I purchased a new P19LUG for my G90 from Tubular Outlet. Terry put on the mounting hardware and I installed it. Actually they sent him one tube first that had silicon residue and a couple nicks on the glass face of the tube. It seemed a little questionable as to whether it was 'new' - but they were good about promptly sending a replacement for that first one.

When I received the tube I followed the excellent instructions from John HWMan for removing the old one and replacing it with the new one. I had taken the green tube out to fill up the glycol when I first had it, so I was generally familiar with the process. Having the new tube already setup with the mounting hardware and everything made it a breeze. Everything seemed to go smoothly.

With the new tube in the projector and everything put back together I fired it up. With the same settings for EM focus and registration, it was off but not as bad as I would have thought for being a completely different tube and swapping the coils and everything by hand.

I noticed however that there were some blemishes. I tried to take some photos of them with that rough setup here:
http://www.vidya.com/kris/G90

They appeared to be little spots that focused very sharply with the scan lines. At first I was optimistic that they were bubbles or residue, but after doing more detailed setup they didn't go away and looking closely at the tube face they appeared to be on the phosphor side of the glass rather than in the glycol side. They were not really visible with the tube off unless I had a flashlight pointed at just the right angle to get them to glisten - to my eye they looked like slight imperfections in the glass.

The folks at Tubular instructed me to send it back to them with the mounting hardware still attached so they could take a look at it. After having it for a week I heard from them today, and their position is that they are spot burns. They say there are actually two sets very close to each other, one that has burned all the way through the phosphor and one that is not quite all the way through. I believe those are the companion spots I see in the screen shots above.

Nothing bad seemed to happen when the projector was turned back on after the tube swap. No drama or anything unusual. The tube I had before never got any burns. The red and blue have no burns. Returning the old tube back into the projector has had it running fine with no spots showing up.

The Tubular position is that they do not warranty the tubes against burns, so I am simply out a green tube. They are confident that it was burn free when it left their facility. But they don't have any real idea what would cause two sets of similar burns. Its not the normal collapsed deflection burn, or anything I've seen photos of.

Has anyone seen this kind of spot burn before? Any theories on what could cause it?

Use adobe to blow this up 2x and see if it looks familiar

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=122598&d=1224641159

From this thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1074801

I don't know Kris. I have changed and seen hundreds of tubes and never seen anything like this unless it was a defect in the tube. The more I think about it I'm not sure how you could burn two spots that small in the face of the tube?
My experience w/ Tubular Outlet is running about 50% on 9" tubes I have purchased from them. The obvious used tube of yours they sent as new that I had to return, the time they sent me a P19LBP03 when it was supposed to be a P19LUG. I don't know, my confidence in them is not high at the moment.
There may be something else to consider here. I don't believe that these tubes are made at MEC as they used to be. I think they are made in China by someone else who (perhaps) purchased the mfg line from MEC.
When I received the tube from them to mount for you I looked at the face, but obviously not close enough to catch the problem. I don't recall seeing any defects but then again, the tube looked new so I wouldn't have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. And I suspect that it would take a magnifying glass to see that defect on the face. I never fired the tube up so I wouldn't have seen what you did.
Normally when the beam colapses you het a vertical line pattern through the center of the tube. I both the H & V colapse I suppose you could get a dot but not that small. I think this is phosphor defects.

Terry

sure looks like contamination in the Phosphor. It's like a few grains of rice fell off someone's chopstick during lunch break at the assembly line.

Tubular insists they are 'burns' and were not present when they shipped the tube.
They must have been caused by my equipment/installation and burns are not covered by their warrantee.
End of story from their side, the business person will not respond to requests to call me for any discussion.

Seems suspect to me.
The first tube they sent me had obvious issues and didn't appear to be new. Strike one for their quality control.
The second tube looks good to the naked eye, but showed the blemishes on the screen from the first time it was turned on.
The label on the second tube also does not match the image on the ebay auction - it does not say Panasonic anywhere on it.
The only person who I have spoken to from Tubular is a tech who admits he has not seen burns like this before and has no theory as to how they could be created by my projector.
My projector never burned the original tube, and returning the old one to the projector has continued to run fine since.

Does anyone have suggestions on where I could have the tube sent for a professional second opinion?
It seems like negative ebay feedback may be one of my only options.

Does anyone have suggestions on where I could have the tube sent for a professional second opinion?
It seems like negative ebay feedback may be one of my only options. send it to charlie at VDC, i hear they don't have much love for tubular outlet. however if their own tech can't explain the tube condition then I don't see hoew cahrlie's opinion will matter. It looks like one of the bean-counters with no technical experince has made the decision. I would have not even used the term "spot brn" to be honest, your pictures show a clear Phosphor defect.
It looks like they sent you 2 bad tubes, and now want to keep your 1000 dollars. That is shite, I hope you can do a charge back?

Hi Kris,

Here is a closeup pic of the results of a beam collapse on a G90, (actually
multiple collapses, since it happened several times during testing.)

I have three tubes (RGB) with this type of damage, and plenty of pics -
if you need them just PM...

I think it should be obvious that there is nothing subtle about it.
If your g90 was having a problem, all your tubes would be burnt -
just like this - all together at once - end of story.

Your experience will certainly influence any future consideration
of doing business with this company, for myself and many other
CRT enthusiasts. I find it very unsettling that they have been
unwilling to continue to work toward an equitable solution.

G

I think I will proceed with the suggestion of sending the tube to VDC for a second opinion.

In the mean time I have opened a dispute with PayPal, since the transaction actually happened in September it seems prudent to start that process immediately. Here's the message I presented:

The auction clearly presents NEW PANASONIC P19LUG CRT Tubes.

1. The fist tube sent had silicon residue from a previous mounting and had scratches on the glass face of the tube. Did not appear new, unclear if it was used, but was not acceptable. Was returned and promptly replaced with a second tube.

2. The second tube looked fine to the naked eye, but the label on the tube does not appear to be anything like the Panasonic label on the tube pictured in the auction. Does not appear to come from Panasonic.

3. Upon installation the tube showed blemishes that appeared to be on the phosphor surface from the very first time it was powered on. Photos available on http://www.vidya.com/kris/G90

Contacting the seller, was instructed to send it back to them for examination. Seller's technician contacted me and declared the blemishes were from spot burns that are not covered by the warrantee.

Business contact has refused to respond to my requests to speak to them directly.

Experts within the CRT community agree that the blemishes do not appear to fit the standard profile for spot burns, and appear to be more characteristic of phosphor defects. Seller's technician himself admitted he has not seen that type of burn in the past and can not suggest a reasonable explanation of how my equipment could produce such burns.

Obvious quality control failure on the first tube sent makes me suspicious of the claim that the second tube was flawless when it left the seller, and the inability of anyone to explain how my projector could damage the tube in this way leaves me unsatisfied with the situation.

Just for everyone's information, I just got a call from Tubular. Effective immediately, they will no longer be selling tubes to the consumers such as ourselves. Now our only source will be VDC... at $1650 per tube.

As they said, the consumer sales to people like us are well under 1% of their total sales, but with 100% of the bad press. (I paraphrase).

I personally didn't have an issue with their service, in fact with the last tube, they sent me a warranty replacement ahead of time, before getting their defective one back, so that was plenty good for me.

The naysayers will undoubtedly say 'good riddance', but for guys like me, having a place to get tubes from at almost 50% of the VDC price was a nice option. No more I'm afraid, folks.

<del>Resolution.

I just spoke with Martin, one of the owners of Tubular. The plan is to send the tube back to Terry to have the mounting hardware removed and return it to Tubular. When they get it back they will refund my money.</del>

Curt - I'm sorry if this has a negative impact on your business, that was never my intent. If they sent you a tube that showed the same thing and responded to you in the same manner that they did to me, I expect your course of action would have been similar and the end result would have probably been the same.

Oh, no offense taken, I was simply passing on the message..:)

The problem for Tubular is that the other 99% of their customers are not as critical as those on sites like this. Its a no win situation for them as they have come to realize. Obviously the manufacturing wrinkles have not been ironed out and perhaps never will be. Any chance the phosphor is contaminated with Melamine :eek:
As for another source of cheap tubes....Doesn't Greg E. have access to a supplier?

I think Thomas Electronics still makes tubes not sure and that may be the source for greg.

Athanasios

On Friday one of the owners at Tubular joined the discussion in the sister thread on Curt's site. Here's what they had to say in one of their last posts:

Kris

i see you have already made a protest to Paypal land also arranged to have this CRT evaluated by VDC. I apologize for this. As you have gone this route i must insist you continue. I know the people at VDC and suggest charlie A will be the best one to give evaluation of it. I am also massively interested to hear a number of industry experts have specification for a what a burn should be. my experience limited as it is would indicate that phosphor blemishes are not regular nor are they repeated identically on two areas of the same crt and that phosphor burns are in fact irregular and are reliant upon image displayed, beam current and are effected by any particular calibration process that is taking place at that time.

I digress, as we are going through this trial by witch hunts lets see it through to its conclusion. After all these evaluations are complete return the CRT to me and we will continue with the offer i made earlier to but i insist that you complete the path you have gone down as it is only fair. Charlie from VDC can publish his findings and we can have Paypal also review the results

My evaluation of this CRT will be worthless in comparison to the experts you have access to.

Today I did speak to Charlie at VDC and the plan is to have the tube first sent to Terry for removal of the mounting hardware and then on to Charlie for evaluation.

Kris,

Anything new on this??

Terry

Charlie received the tube, has taken a look at it and I spoke to him yesterday.

His opinion is that the pinholes are defects in the phosphor that were present in manufacturing when the tube was aluminized.

He says that when magnified he can clearly see reflective silver behind the holes.

He tells me that if they were burns that aluminum would have been destroyed from the other side of the tube face.

He does not believe pinhole spots like these could have been produced by an end user burning the tube.

That's what I thought based on their small size, locations and the fact that they did not show up on any other tubes.
Good that Charlie was able to clearly see what the problem was.

Terry

Kris, hope that you get things worked out now.

I was watching this thread because I too bought a 19lug from tubular. So far I have not seen the problems you encountered. I'm hoping mine came from a different batch or lot.

Good luck getting this resolved.

Mike

I think tubular owes Kris an apology along with a new tube.

Athanasios

I think tubular owes Kris an apology along with a new tube.

Athanasios

Or Two............ :mad:

Cliff

Or Two............ :mad:

Cliff

After all the B.S. and condescending comments of a certain Mr Caligraphic, that's the least Kris should expect. I think an apology is in order although I'm not holding my breath.

You know things happen. But good people make things right.

Hope everyone makes the right move. We need to keep every avenue for new tubes open. It's always nice to have more than one choice for purchasing.

MIKE

Perhaps Tubular will learn from this experience and go back to their supplier and let them know that they may have a quality problem with the tubes that they are supplying.

Terry

Two weeks ago after Charlie had taken a look at the tube I called Tubular and left a message saying that I wanted to talk to them about it.
Apparently that was out of the question.
Here's the text message I received as the response:

Fri, Nov 14, 1:11pm
From: 407-XXX-XXXX
Got your voicemail
Have no wish to waste further time wuith u
Email whatever the report says from charlie and I will deal with it
Do not call again despite what you think the owners of q4 ae not at your beck and call
Forward the report and we will deal with it directly and appropriately
Regards

Here is the email thread that transpired after that.

From: Kris
Subject: Re: crt
To: Tubular
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:49:48 -0800 (PST)

You win.

Charlie is not comfortable putting anything in writing for you and I will
not press the issue with him.

I dont believe I did anything that would have burned the tube to produce
the spots, or exposed it to any abuse that could have produced a 16x9 wear
pattern in the 45min I displayed video.

The fact that both exist indicate a severe manufacturing and quality control
problem.

No, I am not going to accuse you of selling a used tube as new (in spite of
the fact that the first tube you sent was clearly previously mounted and
scratched on the face of the glass; I will trust that it was 'electronically
new').

It seems wrong to me for you to advertise a Panasonic tube and sell something
else. You can explain all you want about who makes them and where they come
from, and even insist that they are superior to a Panasonic tube. But at
the end of the day you advertise one thing and deliver another.

I did not post to the forums anything about the wear since I expect people
would jump all over that. Charlie, Curt and Terry have talked about the
problems VDC had with getting the process down for coating the tubes and that
along the way they had tubes that needed to be 'aged' to prevent premature
wear.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment and consider that perhaps the spots are
defects that the wear pattern after an extremely short period of use is also
indicative a coating defect.

Keep an eye out for these problems with the clients you continue to serve.

Kris

>To: "Kris"
>Subject: Re: crt
>From: Tubular
>Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:56:47 +0000
>
>Kris
>
>You offered the vdc evaluation
>
>Please proceed and let's do this correclty
>
>
>Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kris
>Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:50:53
>To: Tubular
>Subject: Re: crt
>
>
>M-----,
>
>
>I have forwarded your response to Charlie and spoken with him.
>
>He has declined to put anything down on paper for fear that it may be
>used against him. I dont blame him, and completely understand his
>position.
>
>When I had spoken to him initially, there was no expectation of an
>"official report from VDC". I had told him about the situation and
>asked if he would be willing to look at it and give me his professional
>opinion. That is what he has done, and I'm grateful for his input.
>
>I posted to that effect on the forum.
>Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:30pm KrisRoberts wrote:
> I think I will proceed with the suggestion of sending the tube
> to VDC for a second opinion.
>
>The paypal complaint was closed by paypal the same day it was opened.
>Their history shows:
>Oct. 30, 2008 - Buyer: Complaint Case filed
>Oct. 30, 2008 - PayPal: Email sent to seller
>Oct. 30, 2008 - PayPal: Case closed
>Status - We're unable to decide this claim in your favor at this time.
>PayPal's Buyer Complaint Policy applies to the shipment of goods but not
>to disputes about merchandise quality.
>
>The following day when you entered into the discussion, you set the
>expectation for some sort of published report and paypal inquery.
>Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:23pm caligraphic wrote:
> After all these evaluations are complete return the CRT to me
> and we will continue with the offer i made earlier to but i
> insist that you complete the path you have gone down as it is
> only fair. Charlie from VDC can publish his findings and we can
> have Paypal also review the results
>
>Given the tone of all your communications so far I appreciate Charlie's
>position and will not press him for a written report. I never promised
>you any such thing.
>
>He has offered to mark the tube to indicate where all the spots are
>and return it to you. Perhaps without the mounting hardware in the way
>you and your experts can see more clearly for yourselves that it is as
>he describes.
>
>Kris
>
>
>>
>> Kris
>>
>> Your email has been forwarded to me and I wish to reiterate everything I
>> have said so far.
>>
>> Send me the written report from Charlie for my file and I will action
>> it. If the report is as you say below then I will refund.
>>
>> Are these instructions clear enough
>>
>> I wish to get on to my day job and be done with this and not sure I can
>> be any planer in my requests. Regardless of what you guys think and say
>> we are ethical and honorable and beyond reproach, so send the report and
>> I believe you will be satisfied with the results.
>>
>> As for the wear pattern on the glass, I have an idea where you are
>> coming from on this but we do not use anything with 16:9 in our office
>> for any CRT work and have been audited as such and can prove it. If the
>> 16:9 wear pattern is there it wasn't put there by us. Yet another
>> strange occurrence to do with this unit that appears to be passed around
>> all over the place without any control.
>>
>> If I see any blog report that I am trying to sell you a used CRT as new
>> I will class this as a direct and unfounded accusation and will take
>> official steps to defend my company from any further groundless attacks.
>> Sorry to take this approach with you but to say I am sick of this whole
>> deal is putting it too mildly and now there appears to be the next phase
>> of 'wear on the crt' that will become the next 'hang em high' story by
>> you and your little crowd..
>>
>> Do not ask to come and audit my office cos it ain't going to happen, but
>> I can prove the rigs I have and what they run at and none of them do
>> 16;9, so suggest you look elsewhere for your wear scape goat.
>>
>> In conclusion send the written official report from VDC as promised and
>> I will action immediately and be free of it.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> ___________________________________
>>
>>
>> From: Kris
>> Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 10:54 PM
>> To: Tubular
>> Cc: Kris
>> Subject: Re: Green P19LUG
>>
>>
>> T------,
>>
>> Terry removed the mounting hardware and sent it to Charlie at VDC.
>>
>> I spoke to Charlie yesterday.
>>
>> His opinion is that the pinholes are defects in the phosphor that were
>> present in manufacturing when the tube was aluminized.
>>
>> He says that when magnified he can clearly see reflective silver behind
>> the holes.
>>
>> He tells me that if they were burns that aluminum would have been
>> destroyed from the other side of the tube face.
>>
>> He does not believe pinhole spots like these could have been produced by
>> an end user burning the tube.
>>
>> Also of note is that both Terry and Charlie report the face of the tube
>> appears to clearly have a 16x9 wear pattern.
>>
>> This is another mystery since I had the tube in my projector for about
>> 24 hours, and only showed full frame video on it for about 45min at
>> contrast 70 after doing registration and focus to see if the spots would
>> be tolerable.
>>
>> I would say that there is no way the tube was on for more than 10 hours
>> total and the bulk of that time was displaying the internal grid or
>> cross test patterns at contrast 50.
>>
>> While at your facility, was the tube put in any condition that would
>> have created a wear pattern? If it was there when I had the tube, it
>> was not visible through the glycol and c-element.
>>
>>
>> Please advise,
>>
>> Kris Roberts

Wow, that's to bad Chris. I know that Tubular has announced that they will no longer deal with the HT group on tubes, but must say that they won't be dealing with commercial account either if that is the way they treat them.
I inspected that tube after taking it out of the hardware and there was very little doubt in my mind that the spots were defects in the phosphor.

Terry

Please do not email, call or otherwise contact Tubular on my behalf.

I have never asked anyone to do that, and would like to actively discourage anyone thinking of doing so.

I just got a voicemail from Tubular. Apparently someone did send them something and I really don't need them holding me responsible for what other prople do.

I didn't nor would I.

Terry

Hmmmm.......

:D:D:D:D

Just Kidding. ;)

Cliffy

I inspected that tube after taking it out of the hardware and there was very little doubt in my mind that the spots were defects in the phosphor. I know what it looks like Terry & Kris. I do have my own G90 green tube that do have two small spots defect (black) in the phosphore. I'm also pretty sure that these 'dust' were incorporated in the phosphore aqua solution during the glass filling at production (the aqua solution gets evaporated and phosphore remain solid on the surface of the tube, with the dust against the front glass).
I think that the guy who sold me my first G90 had a great deal on such Sony Tube (with assembly) because of these two defects...
FYI, guys, these small dusts/spots can easely be seen by eyes directly through the PJ lens (when projector is OFF). So I really think that Tubular vendor can easely see these dust in their entry QC ...

Anyway I'm living with these for more than 4 years now and these defects can hardly be seen on the picture displayed on 3m wide screen (only visible with white or green uniform test pattern) :rolleyes:

John

Wow! This is interesting reading!

It was only a few months ago that I bought a new green tube from Tubular Outlet for my G90. I was sorry to read about Kris's problem and not get it well resolved. These tubes are expensive and any buyer expects them to be perfect.

I was lucky in that my green tube does seem to be perfect. I hope it lasts awhile.

What did you end up using, Kris?

Ray

Wile My tubes are a little more expensive.

I make sure the tubes I sell are Simulation grade. They come with official papers and are tested.

Simulation grade have to be tested for an offical spot size before shipping. Not all LUGs meet this requirement. My supplier ensures me that they meet this spec.

They are Japanese tubes and I have a supplier who makes them in the USA too. So I have two sources depending on the supply at the time.

I do not use the substitute Chinese tubes that have been seeing. These tubes have phosphor issues and spot drops.

You get what you pay for on tubes. I don't make really any profit on tubes as they cost me so much to begin with.

I have a sale from time to time on tubes and will match most prices.

I just want to chime in here about Greg. I had my green tube fail just before Christmas and needed to have it replaced and my G90 re-calibrated within 14days since we were having a movie night for our employees the first week of January. I shipped my green tube off to Greg and he told me he would do his best to get it back to me in time for a proper burn-in before the calibration and our special event. Yeah right, heard that before! Well, to my surprise, he made it happen! This guy went above and beyond to get my system back up and running for our scheduled event. Greg received the replacement tube on the Tuesday before our movie night. He stayed up late mounting it to the hardware from the old tube. He let that dry as long as he could and woke up early on Friday morning to fill it with glycol followed by overnighting it me for a Saturday morning delivery. I received the tube on Saturday morning, mounted it Saturday afternoon, ran it at 30% contrast for 15 hours, and then shut it down until Craig Rounds arrived to calibrate. Greg was always available by phone and ALWAYS returned phone calls for updates along the way. It's pretty incredible when you think that this was during the holidays and the effort he had to put forth to get in touch with the right people.

I want to give Craig Rounds credit here as well. He made a special one day trip driving down from Chicago and arrived on Moday morning. He set up his equipment at 10am and was back on the road at 6pm just before our employees arrived at 7pm. Craig does impeccable work and never quits until it's absolutely perfect! The picture is nothing short of spectacular! He could have very easily just lined the green up with red and blue but he just kind of laughed at my suggestion and started completely from scratch! He also confirmed that Greg's tubes are razor sharp and of extremely high quality.

Lastly, I want everyone to know that I DO NOT HAVE DEEP POCKETS!!! I only say that because these two gentlemen did not at any time or in any manner try to capitalize on my predicament especially with time being of the essence. Instead, they BOTH did EVERYTHING they could to help me out and give the best deal to boot.

Sorry for the long post, but I can't say enough about this forum and the guys who belong here....ESPECIALLY GREG EISEMANN AND CRAIG ROUNDS! Thanks to Alan and all the administrative guys associated with AVS as well.

Doc

I am ordering a new P19 green tube from Greg as well, won't say the price, but with tubulars recent increase I don't know why anyone would even consider one with what Greg can offer in this high grade version

can't wait to get it

-Gary

with tubulars recent increase I don't know why anyone would even consider one -Gary Tubular Outlet and Chinese tubes, "We love you long time" NOT:D
Did Kris ever get his money back?