This one’s probably too modern for everyone, but here goes anyway!!
I have had this little 14” telly from new, it was a Christmas present back in 1996 or 97 from my parents to replace a clapped out Hitachi black and white portable, at 11 or 12 years old I was over the moon! It lived in my bedroom and was used pretty much daily, I’d wake up early when BBC2 was off air, and the test card would then come on, followed by Ceefax pages accompanied by some music. I saw the birth of Channel 5 on it, using a crappy indoor aerial! In 2002 I replaced it with a Sanyo 17” set, which was rubbish if I’m honest, I took 2 of them back to Curry’s because of purity issues, I still have the 3rd one just because I couldn’t be bothered to return it again. The Daewoo was put away in my wardrobe until 2005, when I built my first workshop in our garage, and it was used quite regularly along with other sets.
Recently it developed a fault, the picture would break up horizontally in bright flashes, and the signal would disappear into snow, as if the aerial cable had been pulled out, if it was left off for a bit then it’d come back on ok, sometimes giving the set a rattle would revive it too. Eventually it gave up completely, displaying nothing but snow, I thought it was either going to be a duff electrolytic or dry joints, so off came the back and I had a good look, but couldn’t see anything obvious, all the voltages to the tuner looked sensible too, but flexing the PCB would make the signal come and go.
I spent ages tapping the PCB with a toothbrush handle to no avail, but it seemed like it was more sensitive around the tuner, I tried resoldering it which did nothing, I tried resoldering just about everything, at one point I thought I’d cured it, but once the back was on it started flickering and losing signal again. This time I decided to tap on the component side of the board, tapping the tuner did nothing, but tapping behind it made it go nuts! Some more careful tapping revealed that the ‘RF AGC’ pot was very sensitive, I rotated it both ways which made the signal disappear one way and overload the other way, I set it where the picture looked about right.
Now I can rattle the set as hard as I dare and the signal stays rock solid. I also tweaked the bias pots on the tube base as there was a red tint to the picture. It’s now back together and running nicely once again! Not bad for a mid 90’s set, picture is still bright and clear, just like it was that Christmas.
Regards,
Lloyd
Daewoo as your set demonstrates were good sets LLoyd. Much better than some of the offerings from some of the bigger more "famous names". I used to do repairs for a couple of the Dial-a -Tv franchises, lots of Daewoo sets, apart from ropey handsets not many problems. Some of the Videos could get a bit clapped and iffy but they were old by then and as they were cheap at the outset had earned their money.
It’s certainly done well! My brother had a Matsui set, which is also still in existence, but he had trouble with his, it kept switching itself off! This little Daewoo has never missed a beat, well, until that pot went iffy! The remote is a bit ropey now, most of the numbers have worn off the buttons, and the battery door is held on with blu-tac, but it still works! I have a Daewoo VCR too, bought around 2000-2001, only a mono 2 head thing, it lasted well, but developed a weird fault where the tracking would suddenly go nuts for just a second, it did it on record too, so any recording made on it from that time has some interesting effects other machines don’t like.
I also have a 21” FST nicam set in storage which has a very similar Daewoo chassis in it, but it’s branded Thorn on the front, someone gave it me years ago when the vertical IC failed on it due to dried up caps, I stuck a new IC in and it worked for a short time before failing again! Back then I didn’t really know what I was doing..
Regards,
Lloyd
Those Daewoos were a Philips reference design. Philips realised they could make more money selling TV chipsets.
About the time this TV was made I needed another test monitor for the factory (we made analogue routers and video distribution gear) so I went down to the local discount store to with a pattern generator with the intention of buying a Sony. I came away with a Daewoo. It outperformed the Sony on viewable resolution and geometry and cost half as much.
I noticed there were a few IC’s with Philips badges on them. Thats one thing about this set that’s always been noticeable is the sharpness of the picture, even from the RF input you can make out all the frequency gratings on the test card. Back in around 1999 I saw one of those 16” widescreen Sony’s and fancied ‘upgrading’ to one from the Daewoo, but it was too expensive, then I got one off eBay sometime around 2008, and to be honest it was a bit naff! Picture on the Daewoo still beats it! There is one other set which comes close second, and it’s a Decca Colour branded Tatung, 14” in a bright red cabinet (very 80’s!), my uncle found it in someone’s front garden, that has excellent geometry and a good sharp picture too.
Regards,
Lloyd
