Transplanting 9-inch CRTs - A Journey

[jessenator]

So, minor snag with installing the amber CRT.

 

As nickpunt mentioned, the orientation of the neck pins is rotated, necessitating either a flip of the tube (putting the anode cap right next to the AB) or extending the wires on the neck board.

 

I thought I'd be clever and utilize some spare pieces from my Macintosh Classic parts machine (specifically the neck board itself, and from the analog board). The neck boards between the SE(/30) and the Classic (early version with the compatible yoke and CRT) look almost identical, save the more modern components. But since the Classic neck board is hard-wired into its analog board, I did some wire swapping with the logic board—pulled out the wires from the connector, matched it to the SE(/30) connector, and soldered those (longer) wires into the Classic neck board. I did notice that there was one deviation: the black and brown wires are apparently swapped on the board itself.

 

Do I swap the brown and black wire positions to match the SE(/30) neck board, or is the circuit on the Classic neck board different enough that I should just leave it? 

 

[PB145B]

That green CRT looks fantastic! Nice work!

[jessenator]

15 hours ago, PB145B said:

That green CRT looks fantastic! Nice work!

Thanks! It definitely has a certain aesthetic—kinda like the //c Snow White vibe just carried right over to the Macintosh, bypassing the early models. I mean, it would be more impressive if I didn't have a marbley-looking case, but I think it shines through mostly

 

 

Also, I think, just to be absolutely sure it works and won't blow anything up, I bought an SE neck board, into which I'll solder my extended connector leads. As Ripley said, "it's the only way to be sure…"

[nickpunt]

Looks great! Love the dramatic photos. Seems like the picture is not distorted, guessing you didn't have to mess with the magnets much? I gotta find one of these green CRTs.

[jessenator]

8 hours ago, nickpunt said:

guessing you didn't have to mess with the magnets much?

Thankfully not! The upper left corner was a little wonky, but it's mostly cleared up. One could definitely get by with a decent pattern, like a check fill in SuperPaint, but I used the Display Service Utility that's included on this, and possibly other versions of the Service Source CD. Apparently v1 has some Classic-centric utility that didn't really do anything on my SE/30 (was the Classic II software brightness controlled?), but the patterns were nice to have.

 

I guess I never shared that Matsushita p/n did I? It's TR-9DK1 B 

 

Most might command some sort of premium for who knows why... But I'm getting the impression from members in the know that most, if not all, 9" monochrome CRTs are going to work, but not always the mounting, as we've seen  

[Jinnai]

I can't help but wonder, how do I wire the amber CRT as-is to work with a signal?

 

[EDIT] From looking at it, it appears yellow is a composite signal, black is ground, and purple is +12v, and that's all there is. Pic where someone has wired a composite signal to the black and yellow CRT connection:

Edited June 23, 2020 by Jinnai

[jessenator]

Finally got around to installing the amber CRT tonight!

 

My first snag was that the wires used on the Classic were (strangely) a thicker gauge of wire than the SE(/30)'s, so I had to take a different tack when soldering the longer wires to the spare SE neck board I bought:

Thankfully the board is a simple, one sided (layered?) variety so I just went right onto the pads, vs through-hole

 

Here's a view of the CRT in place and the full length of the new neck board connector:

 

Did run into a tight, but not tugging fit with the ground wire. I would have spliced another wire, but I misplaced my heat shrink tubing, annoyingly.

 

Cheesey StartupScreen, I know  

 

There is some distortion on the bottom (top) of the CRT that I wasn't able to correct with the yoke magnets (what I could reach anyway), but I'm pretty satisfied with it! I did have to adjust the rings quite a bit to get it right on center. Let's just say I'm thankful for the more modern controls of the other Macintosh monitors that don't require such manual operation.

[Byrd]

Looks great jessenator - it almost needs a really badly yellowed case to give it that sun drenched 80's effect

[jessenator]

On 6/23/2020 at 2:49 PM, Byrd said:

Looks great jessenator - it almost needs a really badly yellowed case to give it that sun drenched 80's effect

Thanks! yeah, I think I shouldn't have messed with the case, but there's some quality about the botched brite job that I don't mind  

 

Overdue, but some decent amber-screen shots (linked thumbnails) :

[cheesestraws]

15 hours ago, jessenator said:

Overdue, but some decent amber-screen shots (linked thumbnails) :

I love this.  I hope it has a matching amber HDD LED?

[jessenator]

12 hours ago, cheesestraws said:

I love this.  I hope it has a matching amber HDD LED?

Yes! since the pin header on the SCSI2SD is large enough (space-wise) to actually take whatever size connector, really.  For my other 68k machines, I have only 2 still-working SCSI spinners, and while they're both Quantum, they're non-original(Apple), so the LED connectors don't fit either my IIci or Q700 connectors . They just sit there ...lifelessly unblinking

 

I'm personally liking the amber phosphor quite a bit. Does it look Mac'ish? Not strictly speaking, no. But apart from liking it, I also like the invisible, anonymous schadenfreude I'm getting because of its existence  

Edited June 26, 2020 by jessenator

[Nick]

I have a few of of the compact macs one of my 2 mac pluses is dead and im tapping into the yoke to use the CRT as a crude oscilloscope dose anyone have the model number of the tube itself or the yoke?