I may be crazy, but I really wanted a Macintosh TV so I bought one on eBay. Paid more than I probably should have, but nowhere near the $600 range of the ones currently for sale. I guess it's kind of my new project machine. It has the black keyboard, black mouse, original credit card remote control, and original CD caddy.
It's in fairly decent physical shape and it works, but it has some problems. The audio output doesn't get anywhere near loud enough (both from the speakers and the headphone jack). The TV tuner has trouble tuning all but a few low-numbered channels, and even the ones it can tune are very bad and pretty much unwatchable. I don't think there's any sound either, but that might just be the audio problem. Oh, and It makes terrible noises when first powering on and shutting off, like something is rattling. My guess is either the fan or the hard drive.
I cleaned off the motherboard and TV tuner board with Q-tips and 99% isopropyl. There was a dead PRAM battery which I removed, and luckily it didn't leak. Sadly it appears this machine used to live in a smoking environment given the yellow residue that was coming off. That's probably not the greatest sign, but the logic board looks to be in very good shape with no capacitor leakage, so I think it's going to be OK. Will definitely recap it at some point, and I'll definitely take pictures so we have a good capacitor placement reference for the Mac TV.
Here are my thoughts so far. I would appreciate any extra input!
About the audio output problem, I'm guessing it's something to do with the audio amplifier chips or something in that portion of the circuit...I believe that circuit is on the analog board, correct? Judging by what I found on another site about modding the Color Classic, it sounds like it. Maybe the analog board needs a good recapping job or replaced amplifier chips. I haven't opened it up to check the analog board yet, so I have no idea how nasty it looks there. I'm fairly terrified about getting close to the CRT and having to discharge it...
As for the TV tuner, I have no idea where to even begin. I checked to make sure the TV Setup control panel was configured for cable rather than antenna. I tried antenna mode, cable mode, and HRC cable mode -- none of them one work. The RCA composite video inputs work perfectly, so that makes me suspect the tuner board is at fault. I don't see anything that looks ugly such as capacitor leakage or burnt components on the TV tuner board. Looks like the majority of the TV tuning stuff is probably inside the big metal box (a tuner module?). It appears to be a Philips FS936E/F according to the label. I found a TV receiver that uses the same tuner and bought it on eBay, so if something's wrong inside the tuner module, I might be able to scavenge the part, do some desoldering, and replace it. Otherwise, I'm SOL -- nobody has the tuner board available from what I can tell.
Anyway, a new project! Yay!
It's in fairly decent physical shape and it works, but it has some problems. The audio output doesn't get anywhere near loud enough (both from the speakers and the headphone jack). The TV tuner has trouble tuning all but a few low-numbered channels, and even the ones it can tune are very bad and pretty much unwatchable. I don't think there's any sound either, but that might just be the audio problem. Oh, and It makes terrible noises when first powering on and shutting off, like something is rattling. My guess is either the fan or the hard drive.
I cleaned off the motherboard and TV tuner board with Q-tips and 99% isopropyl. There was a dead PRAM battery which I removed, and luckily it didn't leak. Sadly it appears this machine used to live in a smoking environment given the yellow residue that was coming off. That's probably not the greatest sign, but the logic board looks to be in very good shape with no capacitor leakage, so I think it's going to be OK. Will definitely recap it at some point, and I'll definitely take pictures so we have a good capacitor placement reference for the Mac TV.
Here are my thoughts so far. I would appreciate any extra input!
About the audio output problem, I'm guessing it's something to do with the audio amplifier chips or something in that portion of the circuit...I believe that circuit is on the analog board, correct? Judging by what I found on another site about modding the Color Classic, it sounds like it. Maybe the analog board needs a good recapping job or replaced amplifier chips. I haven't opened it up to check the analog board yet, so I have no idea how nasty it looks there. I'm fairly terrified about getting close to the CRT and having to discharge it...
As for the TV tuner, I have no idea where to even begin. I checked to make sure the TV Setup control panel was configured for cable rather than antenna. I tried antenna mode, cable mode, and HRC cable mode -- none of them one work. The RCA composite video inputs work perfectly, so that makes me suspect the tuner board is at fault. I don't see anything that looks ugly such as capacitor leakage or burnt components on the TV tuner board. Looks like the majority of the TV tuning stuff is probably inside the big metal box (a tuner module?). It appears to be a Philips FS936E/F according to the label. I found a TV receiver that uses the same tuner and bought it on eBay, so if something's wrong inside the tuner module, I might be able to scavenge the part, do some desoldering, and replace it. Otherwise, I'm SOL -- nobody has the tuner board available from what I can tell.
Anyway, a new project! Yay!
plus my Nintendo's RF adapter that puts it on channel 3 or 4 shows the same problem.
