Revamping an Old TV as a Gift (2019)

The earlier VCRs definitely did. We had either a Sony or a Toshiba (can't remember exactly) and that thing lasted decades with heavy use. It even survived disassembly/reassembly by a horribly underqualified kid (me) after having a PB&J sandwich shoved in the front (which was not me). Taking that thing apart was absolutely fascinating!

how do you figure they've deleted all their posts? When I click the second link I seem to find a normal profile with several posts (although it hasn't been used since 2023)

nothing is ever deleted on the internet

Felicidades. Que ganas de ver a Mingo y Aníbal en ese cacharro! Que lo disfrute!

Excellent work - really nice to see the creativity you put in to that gift! Love it!!

Members of the forum "Elektrotanya" have collected a nice set of service manuals and schematics over the years: https://elektrotanya.com/content/about-site

I also see Polish forums when looking for TV stuff but I don't have a specific suggestion for that corner of the web.

this what you're looking for? https://antiqueradio.org/art/Sony8-301WTelevisionManual.pdf

Chatgpt (especially deep research) is pretty good about digging up stuff like this

Oh man, I had a good friend who collected repair manuals for electronics, especially those built before in the 80s and earlier, basically everything he could get his hands on. He was a huge (and gifted) hardware tinkerer who always had a cool project going. When he passed away, his wife basically threw the whole collection away. She wasn't trying to be malicious or anything, just trying to clean up old junk and get ready to downsize her life (and holy cow that room was quite daunting and disorganized, and frankly looked like piles of trash even it wasn't). Those early manuals were absolutely incredible. I read quite a bit through one that for a post WWII radio that badly made me want to become a collector. I remember seeing a model much like it at my grandparents house as a kid and one of my biggest life regrets was not trying to acquire that after they passed. Same with a really cool sewing machine from the same era.

There is something so magical about those early products.

Wow, that Sony is beautiful!

> cracking the vacuum seal on the CRT was just so satisfying.

I've totally felt this before! As a teenager we were offered an old CRT for free if we would pick it up. We spent several days trying to fix it but ended up breaking it much worse than it already was, to the point where my friend's dad (who was a programmer but also did a lot of electronics repair) basically told us to take it to the dump. We did, but not until we took it deep into the mountains and shot the vacuum tube with a .22 long rifle :-D (we did get our asses reamed because we didn't know there was mercury in there, but even after that the consensus was still "it was worth it" though we never had the guts to tell parents that). We did at least have the foresight to put it on a big drop cloth so cleanup was pretty easy, though I later became mortified at our recklessness. The only thing better than shooting that was being able to shoot an old church bell that somebody dumped in the woods.

For sure, but I probably naively think that those who have the gumption to take the back off a TV would know this. As a kid, I used to play with an old TV by connecting the second anode lead to a 50 ft extension cord and walk around our damp basement zapping spiders with inch-long sparks. Fun times.

My worst shock was from an old tube shortwave receiver when reaching over it and learning that the antenna lead was hot by touching it.

When I was very young (~10yo), I was obsessed with taking apart any electronics I could get my hands in an attempt to figure out how it all worked.

Somehow I got my hands on a semi-functional CRT oscilloscope and of course took it apart. Within minutes of the initial disassembly, I accidentally discharged a large capacitor through my body. I still remember the blinding pain and passing out from literal shock. I'm lucky to be alive today. I gained a healthy fear of electricity that day.

Through the many years that followed I continued my trajectory in electronics, eventually designing and fabbing my own analog and digital circuits. Today I continue to be extremely careful whenever dealing with power circuitry. Always proceed with caution!

Exptv.org is really cool thank you. Reminds me of why I like FM radio. I miss not being in control of what is coming on and how it exposes you to new stuff you wouldn't watch or listen to otherwise.