Hi all, well this is one item of test equipment that is certainly useful to have and I can do without it no more. I found one in Alabama USA and placed a bid on ebay. I won it for £60, but the postage and import duty are another £60. It came from a closed down Zenith repair centre and appears to have had little use. It comes with a load of extra CRT bases. I expect to receive it around Christmas. Here are the vendor's shaky photo's for now....
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
The only thing I am unsure of is if it can be altered for 240v operation, if not, 110v is not a problem as I have a step-down transformer.
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
Great testers for colour CRT's these though be very wary of what it states B&W CRT emissions are. These are known to be very conservative with their B&W readings, This is not just my findings but many others too.
The best feature is the clean and balance a very gentle way of bringing a CRT emission up. I've also used it to do a full rejuvenate on two colour tubes now and with excellent results, especially on a sick Ultra BRC3000 and most recently the rare CTV22's CRT.
I got mine from a retired TV engineer and he had bought every adapter possible. Its nice to have them all but in truth the only one I use is No3. As I say nice to have them just in case a set comes up with an odd-ball connection which did happen on a 9K RCA tube.
There's no voltage selection on the unit externally, I can't remember if there's anything inside, I have had mine open but can recall seeing anything.
You would be wise to run through the heater calibration routine, its detailed in the manual. Low/high heater as you know will affect emission readings.
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I had an American import 467, it only had the 117 volt mains input on the transformer. Still have a bag full of colour adaptors somewhere.
I opted for this one from the US mainly because it had several adaptors and appears not to be too heavily used, plus it was reasonably priced in spite of the postage expense. Whether it works is another story, but I'm certain it will require some checking over and calibration as Chris mentions above.
As a matter of interest, how many differing bases were there? (There should be 22 with mine including those in the lid).
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
As a matter of interest, how many differing bases were there? (There should be 22 with mine including those in the lid).
Mine runs from No.1 - No.38
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I know where my spare unit is, Andrew (for once) - once I've got mine working, the other will be surplus to requirements so you'll be welcome to it for bits. I've also got a Leader LCT-910A, a Video Circuits V31A, two Radar 202s, an original Radar CRT tester and a Grunther. Should have a cull, really...
I've also got a Leader LCT-910A, a Video Circuits V31A, two Radar 202s, an original Radar CRT tester and a Grunther. Should have a cull, really...
You can start by taking a sledgehammer to that god awful Video Circuits tester destructor. No self respecting engineer should allow one anywhere near his/her workshop. Only good thing they provide is project parts i.e the case and a useful meter.
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I've also got a Leader LCT-910A, a Video Circuits V31A, two Radar 202s, an original Radar CRT tester and a Grunther. Should have a cull, really...
You can start by taking a sledgehammer to that god awful Video Circuits
testerdestructor. No self respecting engineer should allow one anywhere near his/her workshop. Only good thing they provide is project parts i.e the case and a useful meter.
It was my first CRT tester - modified with a 25-way D-type to allow fitting a lead to test early mono CRTs as it only had a B8H base on it. I'm not sure if they really are as bad as they're painted but I seldom used mine for reactivation anyway. I think worse things have been contrived in workshops and published in magazines to be fair.
Posted by: Cathovisor
I think worse things have been contrived in workshops and published in magazines to be fair.
This is very true, there were some equally brutal cathode strippers out there.
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I know where my spare unit is, Andrew (for once) - once I've got mine working, the other will be surplus to requirements so you'll be welcome to it for bits.
Thanks Mike, much appreciated 🙂
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
I know where my spare unit is, Andrew (for once) - once I've got mine working, the other will be surplus to requirements so you'll be welcome to it for bits.
Thanks Mike, much appreciated 🙂
If nothing else, you'll get a 240V transformer!
Ah ha!... you read my predictable mind 🙂
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
It's arrived ! And after re-calibrating the heater voltage indication, plus the tracking control, it is working very well. I tried it out on a known good mono CRT first and found the reading only just "good". I tried it on the Decca DR303 with a less good tube, and the results were into the "bad". However, I expected this as this has been mentioned previously with mono tubes that this machine is pessimistic. As for colour tubes, I tested the Decca Bradford and received the same results as Chris did when he checked the CRT before I got the set. I went on to check the Baird M708 CRT and it is slightly less good than the Bradford's, but not by much.
I returned to the Decca DR303 mono and tried a rejuvenate operation. Afterwards, it had made no difference to the reading on the BK. (I've yet to test it in the set).
Now, the Decca Bradford's tube was interesting because the G2 for the green had to be set much lower than the red and blue. Tracking showed green to be quite a bit higher than the others also, and when setting up the tube in the actual set, I always found the green to be a problem because there was too much green background. (The background controls were set with green at min, the other two at maximum).
So, I tried the clean and balance function on the BK. Result? Almost perfect tracking and a much easier set-up of grey-scale within the set. Not only that, warm-up from cold in the set has a nice even grey-scale, whereas before, the green was always excessive for a few mins.
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
The best thing to do with a 467 is to ignore the pretty coloured scales when testing a mono tube and, assuming all is well, actually read the beam current directly from the scale along the top which is calibrated from 0 to 2 mA.
Note that - milliamps. That is a lot.
Older CRT testers from the mono era limited beam current to about 250 microamps and that was not far off from what one would expect in service - less would be more likely, in fact.
So B+K 467s are not being pessimistic, they're recording a realistic figure.
So B+K 467s are not being pessimistic, they're recording a realistic figure.
Thanks Mike,
Quite correct, and a numerical reading is naturally the one to go by.
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
So B+K 467s are not being pessimistic, they're recording a realistic figure.
Thanks Mike,
Quite correct, and a numerical reading is naturally the one to go by.
Hi Andrew,
Both myself and Catho certainly know that, we tested an MW22/14 on my B&K and whilst I was jumping for joy at the meagre very low yellow reading Mike was less sure but once that tube was lit it was almost darn near perfect and produces a really sharp bright picture in my Bush TV11A. It does take a little while to get used to the B&K's ways but I have no qualms with it at all.
By the way I always do 'clean and balance' before any attempt at rejuvenating, far less stress on the tube and most times it gives the required results.
Marc
BVWS member
RSGB call sign 2E0VTN
Thanks Marc, that is a good tip....I didn't think the clean and balance applied to mono tubes, but of course "Clean" certainly does. (I just read the "balance" and assumed that function was only for colour tubes).
To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.
Hi Andrew,
Both myself and Catho certainly know that, we tested an MW22/14 on my B&K and whilst I was jumping for joy at the meagre very low yellow reading Mike was less sure but once that tube was lit it was almost darn near perfect and produces a really sharp bright picture in my Bush TV11A. It does take a little while to get used to the B&K's ways but I have no qualms with it at all.
Indeed - in fact, here is a picture of said TV11A in action.
A snippet from the BK 490 manual,
Question for those with a tester, are these current readiings actual values or is it just quoting the numbers on the meter.
Frank
