One Installer's Opinion - You Want It To Last HOW LONG?

[terrypaullin]

I recently got an E-mail from a regular WSR reader (Greg) who, apparently satisfied with our product reviews in other areas, complained that we fell short in commenting on "serviceable life expectancy". Although Greg's comments were aimed at front projectors, I want to expand his Q and attempt to answer for all display devices.

So on these "service" topics, here's the thing...

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2011/04/one-installers-opinion-you-want-it-to-last-how-long.php]Read Column[/url]

[ffraikor]

I thoroughly enjoyed Terry's article. Well written and very informative. I am however one of those ancient readers who does recall dashing to the drugstore to test a half dozen tubes to find the disruptive culprit, buy a replacement and dash back so we could watch the rest of the football game in black and white.

Terry and I grew up in a "Do-it-yourself" culture that began with early American agriculture, especially in the West, where you were likely to be removed from an industrial setting and shops to do repairs on machinery. That self-reliance attitude was especially reinforced during the Depression and subsequently WWII that evoked a "Can-do" slogan is spite of a huge scarcity of parts and resources for home use. After the war, the veterans continued to work on their cars, and infused a little of that in their kids who also went on to build and race Hot Rods, assemble Hi-FI Heath kits,etc. in the 50's.

All that changed with the invention of the transistor. I was fortunate to serve part of my active duty during the Cold War at the Signal Corps Laboratories near Fort Monmouth N.J. I had access to "military specification" vacuum tubes that had undergone shake tests and endurance tests, etc. so theoretically. if a mortar shell landed near the radio operator the tubes would survive even if he didn't.However I distinctly recall a senior official declaring that transistors would "never be of much use to military applications because of their vulnerability to electromagnetic disruption and radiation from nuclear weapon bursts". We even conducted tests with the newly developed ruby lasers to see if they could "repair" broken tungsten filaments in big, expensive specialty vacuum tubes by welding the filaments inside the tube. (It didn't work. Not enough power back then, dust and coatings on the inside surface of the glass. How wrong that prediction proved to be. With the advent of the chip miniaturization became the focus in electronics while accessibility for the "do-it-yourself" consumer became increasingly impossible.

I did manage to change the lamp in my 6 year old Sony rear projection TV but I wouldn't think of taking the back off TV set or my Blu-ray Wi-Fi DVD player or my receiver and even my cable technician simply exchanges the HD DVR box with a new one. Terry is right on. Let's hope the manufacturer's do a decent job in building some long life in those new almost paper thin LCD TV's.

[Roger Halstead]

Unlike many when I purchase a TV I expect to get at least 10 years out of it, but to me serviceability "now days" means parts are available...some how, some way they are available and can actually be replaced. Yes, I remember when it meant how many screws had to be taken out to get at the errant part. Actually I predate broadcast television for this area and although people complain about reliability, early ... no, not just early, "tube type" B&W as well as color sets could not even be compared to the long life of today's sets on average. There are and always will be the non typical failures.

Yes, I keep them until they no longer work and I still have one 27" analog color set with a CRT that is probably around 18 to 20 years old. Our TV sets get an average of more than 8 hours per day. No the CRT does not. Computer monitors are typically on 24 X 7 although they go into sleep mode part of that time. I actually still have and regularly use the first 17" LCD color monitor I purchased wayyy back when (An NEC multi sync). I remember it cost more than twice what the 25" wide screen monitor on one of my computers cost.

Speaking of cost. Those old TV sets were not only highly failure prone, they were *expensive*. Our first color TV cost over $4,000 dollars at the time. That would equate to about $32,000 in today's dollars. Going through "sweep tubes" (Look it up<G>) was common and they were cheap. Purchase a "sweep tube" now and you will really find out what "sticker shock" means. My first PC (before they let the term PC be copyrighted) in 1980 also cost $4,000 and I had to purchase a keyboard and monitor extra. OTOH It actually had dual floppy drives, not tape. Oh, those dual drives were single side, 160 or 180K Eight Inch floppies. The computer? An Ohio Scientific C2-8P with a 1 MHz 6502 and 48K of dynamic ram. Today I can build two 3.3 Gig, hex core computers, with 6 or 8 Gig of RAM, two 2 Terabyte HDs and one 160 Gig Solid state drive and 25" wide screen monitors, the operating system and a good suite of office image processing apps and still have money left over. The C2-8P still sets on a shelf in the basement.

I do not think the advent of the transistor brought an end to DIY fixing. Those using discrete transistors were easy to fix and much of the trouble shooting could be done with a volt ohm meter (VOM) It was like the set was populated with the equivalent of Triodes making the circuits very simple. However with the advent of surface mount ICs, Bifocals, and age, I had to call it quits. I know of one local who hooked up a TV camera to a low powered microscope and *still* actually replaces surface mount ICs. At my age I no longer have the nerves for that.

[Roger Halstead]

Unlike many when I purchase a TV I expect to get at least 10 years out of it, but to me serviceability "now days" means parts are available...some how, some way they are available and can actually be replaced. Yes, I remember when it meant how many screws had to be taken out to get at the errant part. Actually I predate broadcast television for this area and although people complain about reliability, early ... no, not just early, "tube type" B&W as well as color sets could not even be compared to the long life of today's sets on average. There are and always will be the non typical failures.

Yes, I keep them until they no longer work and I still have one 27" analog color set with a CRT that is probably around 18 to 20 years old. Our TV sets get an average of more than 8 hours per day. No the CRT does not. Computer monitors are typically on 24 X 7 although they go into sleep mode part of that time. I actually still have and regularly use the first 17" LCD color monitor I purchased wayyy back when (An NEC multi sync). I remember it cost more than twice what the 25" wide screen monitor on one of my computers cost.

Speaking of cost. Those old TV sets were not only highly failure prone, they were *expensive*. Our first color TV cost over $4,000 dollars at the time. That would equate to about $32,000 in today's dollars. Going through "sweep tubes" (Look it up<G>) was common and they were cheap. Purchase a "sweep tube" now and you will really find out what "sticker shock" means. My first PC (before they let the term PC be copyrighted) in 1980 also cost $4,000 and I had to purchase a keyboard and monitor extra. OTOH It actually had dual floppy drives, not tape. Oh, those dual drives were single side, 160 or 180K Eight Inch floppies. The computer? An Ohio Scientific C2-8P with a 1 MHz 6502 and 48K of dynamic ram. Today I can build two 3.3 Gig, hex core computers, with 6 or 8 Gig of RAM, two 2 Terabyte HDs and one 160 Gig Solid state drive and 25" wide screen monitors, the operating system and a good suite of office image processing apps and still have money left over. The C2-8P still sets on a shelf in the basement.

I do not think the advent of the transistor brought an end to DIY fixing. Those using discrete transistors were easy to fix and much of the trouble shooting could be done with a volt ohm meter (VOM) It was like the set was populated with the equivalent of Triodes making the circuits very simple. However with the advent of surface mount ICs, Bifocals, and age, I had to call it quits. I know of one local who hooked up a TV camera to a low powered microscope and *still* actually replaces surface mount ICs. At my age I no longer have the nerves for that.

[Roger Halstead]

Unlike many when I purchase a TV I expect to get at least 10 years out of it, but to me serviceability "now days" means parts are available...some how, some way they are available and can actually be replaced. Yes, I remember when it meant how many screws had to be taken out to get at the errant part. Actually I predate broadcast television for this area and although people complain about reliability, early ... no, not just early, "tube type" B&W as well as color sets could not even be compared to the long life of today's sets on average. There are and always will be the non typical failures.

Yes, I keep them until they no longer work and I still have one 27" analog color set with a CRT that is probably around 18 to 20 years old. Our TV sets get an average of more than 8 hours per day. No the CRT does not. Computer monitors are typically on 24 X 7 although they go into sleep mode part of that time. I actually still have and regularly use the first 17" LCD color monitor I purchased wayyy back when (An NEC multi sync). I remember it cost more than twice what the 25" wide screen monitor on one of my computers cost.

Speaking of cost. Those old TV sets were not only highly failure prone, they were *expensive*. Our first color TV cost over $4,000 dollars at the time. That would equate to about $32,000 in today's dollars. Going through "sweep tubes" (Look it up<G>) was common and they were cheap. Purchase a "sweep tube" now and you will really find out what "sticker shock" means. My first PC (before they let the term PC be copyrighted) in 1980 also cost $4,000 and I had to purchase a keyboard and monitor extra. OTOH It actually had dual floppy drives, not tape. Oh, those dual drives were single side, 160 or 180K Eight Inch floppies. The computer? An Ohio Scientific C2-8P with a 1 MHz 6502 and 48K of dynamic ram. Today I can build two 3.3 Gig, hex core computers, with 6 or 8 Gig of RAM, two 2 Terabyte HDs and one 160 Gig Solid state drive and 25" wide screen monitors, the operating system and a good suite of office image processing apps and still have money left over. The C2-8P still sets on a shelf in the basement.

I do not think the advent of the transistor brought an end to DIY fixing. Those using discrete transistors were easy to fix and much of the trouble shooting could be done with a volt ohm meter (VOM) It was like the set was populated with the equivalent of Triodes making the circuits very simple. However with the advent of surface mount ICs, Bifocals, and age, I had to call it quits. I know of one local who hooked up a TV camera to a low powered microscope and *still* actually replaces surface mount ICs. At my age I no longer have the nerves for that.

[ernieholden]

I thoroughly enjoyed Terry's article. Well written and very informative. I am however one of those ancient readers who does recall dashing to the drugstore to test a half dozen tubes to find the disruptive culprit, buy a replacement and dash back so we could watch the rest of the football game in black and white.

Terry and I grew up in a "Do-it-yourself" culture that began with early American agriculture, especially in the West, where you were likely to be removed from an industrial setting and shops to do repairs on machinery. That self-reliance attitude was especially reinforced during the Depression and subsequently WWII that evoked a "Can-do" slogan is spite of a huge scarcity of parts and resources for home use. After the war, the veterans continued to work on their cars, and infused a little of that in their kids who also went on to build and race Hot Rods, assemble Hi-FI Heath kits,etc. in the 50's.

All that changed with the invention of the transistor. I was fortunate to serve part of my active duty during the Cold War at the Signal Corps Laboratories near Fort Monmouth N.J. I had access to "military specification" vacuum tubes that had undergone shake tests and endurance tests, etc. so theoretically. if a mortar shell landed near the radio operator the tubes would survive even if he didn't.However I distinctly recall a senior official declaring that transistors would "never be of much use to military applications because of their vulnerability to electromagnetic disruption and radiation from nuclear weapon bursts". We even conducted tests with the newly developed ruby lasers to see if they could "repair" broken tungsten filaments in big, expensive specialty vacuum tubes by welding the filaments inside the tube. (It didn't work. Not enough power back then, dust and coatings on the inside surface of the glass. How wrong that prediction proved to be. With the advent of the chip miniaturization became the focus in electronics while accessibility for the "do-it-yourself" consumer became increasingly impossible.

I did manage to change the lamp in my 6 year old Sony rear projection TV but I wouldn't think of taking the back off TV set or my Blu-ray Wi-Fi DVD player or my receiver and even my cable technician simply exchanges the HD DVR box with a new one. Terry is right on. Let's hope the manufacturer's do a decent job in building some long life in those new almost paper thin LCD TV's.