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How to use SCART for our hobby
Zebidee:
For SCART TVs, I look for these brands:
Euro:
- Phillips (most large ones)
- Loewe (all)
- Blaupunkt (all)
- Telefunken (all)
- Grundig (all)
And so forth. Most relatively recent models of these Euro TVs will have Phillips screens in them which are fantastic quality. They have a 'bonded yoke' (i.e. you can't adjust the purity and convergence rings as this is all done perfectly in the factory, no need to adjust).
Some cheaper brands I also consider are:
- Akai (some)
- Teac (some)
- Panasonic (some)
etc.
I just love Loewe 100mhz 'Blackline' TVs for MAME as they have a great picture. However, I have noticed that they have a tendency to develop 'dot-crawl', especially with red colours. I have a Loewe 100mhz 59cm TV mounted in my main vertical cab, but it suffers dot-crawl.
I am about to make a four-player cab using a working Loewe 100mhz 72cm TV. It works well, but exhibits some of this dot-crawl behaviour. However, I still love the tube. So, what I am going to do is pull the TV apart and take it's fantastic phillips tube w/ bonded yoke out, and use that to make an arcade monitor!
To do this, I measure the impedance (horizontal and vertical) of the yoke using a simple multimeter, and then order a arcade monitor chassis to suit from my mate Joey at JOMAC (in Perth, Western Australia). I then fit the chassis to the tube and viola, I have a fantastic arcade monitor! This will suit my plans perfectly as I am going to fit it into an old cab that already has a working arcade power supply and JAMMA setup, just no monitor at the moment.
The arcade monitor chassis will cost about $250, but I must compare this to the cost of getting the TV repair guy to look at my Loewe (about $150). Hmmmm, suddenly the arcade chassis idea is a lot more attractive! The arcade monitor will be a lot easier to fit into a cab as well.
In terms of hassle, using the tube to make an arcade monitor is generally simpler. No worries about getting a TV chassis mounted into a cab (they aren't designed for this!). No stuffing around with service modes. Greater flexibility about setting screen geometry and adjusting colours. Arcade monitors are easier and cheaper to get serviced (if necessary) as well, and I can do a lot of repair work myself. If I can't do it myself, I can just take the chassis and post it to my service guy if necessary.
By comparison, the local Loewe service guy always give me wierd, suspicious looks when I tell him what I am using my Loewe for. He insists on me giving him the complete TV, which is a problem if you have de-cased it to put in a cab. I can't post a complete TV, so I have to deliver it to him on the other side of town. The problems are more difficult for him to diagnose and fix, and he charges too much!
The best part about making arcade monitors from ex-TV tubes is that TV tubes are better quality (A-grade) than those typically used for standard arcade monitors (B-grade), and I don't have to worry about SCART. Any good quality TV will do, even if it doesn't work!
Paradroid:
Wow! Thanks so much for the informative replies! Fascinating and useful reading.
Zebidee, your idea of hooking up the screen from a Loewe to an actual arcade chassis is tantalising. However, I'm probably going to have limit myself to keeping the original TV intact and attaching a controller to mimic the arcade feel (I've rewired an old Battlestation II controller with the guts from some cheap Logitech gamepads). My girlfriend is supportive of my love for arcade games but we're in an apartment and getting a cab up the stairs would be extremely difficult. The other thing is that while I'm nifty with a soldering iron, what you describe is probably beyond my abilities at the moment. I assume you're in Australia... but where abouts? I'd love to see your collection! :)
apfelanni, thanks for your input too! On your advice I've picked up some other units (from the side of the road) and noticed a marked difference in the way different TVs treat the RGB input. On the Loewe Calida, the picture is generally amazing but red text on black gives the game away. On the Loewe Contur, the colours are very clean but I've decided it looks a little more "clinical" than the Calida. I also have a Grundig with a CUC 6353 chassis. This screen is clean, bright and vibrant. However, this unit hasn't been cared for and there is some jitter in the bottom left corner and distortion along the left side. If it worked properly, I'd say the Grundig would be my choice. I also have a 16:9 Loewe Cantus that looks like it completely reprocesses all the RGB information it's given and spits it back looking very different. Looks great for video files but more like a regular VGA monitor for games.
I live in Brighton, Victoria, Australia which is a very affluent suburb. This means that when people throw out their old TVs, they tend to be top-of-the-line. There is staged hard rubbish for the next 4 weekends so I'll be out on the prowl.
Aside from the curb and eBay, where else do you guys find your SCART TVs? Even on eBay, a Grundig CRT only pops up now and then. The Loewes are more regular but it's still just a trickle. The others are even rarer. Man, I wish I'd known about this whole MAME/SCART scene 5 years ago! :(
Zebidee:
Go down to your local revolve/recycling centre. You might have to pay $5, but that is all.
Paradroid:
Another scavenging update…
I spent a few hours cruising around checking out all the junk on the sides of the streets in my suburb on the weekend.
I found four units with potential: 2 TEACs, 1 Grundig and 1 Loewe (which had the power cable snipped). The only other TVs with SCART ports were massive, silver coloured, widescreen Sonys. All the 16:9 flat screens CRTs I've tried have given a pretty crappy result (and the aspect ratio is obviously wrong for classic gaming) so I left those where they were.
Due to juggling car space, I had to ditch the Loewe in favour of a set of chairs my girlfriend wanted. Pity because it was an older Loewe with an E3000 chassis (same as the excellent Contur that I've mentioned). Shame I didn't get to try that one… chances are it didn't work since the cable had been cut.
As for the others, one of the TEACs reeked of cigarette smoke and produced an laughable image: it was so blurred that it was what I'd call "impressionistic". ;) Foggy shapes on the screen.
The second TEAC was better but had crappy colours: things were all over the place. Besides which, it was ugly and only a small screen. I was still interested to try but I ended up dumping it again.
I had high hopes for the Grundig! Such a stylish unit! Had my fingers crossed… and luckily it powered up! The image is crisp, has vibrant colours and is completely free from dot crawl! The downside is that the image flickers slightly. I'm not talking about interlace flicker but a slight pulsation that is quite obvious when looking at a stationary image (e.g. the Windows desktop). This is most noticeable in the bottom left and top right corners. My other Loewes don't do this but I have seen this kind of unstable image many times before on actual arcade machines.
My question is this: is there an obvious fix for this kind of issue or would a repair be way too expensive to bother? I see that replacing caps is a big thing around here but I'm not sure what that remedies. I'd love to get this Grundig back to it's full glory: it's a great looking unit and I can tell the image would have been magnificent when it was in its prime.
Thanks for all the advice so far! :)
Jollywest:
I'm trying to connect a Sony Trinitron KV-X2502U to a Jamma PCB & PSU via scart. I thought I had connected it as per instructions from this thread, but I don't get any picture on the TV. The TV goes to AV1 when the cab is turned on and when I adjust the +5v on the Jamma switch mode psu I do get some screen wobble when its increased. Here is how I've wired it; (please can you let me know if I've done something wrong)
SCART >> PCB / PSU
Pin 5/9/13/17 >> Video Ground
Pin 7 >> Blue Video
Pin 11 >> Green Video
Pin 15 >> Red Video
Pin 20 >> Sync
Pin 21 >> FG (PSU)
Pin 8 >> +12v (PSU)
Pin 16 >> +5v with 100 Ohms resistor (PSU)
Pin 18 >> Ground (PSU)
After I'd put the resistor in and checked it again it measures at 50 Ohms, is this right?