26" 100deg CRT w/ 8liners - MonitorGuru!

[OSCAR]

I got a chance tonight to mess with that 100deg 26" tube (A66AAM03X) and an 8liners chassis.  When I first powered it up it was out of convergence pretty badly.  After messing around for about a half hour with the rings, I was able to dial it in pretty good statically.  I didn't want to get into messing with the yoke & wedges tonite.  There is one corner that is still out just a bit.  I see it mostly because I know it's there, I guess, but I doubt the average person would notice it during a game.

Anyway... Victor's 25" chassis has tons of adjustment, and the pincushion pot is a lifesaver!  It has quite a bit of range, too.  I can get about an inch of both concave & convex horizontal screen adjustment with it.  I've found that this chassis is quite a bit more flexible than the 19" version with more adjustments available.  On the main chassis itself there is a B+, B. limiter (not sure what this does exactly), pincushion, and V. Line adjustment pots.  The remote board has the rest of the usual pots: Hor size & position, Ver size & position, brightness, contrast, Ver & Hor hold.

One thing I found with a couple game boards (Time Pilot w/ jamma adapter & Skins golf) is that the monitor displays a "hula" wave, but I was able to nearly eliminate that by adjusting the B+ and B. Limiter pots, but not entirely.  I didn't see a wave with either a Wrestlefest or Guerrilla War board, though.

Here are a couple quick pics I took tonight:














Overall, I'm pretty impressed with this chassis considering that I wasn't expecting a whole lot because of the 100deg tube.  This particular combo is definitely usable in a game, which is what I plan to do with it, so that's good...  This is an extremely affordable option for a 25"+ arcade monitor that only costs $100, assuming you can pick up a compatible TV tube for free.  

[Ken Layton]

B Limiter sounds like a high voltage shutdown control. A control that kills the high voltage when the B+ rises above a certain level (also known as "X-ray Protector").

[Kremmit]

Posted by: OSCAR  Posted on: Yesterday at 11:25:46pm
Victor's 25" chassis has tons of adjustment, and the pincushion pot is a lifesaver!

I feel like I'm coming in in the middle of something here... Who's Victor?  And more importantly, where can I get this chassis?  I've got 25" tv's all over the place...

[Ken Layton]

Kremmit:

Victor Genao and his "8liners" replacement monitor chassis have been well discussed here on this forum. Just do a search on "8liners chassis".

[OSCAR]

I feel like I'm coming in in the middle of something here... Who's Victor?  And more importantly, where can I get this chassis?  I've got 25" tv's all over the place...

Sorry, here's the link to these chassis: http://www.8liners.com/datatech/monitor.html



Ken - I'd buy your explanation on the B. Limiter control and what it is, but I guess I don't understand why that would need to be adjustable, and what do you suppose the pot control is actually doing?

[Ken Layton]

Oscar:

Every monitor circuit board is different. Component values even with brand new components can vary slightly. In all television sets and video game monitors there is an X-ray protection circuit that shuts down the monitor if the B+ voltage rises too high (it's the law since 1970!). Once you hit the level of 29,000 volts or higher, X-rays are generated. You get irradiated and your nuts go sterile!

Anyway the x-ray protection circuit is part of the horizontal processor ic chip on the monitor main board. It monitors the B+ voltage. Due to manufacturing tolerances and other variables, a method adjusting the trigger level of the shutdown circuit was needed, hence the pot was added. You'll notice especially on Wells-Gardner monitors that the factory adjusts the trigger level of the x-ray circuit then GLUES the pot in place. Normally you never need to adjust it afterwards UNLESS you replace the horizontal processor ic chip. Since the 8liners chassis is meant to be used with many different tubes, yokes, and monitors in general that's probably why they did not glue the b. limiter pot. It's probably coarse adjusted for most applications and you should NOT need to touch it.

[OSCAR]

Thanks for the info, Ken.  That maks sense to me now why that would be adjustable.

[MonitorGuru]

Cool, very Cool, Kelsey!

I never would have tried a 100 degree tube on the 19" version.... I wonder if that other ebay seller that Ken pointed out has better stuff on his 19" including pincushion.

Speaking of which, I finally (believe it or not..me, a monitor tube/chassis swappin fool), dove into connecting a VGA card to an arcade monitor (Hanatrex 13" chassis--900). I'll be posting a different thread to get Ken's opinion on a couple things...  

But, my plans are probably to take the plunge and get the 25" chassis to go with a dead magnavox (vertical collapse) TV from 1992 I've had sitting in the basement since 2001 when it died, and connect up a mame system to it.  Nice to see your post now, I may have to order the chassis shortly.

[Ken Layton]

It's obvious that Victor is using a different chassis manufacturer for the 25" version. Too bad he doesn't switch to that same manufacturer for the 19" version.

[OSCAR]

Ken,

Here is a pic of the chassis ID tag:




Same manufacturer as the smaller version, but obviously a much better model as far as screen adjustments go.

[Ken Layton]

I'll have to check out the specs of that model chassis. If it's available in a 19" version maybe we could persuade Victor to stock that model in addition to or in lieu of the current 19" version.

[OSCAR]

Yeah, I agree.  If there is a smaller version with a pincushion control, that would definitely be a good upgrade.  Even if it costs a few $$ more, it would still be a good deal.

[Kremmit]

Sorry, here's the link to these chassis: http://www.8liners.com/datatech/monitor.html

Got it.  Thanks!

[Lance]

Oscar, I have the same chassis you do from Victor (model 329).  I've noticed that if a bright white screen is being outputted that the screen dims a bit.  Have you noticed this at all with your chassis?

[Ken Layton]

Funny, but the model 329 is not shown on Jen Shinn's website.

[MonitorGuru]

Oscar, I have the same chassis you do from Victor (model 329).  I've noticed that if a bright white screen is being outputted that the screen dims a bit.  Have you noticed this at all with your chassis?

If you scan the who mama thread you'll see us talking about the weak power supply on the 19" version.  There seemed to be a lot of bending with high brightness screens..  most consumer TVs do that too nowdays.  They only provide a good enough power supply to handle average brightness not full bright white and skimp on the other components to keep it consistent in the range of brightness.

[Lance]

Oscar, I have the same chassis you do from Victor (model 329).  I've noticed that if a bright white screen is being outputted that the screen dims a bit.  Have you noticed this at all with your chassis?

If you scan the who mama thread you'll see us talking about the weak power supply on the 19" version.  There seemed to be a lot of bending with high brightness screens..  most consumer TVs do that too nowdays.  They only provide a good enough power supply to handle average brightness not full bright white and skimp on the other components to keep it consistent in the range of brightness.

Yeah it isn't really noticable when playing games but when displaying a windows desktop and you open up a new blank white window you can tell it dims.  No big deal really, I'm happy that I got a working 25" display for $100

[Lance]

Funny, but the model 329 is not shown on Jen Shinn's website.

I emailed one of the sales people from Jen Shinn when I got my chassis 4-5 months ago about getting a manual for my model 329 and they basically have a lot of other chassis models which are not listed.  I was actually going to order a chassis directly from them because it was before Vic started carrying the ones with pin cushion adjustments (and the sales people at jen shinn said they could sell me one with pin cushion).

The price on these chassis if you order quantity is quite good (less then $50US).  Pricing for a sample unit is pretty much the same as Vic so unless you need a case load of them Vic is the guy to see.

lance
lance