Reasonably priced standard res 25" monitor?

[MikeStl]

Would appreciate any advice here.  I'm really at my wits end with this.  Here's the story.  I have been working on trying to get my monitor working in my mame cabinet for the last couple of years now.  Got an old neo geo cabinet, did a mame setup in it with an arcadevga card.  Well, the monitor that came in the cabinet was a horrible Frankenstein creation.  Tube appeared to be dying by how off and dim the colors were.  Horrible convergence, geometry, loud and painful to listen to flyback, width coil falling apart.  The chassis was made by "sharp image", but does not match any sharp image schematic I could find, closest schematic is that of a WG K7000. 

Ok so first I try a tube swap.  First one no good, try swapping the yoke, convergence nightmare ensues. Try another couple of discarded tv tubes, still no luck.  Finally found a nice bright tube with a matching yoke.  Use it for a while.   Great, but chassis is still a mess, and the picture is squeezed to one side.  So I try going for one of the universal replacement chassis.  Well, works ok except for horrible blooming and dimming issues.  So I put the "sharp image" chassis back in.  Well, finally I decide to cap the sharp image chassis replace the whining flyback, and the width coil.  Since it seems this sharp image chassis is one that is forgotten about, I get the replacement parts for the k7000 it resembles.  Well the caps are all fine except for one that is a different uf than the one specificed by the k7000 schematic.  I leave that one as is.  Well get it all back together and *bang*, capacitor explodes and blows a fuse.  Cap seems like its polarity is correct, but I suspect I used the wrong replacement flyback.  Put the old flyback back in and replace the blown cap.  Energizes the tube but tube does not glow at the neck, seems the guns are out.  Try the other chassis with the tube and the same thing.  Looks like I managed to burn the tube out.  Well now it appears I am pretty much  .  Looks like I finally killed it.  I think it is time to give the monitor a proper burial and start with a new one. 

Now the problem is I am having trouble finding one for a reasonable price.  Called the few local distributors in the area that sell that type of thing and the prices were around $350.  A lot of money to pay for a tube walmart sells with a different chassis (tv in that case).  Seems the chassis in the arcade monitor is really less sophisticated than the one in the $160 tv  Even the newer tvs with ATSC digital tuner technology are less than that.  What gives with the price?    If anyone know of somewhere in the St. Louis MO area offering Monitors new or used with a little more down to earth pricing, please let me know.  I'd be very appreciative.   

[modessitt]

"Reasonably priced" and "medium res" don't usually go together.

The reason for the high price is the fact that not many are made anymore, since games are no longer made to require med-res (thank goodness).  Supply goes down, price goes up.  Figure a monitor manufacturer has to go to a lot of trouble to set up a run of med-res monitors, and needs to recoup that expense somewhere.

Some Tri-Mode monitors may be more affordable than a strictly Med-res, but you'd have to decide that for yourself.

You could always try e-bay.  Sometimes see 25" med-res used monitors on there.

[MikeStl]

Thanks for the advice.  Kinda figured it has a lot to do with them being produced in much smaller numbers.  Stll frustrating though. 

I've been checking around on ebay.  Thats true that there are some deals on used ones there.  Haven't been lucky enough yet to find one locally.  To tell the truth I am suprised there aren't more used ones out there.  I would have thought there would be warehouses full of these things considering how quickly games go in and out of arcades.   Maybe its just a matter of knowing where to look.  Either that or they are all in landfills.    The auctions seem good for whole machines, but thats a hassle to get one just to swipe a monitor from.  I've noticed there seems to be quite a bit more arcade parts available in the Chicago area than St. Louis, so maybe I need to check around and head up there for a deal.

On the other hand I am thinking about just getting a TV, decasing it, plugging it in via svideo and be done with it.  I know its a drop in picture quality, but its a lot better than the current picture I have on the monitor thats in there now.   

[tetsu96]

If you're going for std res, then you could probably use a TV tube and just swap the chassis.  There's posts if you search regarding the 8liners chassis replacements and others.  I think even retroblast has a walkthru of someone doing that.

[MikeStl]

So far my luck hasn't been good with tube swapping.  The chassis I bought...I think it was a wei-ya brand didn't really seem up to par.  Whenever a game would send a bright image, like a white background or whatever, the whole picture would dim like as if someone turned down the brightness knob.  Has anyone here gotten one that doesn't do that from tube swapping?  Or maybe there is a better chassis that I would have better luck with?

[Rickn]

If you are looking for true 25" curved... you will have to find something used.

The 25" tubes have been out of production for about 4 years.

That is why we market a 24.8" flat tube that does Tri-res.

Good luck

Rick Nieman
rick@Niemandisplays.com
www.niemandisplays.com

[MikeStl]

If you are looking for true 25" curved... you will have to find something used.

The 25" tubes have been out of production for about 4 years.

That is why we market a 24.8" flat tube that does Tri-res.

Good luck

Rick Nieman
rick@Niemandisplays.com
www.niemandisplays.com

Yeah the flat ones definately have a different look, but I could get used to them.  Thats probably what I'll end up getting when I have a bit to spend.  Yours seem to get good marks here, so it's one I'd be leaning toward.  I've decided for now to stick an old vga monitor in the cabinet and not waste any more money and time trying to hack together a monitor, or buy something I won't be satisfied with.

[ahofle]

8-liners.com says on their site that they build 25" standard res monitors:
http://8liners.com/parts.htm

Not sure if that's up to date information though.

[MikeStl]

8-liners.com says on their site that they build 25" standard res monitors:
http://8liners.com/parts.htm

Not sure if that's up to date information though.

Cool that looks reasonable if they still offer those.  I'm actually pretty happy now with an old vga monitor I picked up locally for 40 bucks.  It's a 21" NEC that was built in '93.  It's quite impressive, the picture looks like new and this thing in built like a tank.  The picture is easy on the eyes and as far as size it really doesn't look that out of place in the machine.  Running it at 640x480 with D3D scaling.  I'm pretty impressed with the d3d quality, looks much much better than I remember with ddraw on older versions of mame.  Also it seems the rendering was much better after switching from a directx 8 compatible card to a directx 9?  anyone else notice this?  might have just been the settings I was using. 

[ahofle]

If you're not going with "authentic" MAME resolutions, my understanding is that the next best thing is to pick a really high resolution and use one of the 'aperature grill' D3D effects.

[shorthair]

Aperture just looks weird to me.  I'm not even sure if I remember any games looking that way. As well, I'm not sure I see a difference between DD and D3D on my computer and PC monitors, or arcade monitor. The scanline effects are different, yeah, but otherwise they look the same. I prefer RGB sharp on DD, and prescale 2 on D3D looks the same. I like the very small scanlines that are produced when using 'switchres', but otherwise I don't think I'm really into scanlines. Jury's still not out on this, but anyone who's interested in getting an AVGA 2 for a little less, keep a look out. I may be getting rid of mine.

Mike: not to diss you, but sounds like you don't have experience with monitors. Maybe a bit more general reading would've helped. A bit more than I'm interested. Changing a chassis, which I've done a couple times, is about the extent of it. Anyways, I posted a link in BST for monitors on ebay. Might be up your alley, eventually.

[MikeStl]

Aperture just looks weird to me.  I'm not even sure if I remember any games looking that way. As well, I'm not sure I see a difference between DD and D3D on my computer and PC monitors, or arcade monitor. The scanline effects are different, yeah, but otherwise they look the same. I prefer RGB sharp on DD, and prescale 2 on D3D looks the same. I like the very small scanlines that are produced when using 'switchres', but otherwise I don't think I'm really into scanlines. Jury's still not out on this, but anyone who's interested in getting an AVGA 2 for a little less, keep a look out. I may be getting rid of mine.

Mike: not to diss you, but sounds like you don't have experience with monitors. Maybe a bit more general reading would've helped. A bit more than I'm interested. Changing a chassis, which I've done a couple times, is about the extent of it. Anyways, I posted a link in BST for monitors on ebay. Might be up your alley, eventually.

I have played around with the different simulated scanline modes and they just don't really look much like real scanlines to me.  With the age of the vga monitor I am using now though (was made in 93') its dot pitch is 0.28, which isn't as fine as the newest one they made, which were around 0.24 I believe.  The lower dot resolution does mean it has visible scan lines.  Not as visible as an arcade monitor, but I think it does create a nice effect.

No offense taken regarding lack of experience.  I have studied monitors quite a bit.  I understand the basic theory of how they operate and how the picture is drawn on the screen, as well as what voltages exist where and how to discharge them.  I have a fair understanding of electronic theory and can read schematics.  I don't have the "oh yeah I know what this is becuase I've seen it on many others of this type" kind of experience a monitor/tv tech would have.  I think the main problem I’ve had was starting with an undocumented hacked together creation.  This cabinet should have had a well gardner 7100 monitor in it when manufactured.  I believe the tube and frame were original, but the chassis was swapped with one that is a close clone of the wg chassis, but one it seems schematics and documentation no longer exist on.  As well, someone had definitely done a yoke swap on the existing tube, cracking and breaking the yoke and purity rings quite a bit in the process.  Also the chassis had various components replaced on it as it was, which may or may not have been replaced with the ones that match the original spec.  I have learned a important lesson though.  Don't bother working on someone elses nightmare creation, or it will become yours.   

[ahofle]

As well, I'm not sure I see a difference between DD and D3D on my computer and PC monitors, or arcade monitor.

You probably have something configured incorrectly if you are not seeing a difference between arcade monitor and PC monitor and ddraw vs d3d.  You should not be using any effects or artificial scanlines with an arcade monitor.  Just ddraw, switch res to fit, and NO hardware stretch.  Those effects are really just to try and mimic an arcade monitor on a high resolution display device.  If you left hardware stretch on, then I could see how ddraw and d3d might look the same.