24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

The Beltron is a decent restorer but the Sencore CR7000 is much better...

UV!

You're probably right. Well... I know you're right (Sencore CR7000 tests way more parameters), but the Beltron did what I needed it to, and that's all that mattered to me in the long run.
 
Alright so more details. After reading the Sencore CR7000 manual and getting a feel for how all of its restore modes worked, I set out to emulate that using the Beltron.

There are three types of operation:

1. Test - this does what it says it does. It's a basic emissions test. Nothing more.
2. Clean - I'm not really sure how this technically works, but you can dial in the voltage control and get it as low or as high as you want.
3. Restore - full-tilt, no control.

So what I did was check emissions. Yep - this is a poor-emitting tube alright. The emissions test confirmed what I already knew in my heart just from seeing the picture. This tube is dim, and its emissions aren't great. The three needles bounced their way to almost 0.80 mA of current. On a good tube, the needles will smoothly move from 0 to past 0.80 mA.

Next, I plugged in the clean mode and started my voltage off at 1V. I released the interrupt button and nothing. I kept going up on the voltage on the "Clean" mode - testing emissions between every run to make sure nothing was changing. Eventually when I hit around 4.5 Volts on "Clean" the cleaning lights started flickering - indicating that they were burning crud. As soon as they started flickering I pressed the interrupt button.

I then check emissions. Different! The needles are now smoothly making their way past the 0.8 mA mark.

The differences in picture are stunning, to say the least. Immediately on firing up the television, I could tell it was brighter. I took some measurements on full 100% screen white, but the values were the same as before. I'm convinced this television has a limiter on full white scenes because it stayed artificially low. At half of its "Picture" adjustment (white level), the full white is 75 cd/m2. At full? About the same.

But I knew that I could see that it was brighter in other scenes, so I tried the ultimate test - could it calibrate? If you all remember, it was having trouble tracking its color earlier. I could always nail one end of the white spectrum but it could never be done without throwing the opposite end way off. So if I got 100 IRE to 0.9 delta E with the Gain controls, it would throw the 30 IRE cutoff settings way off. Likewise, when I corrected the cutoff controls and got that into spec, the 100 IRE white would then be way off.

Now? No more. Both settings were easily honed in. Average delta E for the grayscale is about 1.3. A huge improvement. Maximum deviation is now a hair over delta E = 2. I could probably reign it in even more, but since this is a video game TV, I don't see the use.

Doing luminance readings with the HCFR shows that at Picture = 50%, peak brightness at 6500K is about 101 cd/m2. Perfect. On my other 32 inch Trinitron, its peak brightness is 103 cd/m2 at the same settings.

After doing this procedure, the tube crackled a little when I first turned it on. It has since "popped" a couple of times. It has done so once this morning. I think that this could be some burnt filament material that could be sparking or momentarily shorting the tube. I laid it down on its face when I did the restore, but I may lay it down again and tap on the glass a bit to hopefully loosen some crud away from the neck area.

As with any restore job, I have no idea how long this will last. I did a very gentle and light clean on the tube, and that's all that was needed to wake it back up. Do note that the Beltron instructions are useless these days. When the instructions were written, the guns in CRT's were much bigger and thus could take more of a pounding. Its recommendation to START at 5V and WORK YOUR WAY UP to 10V (AAHH!!) would have likely destroyed this tube. I started at 1V and worked my way up to ~4.5.

Could I have done it better? Probably. But instead of shooting for the three points (and missing), I did a layup and got my two points - and I'm quitting while I'm ahead.
 
fantastic, that must've been very exciting! I look forward to seeing how much longer this tube lasts. And great confidence booster, you're one of the very few GDM owners to be in a position to actually restore a tube if the need arises :)
 
fantastic, that must've been very exciting! I look forward to seeing how much longer this tube lasts. And great confidence booster, you're one of the very few GDM owners to be in a position to actually restore a tube if the need arises :)

Thanks for the encouragement - it's really, really appreciated. It made me really nervous to do this, but I figured why not. I considered the tube as good as gone (which is unfortunate side affect of being a video nut).

Thankfully - I learned my lesson when I killed the other one. A worthy sacrifice. I now know how to tune my Beltron to do a restore. I have the television on right now and it shows no sign of letting up. No pops - nothing. I should also note that I did not, under any circumstances use the Restore function of the Beltron - only the Clean. This decision (and the decision to up it slowly and retest every time I increased voltage) is what likely saved the tube.

One neat advantage that the Beltron has against the other restorers (especially the older ones) is its pure-analog operation. With the other restorers, you simply hit a button and it does its thing. With this one - you can dial in the precise voltage that you want. I may do a demonstration one day or record a youtube video. Most older TV dudes seem to swear by it, and now I know why.

I agree with Vito that the CR-7000 is a really good restorer and is a FAR more capable tester than the Beltron could ever hope to be. It also does some other things that the Beltron can't, like remove shorts. I'm going to do some more technical digging, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if the Beltron and the Sencore CR-7000 were comparable in the restoration department. The "Clean" function of the Beltron is infinitely configurable in its voltage application in this mode - from 0 volts to 24 volts. This allows you to be as gentle or as brutal as you want to be to the tube. Honestly - I think that had they sold these all the way up to when the CR-7000 was sold, the only thing they'd really change is the instruction manuals, to suit the more gentle and fragile tubes made in the early-to-mid 2000's.

One more Edit - it also helps that these things are usually dirt cheap on ebay. :)
 
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that is really really useful - the ability to fine tune how much juice to apply. Surprised the Sencore doesn't have such fine control.

Curious about how these things actually work. Why would the CR-70/7000 be able to remove shorts, but not the Beltron. They all connect to the tube in the same way, no? Does removing shorts require a special type of "pulsed" voltage or something?
 
that is really really useful - the ability to fine tune how much juice to apply. Surprised the Sencore doesn't have such fine control.

Curious about how these things actually work. Why would the CR-70/7000 be able to remove shorts, but not the Beltron. They all connect to the tube in the same way, no? Does removing shorts require a special type of "pulsed" voltage or something?

The Beltron does not connect to the G2. I *think* the Sencores do. That would account for one difference I assume. I need to backtrack before I start some disinformation. Let me review the technical literature before I state that the other testers don't offer the same precision as the Beltron.

If I remember correctly though, the manual modes on the Sencores were just other modes to select from. Fine-tuning was still limited if I recall correctly.
 
We can continue this discussion later. But for now - I just did some other readings of my television and decided to reign in the calibration a little bit more (Because - why not?). :D

Average dE = 0.75. Max deviation is 1.20. Contrast ratio is around 3400:1. Black level is 0.03 cd/m2 and White level at full 100 IRE is 101 cd/m2. No where near approaching my monitors but good enough for what it's being used for.

I would consider this tube fully restored. Its grayscale tracking is back in line with where it should be, and its brightness is more reasonable. While I have it apart, I will consider doing some additional calibration - IE convergence.

Edit: And since I've turned it on this afternoon, it has not popped one single time. Truly some magical stuff indeed.
 
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Update on my adventures in TV land. I was messing around with my Quantum Data and did some research. Previously, I stated that it can't do televisions. This actually isn't true. Using the Format programming tool on the device, you can actually switch the RGB outputs to YPbPr and run it on televisions with component input. All types of resolutions are supported - 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i, and I'll bet I can even get it to do 240p if I figured it out (old game consoles use 240p). I have only confirmed this on the BNC output of the device (I got three BNC-to-RCA adapters for it). Pretty cool stuff.

Now, I no longer have to guess, in regards to calibrating my televisions. And I can also confirm that a laptop running Nokia monitor test or NEC pattern gen (with the video card's overscan compensation turned OFF!!!), running at 640x480 should be sufficient to calibrate an old low-res CRT in a pinch - provided of course, it has S-Video output.

So there's a little update for you all. I plan on getting a hand-degaussing tool for the televisions soon.
 
hah jbl, how long until we start sending u our tubes for repair and servicing :)

:) That's funny. I intend to try and do some mechanical adjustments to a 32-inch Trinitron that I have in my garage. I will follow the service manual and see how well I can calibrate that sucker. The problem with televisions in general is that their electronics (deflection yoke, for example) aren't as sophisticated as PC Monitors.

It all makes sense though, as "you get what you pay for" is strong in this area. Example - my KV-36FV310 television (36-inch, cream of the crop low-res Trinitron with tons of inputs) cost less brand new than my GDM-F520 did brand new.

So in other words, a television calibration is going to be a ball-park sort of thing.
 
Is there a way to make full measurement with HCFR automatically? Pressing "OK" button and changing test patterns 82 times is little annoying...
 
yes, absolutely. File/new, and choose "automatic" from the pulldown menu (used to be called "view images").
 
Okay so while digging for Argyll CMS variables I found dispcalGUI.

This thing is brilliant! Easy to use, no command line, automatically manages your profiles for all displays (great thing to have when I have 3 monitors connected), everything works automatically and doesn't really require much skills. Also you can easily measure/verify final results with detailed charts. By the way I just found out that my Surface Pro display is quite good when it comes to color deviation (around 1%dE), but color gamut is waaaay below expectations...barely 60% of sRGB :eek:

My second, but this time pleasant surprise, were my Dells 2412 (which stand both sides of my FW900) which are little over sRGB (about 103%) and after calibration both look surprisingly good when it comes to color redention. Of course they are nowhere near FW900 smoothness nor contrast/black levels, but at last they don't look disgusting when next to my CRT.

Spacediver would you consider updating your white balance guide with dispcalGUI info? I think that would help folks that do not feel confident with command line and argyll in its raw form.
 
If someone wants to learn dispcalgui that's fine, but with dispcalGUI I'd have to figure out exactly which boxes mean what, and tell people "ok make sure this is checked and this is unchecked, etc".

People might not feel confident with command line, but they literally have to just type in a single line (that's explicitly given to them) and hit enter. Granted, dispcalGUI might be more convenient for loading the LUT automatically upon starting windows, but again, the instructions are very simple to do it "manually".
 
If someone wants to learn dispcalgui that's fine, but with dispcalGUI I'd have to figure out exactly which boxes mean what, and tell people "ok make sure this is checked and this is unchecked, etc".

People might not feel confident with command line, but they literally have to just type in a single line (that's explicitly given to them) and hit enter. Granted, dispcalGUI might be more convenient for loading the LUT automatically upon starting windows, but again, the instructions are very simple to do it "manually".

I'm all for a command line command versus GUI. One command and that's it. :)
 
Just lost focus on my F520. I know the FW900 and F520 are so closely related I figured this would be a good thread to ask you guys about your similar experiences and how you handled the issue.

High probability it's a FBT (FlyBack Transformer) issue. Symptoms just started. Upon power up, focus goes blurry/fuzzy pretty fast. Upon power cycle picture comes up crazy clear then...back to blurry.

As far as any "popping" sounds...only happened a total of two times since going blurry. Very light "popping" followed by very short flicker. Nothing super intimidating. Gotta be a aging FBT from the sound of it?

Can anybody with these symptoms share their experiences? Any practical fixes to get more life out of your monitor?

My monitor will consistently power up fine just with a very blurry image (imagine "fogged up" glass). Is it worth attempting to adjust the focus pots at this point? Or is adjusting the pots THAT much more risky with a dodgy and aging FBT?

I am looking to send this in for rehab to the esteemed vito at some point to see what the good ol' doc can do. However in the meantime, have any of you had similar experiences and have any practical fixes to share on your fw900's and the like?
 
as far as I understand, adjusting the focus knobs won't fix an out of focus issue that is caused by the flyback issue. Try leaving the tube on for a couple days straight, and see if the problem resolves itself.
 
Crazy to see this thread still going. I have been a lurker of this forum for at least 15 years.
I'm sure i've posted under a different name back at the turn of the century. :p

I have 2 Fw900's. One is dead. (RIP) and still sits over there in the corner.
My current one i am using right now was "just in case" back up.

Imo with these old monitors you are better off to not shut it down if you don't have too.
I ran my now dead one for over 7 years nearly 24/7 without turning it off in general.
I mean letting it get stone cold. Every time you do that i think you take a risk of damage upon restart. Superstition? Maybe but I really don't think so. Rebooting after cooling down is how my last one officially died. It was during a pc rebuild. If i was able to keep it powered on i believe it would likely still be working.

What i also think helped contribute to it's demise is brown outs/bad power.
I bought a battery backup and I realized how many brown outs we have in our area and was like holy sht.

Also I turned the monitor off once years before it died and upon restart there was some pink lines wiggling about. Actually, the screen wouldn't come on at first then the lines after it did. It was the monitor, not my video card i was fairly sure of that, and they went away after a few times restarting the monitor. It did the same thing the next time i restarted it a long time after that so after that i did not turn it off for years and never had a problem.

I may "reboot" but the monitor stays warmed up. I'm talking about letting it get stone cold.

So yeah. That and good power in general, and your unit could last a good long time even running 24/7.

My current one has been running for over 2 years straight now and it's just as good as it was nearly 10 years ago when it was my main screen.

I have never had to use Windas on either screen. Sometimes games that may alter gamma will not release the gamma state when you exit and i will use image restore every once in a blue moon If brightness seems to be creeping up. But not too much overall.

As far as resolution I run recommended 1920 x 1200 at 85Hz and it's nice and crisp.
( not like text on my phone's 424 ppi pixel density :p.of course ) But overall it's excellent.

As far as running higher or forced refresh you will just kill the monitor quicker.

Anyway when this one dies i will just reluctantly move on to lcd :(, or Oled by that time possibly/hopefully. But fingers crossed this one lasts a good few more years.
 
interesting theory
this totally unnecessary heating up procedure that SONY monitors have might be reducing lifespan of tube and/or flyback transformer

still, I would rather not keep it on 24/7, especially at summer. Keeping vacuum tube lamp 24/7 cannot be good for its emission capability

I suggest running it [email protected]
with refresh rate its simple rule more=better

I do not believe it will shorten lifespan of monitor at all, and even if then eyes are more important. There is visible difference in flickering between 85Hz and 96Hz. Eyes lifespan is always more important than monitor lifespan. And its better in games to run fastest as it is possible at given resolution.
 
so I sold mine, then found a great deal on one and couldn't pass up on getting one back...but this one arrived with its case broken by shipping and wont turn on. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to get it working.

It makes a very slight fizzle sound when I turn it on and doesn't light up the screen at all.
 
so I sold mine, then found a great deal on one and couldn't pass up on getting one back...but this one arrived with its case broken by shipping and wont turn on. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to get it working.

It makes a very slight fizzle sound when I turn it on and doesn't light up the screen at all.

You should go after the seller. Contact for refund, if refused, chargeback.
 
I already got a refund. They said just to keep it and don't worry about sending it back.

I'm just wondering if I can fix it anyway.
 
I already got a refund. They said just to keep it and don't worry about sending it back.

I'm just wondering if I can fix it anyway.

Uncle Vito will just tell you to buy one from him I don't believe he's currently servicing them at a reasonable cost if I were you I would keep it for parts and try to find somebody local that knows how to service monitors so that you always have a backup on parts. Going to go on out and hunt down another it's still the best monitor ever made I've been through every technology sense and I won't quit mine. I'm currently looking for a nice 4K to complement but I'm really not sure what size to get some people say 20 for some 28 some 32 I'm up in the air about the whole thing. The new ones coming out at 4K with G sink would be a nice complement for a pair of 980 TI's
 
Just lost focus on my F520. I know the FW900 and F520 are so closely related I figured this would be a good thread to ask you guys about your similar experiences and how you handled the issue.

High probability it's a FBT (FlyBack Transformer) issue. Symptoms just started. Upon power up, focus goes blurry/fuzzy pretty fast. Upon power cycle picture comes up crazy clear then...back to blurry.

As far as any "popping" sounds...only happened a total of two times since going blurry. Very light "popping" followed by very short flicker. Nothing super intimidating. Gotta be a aging FBT from the sound of it?

Can anybody with these symptoms share their experiences? Any practical fixes to get more life out of your monitor?

My monitor will consistently power up fine just with a very blurry image (imagine "fogged up" glass). Is it worth attempting to adjust the focus pots at this point? Or is adjusting the pots THAT much more risky with a dodgy and aging FBT?

I am looking to send this in for rehab to the esteemed vito at some point to see what the good ol' doc can do. However in the meantime, have any of you had similar experiences and have any practical fixes to share on your fw900's and the like?

I sent you the list with the current inventory over the weekend, and I never heard from you. I assume that you were able to correct the issues with your units.

If you did, I am very happy for you!

Let me know if there is anything else you may need...

Hope this helps...

UV!
 
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Uncle Vito will just tell you to buy one from him I don't believe he's currently servicing them at a reasonable cost if I were you I would keep it for parts and try to find somebody local that knows how to service monitors so that you always have a backup on parts. Going to go on out and hunt down another it's still the best monitor ever made I've been through every technology sense and I won't quit mine. I'm currently looking for a nice 4K to complement but I'm really not sure what size to get some people say 20 for some 28 some 32 I'm up in the air about the whole thing. The new ones coming out at 4K with G sink would be a nice complement for a pair of 980 TI's

I always advise my clients to keep their damages units for a source of parts.

Now, in response to your comment, we are very reasonable and competitive with our service & repair rates for the entire line of Sony GDM, CPD, SDM, LMD and BVM line of monitors. If we weren't, then I would be out of business, which I am not!

Hope this helps...

UV!
 
I'm away from it. I talked to a friend who works in machinery and he said his shop has lots of electronic parts for various machinery including capacitors. I hope its a capacitor replacement, but I doubt it because I don't think that'd be the most likely to break during shipping. I'll check it out tonight.
 
Assuming that I purchase FW900 in good condition from LAGRUNAUER and then calibrate it all the way, how long before the image begins to deteriorate? Does it get permanently worse or can it be re-calibrated / re-adjusted later? Where's a good place to buy all the necessary part for calibration (BNC cable, WinDAS cable, etc.) ???


Question for Spacediver - do you advice to remove AG coating or to leave it on? Based on the difference shown in this thread (photos), I think AG coating needs to stay because without it, calibration looks awfully blue...
 
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Assuming that I purchase FW900 in good condition from the main seller on these forums and then calibrate it all the way, how long before the image begins to deteriorate? Does it get permanently worse or can it be re-calibrated / re-adjusted later?

I'd recommend calibrating every 3-6 months. The black levels tend to drift.

Question for Spacediver - do you advice to remove AG coating or to leave it on? Based on the difference shown in this thread (photos), I think AG coating needs to stay because without it, calibration looks awfully blue...

AG coating makes no difference to calibration results, so long as you actually calibrate the unit in the same coating condition as you plan on using it. I wouldn't recommend removing the coating unless you have a well controlled lighting environment.
 
I'd recommend calibrating every 3-6 months. The black levels tend to drift.



AG coating makes no difference to calibration results, so long as you actually calibrate the unit in the same coating condition as you plan on using it. I wouldn't recommend removing the coating unless you have a well controlled lighting environment.

It does...
 
What is the going price now for a FW900 in good condition?
I have the HP Brand, its a 2004 model I believe I might be interested in selling sometime in the future.
 
Uncle Vito will just tell you to buy one from him I don't believe he's currently servicing them at a reasonable cost if I were you I would keep it for parts and try to find somebody local that knows how to service monitors so that you always have a backup on parts. Going to go on out and hunt down another it's still the best monitor ever made I've been through every technology sense and I won't quit mine. I'm currently looking for a nice 4K to complement but I'm really not sure what size to get some people say 20 for some 28 some 32 I'm up in the air about the whole thing. The new ones coming out at 4K with G sink would be a nice complement for a pair of 980 TI's

Define reasonable cost? What do you think he should be charging? There are still shops that sell BVM-19's out there that charge almost $2000 for a calibrated one. So I don't think the fact that he charges something like $849 plus shipping for a calibrated Artisan to be unreasonable at all.

$395 calibration charge is also for around 6 hours or so of work (Unkle Vito, please correct me if I've got my price wrong). Sounds about right to me.

My instrument luthier charges me for calibrating my viola, which also includes a bow rehair. For an enthusiast, sure - it seems that this is costly. But to a professional, which is probably his main market, this is just another business expense.
 
Define reasonable cost? What do you think he should be charging? There are still shops that sell BVM-19's out there that charge almost $2000 for a calibrated one. So I don't think the fact that he charges something like $849 plus shipping for a calibrated Artisan to be unreasonable at all.

$395 calibration charge is also for around 6 hours or so of work (Unkle Vito, please correct me if I've got my price wrong). Sounds about right to me.

My instrument luthier charges me for calibrating my viola, which also includes a bow rehair. For an enthusiast, sure - it seems that this is costly. But to a professional, which is probably his main market, this is just another business expense.


Correct!

I don't cut corners when I calibrate the units sent to us. The calibration is not just white point balance... It involves many other parameters.

Most of my clients are in Hollywood and they expect excellency on what we deliver to them...

UV!
 
WPB is actually fairly easy and rapid once you get the hang of it (I like a 2 hour warmup but you don't have to attend to the tube during this time). Geometry and convergence on the other hand. My goodness that can take a while, although to be honest it's not something I've practiced much (still waiting on your full guide jbl!)
 
Most of my clients are in Hollywood and they expect excellency on what we deliver to them...
UV!

I'm sooo curious on CRTs still being used in Hollywood. Once you mentioned that you have some kind of NDA, does it expire anytime soon? I would love to hear all about this like in 2025 :)


(still waiting on your full guide jbl!

Same here. Lately I set up Windows XP machine just for WinDAS and connected to my old Dell P1130 (some drilling in casing and voila) so I can experiment on that rather than on my FW900. And I must admit that geometry and full convergence procedures are little obsucre, also I hoped for more detailed landing adjustments rather than corners only. Would appreciate any clarification on these procedures.

Only one I did not touch was foucs adjusments because as far as I remember from this thread it requires screw adjustments, but maybe I am wrong?
 
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Question for Spacediver - do you advice to remove AG coating or to leave it on? Based on the difference shown in this thread (photos), I think AG coating needs to stay because without it, calibration looks awfully blue...
removing AG was worst thing I did to my FW900
colors might measure better without AG but it doesn't really matter if contrast is worse and any light that is in the room (even reflected off my face...) screw up black

even if you have scratch on AG keep it on until you have replacement. Its just not worth using this monitor without AG
 
My AG-less FW900's look fine - I can easily work and do competitive gaming with lights on. Then again, my room is lit by a single 60 watt incandescent bulb. For critical photo and video viewing, light controlled environment is a must.

And, I'll repeat, assuming a light controlled environment, AG makes absolutely zero difference to calibration quality. If you calibrate and them remove AG, it might change the white point balance slightly, but if you were to calibrate after removing AG, you'd end up with the same accuracy.
 
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