[Maxxarcade]

I was wondering what some of the most used and abused tubes any of you have seen have been through.


My first experience working with very high-hour tubes was with this old Mitsubishi RPTV (VS-5042) that came out of an arcade game. It had been run pretty much 24/7 since new (8 years ago) with the same game on it all the time. This would be almost 70,000 hours. Needless to say the burn was pretty severe on all 3 tubes. Surprisingly the tv still had a bright, sharp picture (maybe because of the liquid coupled EM focus CRT's). But since the tubes were really toasted, the color balance was off and whites appeared yellow. I have pictures that I was thinking about posting later.


Another note- this tv had been run in an enclosed cabinet with next to no ventilation. Try that with some modern RPTV...


I ended up buying a broken tv on Ebay (same kind) for $100, fixing it with a $9.00 part, and putting that in the game to make it more easy on the eyes. The old tv is now used for a spare. I hated to put a nice low hour tv in the game, but it will pay for itself. The game is actually a large skiing game called Alpine Racer and is quite fun...


I know this was an RPTV, but I've seen/heard of front projectors with the same situation that just kept on running. They say not to play video games on them, but I really don't think it would be so bad. It took years of the same static images to bring this one down. If you switch games and don't play all the time, it shouldn't hurt a thing...

 

[MarkW]

Posted a thread a while ago trying to find out this very thing. I've got a Barco Graphics 800 with well over 57000 hours on it. Tubes in it are new and look great.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I think the record was something like a few hundred years, but that was due to software upgrades messing with the hour counter readout.

 

[jamieh]

My marquee 8000 shows over 74000 hours on the clock and runs sweet.

Obviously not the original tubes but it just goes to show what a champ this chassis is!

 

[Curt Palme]

74K hours takes the cake I think.


There was an eBay ad last year that read 68K hours for a MArquee 8000.


I retubed an older 8000 today with original near minty tubes, and absolutely, if you spend the time aligning everything, there's no reason why a 1994 chassis can't look really similar to a late model 8500..


Curt

 

[Maxxarcade]

74k hours is crazy, but if the chassis has been well cooled and has quality capacitors, then it's no surprise it has ran this long. Sometimes you just get lucky. Seems they either die after 500 hours, or they outlast you...


Only thing I know of that has more hours are the 19" monitors used in many of our arcade games. We have quite a few Electrohome G07's that are all original and have been running for over 20 years. I'd estimate about 180,000 hours on some of these since they run 24/7 almost always. Only recently we've started replacing the capacitors and flybacks because they were failing, but after $30 worth of parts they are good for another 15 years. When the tubes go bad or have a lot of burn, I replace them with tubes out of tv's that people throw away.

 

[deronmoped]

I was looking for that type of information because I bet someone that there were CRT's with 100,000's of hours on them.


My wife has always used the TV for about 8 hours a day, never had any problems with it over the last 15 years.


Makes me wonder why everyone is so fast to call CRT a dying technology. I can hear them now. "Wish I never got rid of that old CRT, never had any problems with it, this dam LCDRPTV keeps burning out bulbs".


Deron.

 

[jsp]

My avatar picture is a 1040 that was on for just on 10 years showing bingo numbers on a rear projection screen 6 times a week at about 40 hours a week, so thats what about 20,000 hours.


tubes were stoofed to say the least but still showing a watchable bingo tally!

 

[Curt Palme]

What I'm waiting for is the huge retaliation of the guys that buy the new DLP RP sets when the bulbs go out.


We just installed an LCD projector into a pub, and they completely understand about not running it full time, but then they bought a Samsung DLP RP unit for behind the bar that will be on 14 hours a day... for about 3 months, then they'll be running it 2 hours a night max...

 

[deronmoped]

Curt


Start putting your business cards next to the power switch on these DLPRP units. After a while you could probably put another ten guys to work replacing bulbs.


"Emergency high speed or late night service, to keep you and your costomers from missing that important event"


Deron.

 

[Spector]

There`s an old Zenith 841 I think in a strip club here that runs 16 hours a day 6 days a week(not counting holidays) Thats gotta be about 88,000 hours and surprisingly it honestly looks like it could easily run another 10 or 20K hours,pic is still fine and bright!

 

[pcCinema]

I had a 50 some thousand hour marquee which I'm almost certain had original tubes with barely a hint of wear, and looked pretty darn good considering... Better than a good 7" EM anyway, certainly not nearly as good as a fresher 8" but hey... It even had a good color balance.


Makes you think twice about getting a high gain screen so you can drive it lower.


I could wow my unborn nephew with my 8500 when he's 18 at that rate.


Troy

 

[mrhuhta]

About a year ago i stumbeled upon 9 Marquee 9500 in Sweden. They where in rearprojection cabinets and had been on 24/7.

They had been used for some kind of simulations? The tubes on these where totaly BBQ but the thing that amazed me was that most of them still could shoot a picture and the hours was between 30-40k hours on all of them. They had never been services or anything so they really are well built. I ended up loosing the bidding when i gave up after passing 5000$ for them all.. My plan was to fix them and change tubes and sell them. But when we passed that mark i had to give up..To much money to loose and to much work(also all the space they would have taken at home while fixing them)

 

[Maxxarcade]

I'll try and post pics of various toasted but working crt's sometime next week, since I'll have my camera with me anyway. In fact I might start a toasted crt picture archive for myself. This would let me research the long term effects of video games on different types of CRT's, both projection and direct view, and also the failure rates of different types, brands and sizes of tubes. One thing I have noticed is that many 25" tubes from the mid 1990's were poor quality. Zenith actually had a defective batch that Wells-Gardner used in their 25" monitors, and those only lasted about 5 years on the street. The longer lasting ones were the 19" RCA tubes that were in the Electrohome monitors. And I almost forgot that we have quite a few black and white monitors from the 70's that are used in Space Invaders and other old games. These tubes still look quite good for their age.


Right now I get the impression that the really toasted tubes are from sets that have run for years at high temperature (poor ventilation) with static images on them. Also a lot of people turn up the contrast until the picture starts blooming and losing focus. This is another thing that kills them fast.


I hope I'm not strolling too far off-topic for this forum, but I'm hoping some of the research I plan on doing over the next few months can relate to CRT projectors too. Especially the handful of games we have that use rear projection monitors.