home, I'll de-case it, look for the tube model number, and also measure the yoke resistance to see what comes up.  Hopefully it will be a nice easy swap into a standard arcade chassis which I can readily find on KLOV and E-Bay.  Will also need a 25" Horizontal monitor frame for a Dynamo cabinet, but that's a separate search.

Wish me luck guys!

[jtslade]

Keep yo head up. cRT for life


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[Jdurg]

Picked up the TV today.  Going to need to check the Yoke readings as the CRT model number A63AHC26X doesn't appear in any look-up databases I can find.  Will need to carefully look at this to see if it can be done.  Stay tuned!

[Jdurg]

Alright.  Wow, what a trek.  The tube on this TV is absolutely beautiful looking.  I got the case taken off and the neckboard, anode cup, and chassis came off very easily.  (The dag wire and the degauss circuit wires have simple molex connectors on them).  As I could not find this specific tube in any tube database on the web, I pulled out my multimeter and got values of 1.5 Ohm (F=fluctuated between 1.4 and 1.6) and 6.0 Ohms.  The neck of the tube also has 8 pins in the semi-circle, and one pin in the "key" area.  

I found something over at KLOV which actually had my CRT Tube model number on it.  According to the chart, it is an acceptable tube to use in a CGA monitor.  It looks like I'm good to go!  Just need to make sure the pin-out matches up.  YAAAAAAAY!

[jtslade]

Awesome, post some pics and vids of your work..


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[Jdurg]

Definitely.  Below are some pics that I took earlier showing the tube, neckboard, and pin connection.







Just now, I got some replies to a WTB thread on KLOV and will be getting a 25K7000 chassis, and a proper 25" monitor frame to put it in.  Also awaiting a TPG to fine tune the monitor once it's all together.  Will definitely be taking a ton of pictures.

[Jdurg]

Preliminary results are in.  Got the frame, chassis, and proper connectors in the mail, and today during lunch at work I went and hooked it up temporarily to the isolation transformer and the power supply.  Turned it on to see if there were any sudden issues (smoke, explosions, etc.) and nothing.  Just the satisfying sizzle of a tube warming up.  The image is very blue as I think I moved some of the pots on the neckboard when installing it, but I'll adjust that once i hook up the game PCB and go into test mode.

The only current issue I see is some SLIGHT convergence misalignment, whitish lines appearing across the screen, and the top kind of bows downward like a bowl.  i'm not super worried right now since I'll be doing my fine-tune adjustments once the PCB is hooked up.  This was simply a test to make sure everything works.  I'm pretty damned happy as until I built this thing, I've never even seen the "guts" of an arcade CRT monitor in person!