Sony's Smallest Color CRT is not a Trinitron - Meet the Indextron
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- This is the Sony KVX-370 Indextron CRT TV. Is this the smallest Color CRT from Sony? Let's explore this rare hardware.
For more information on repairs, diagnostics and to connect with me, please visit: / retrotechusa
#retro #retrotech #crt
0:00 - Intro to the Sony Indextron
3:46 - Troubleshooting the power problem
7:33 - Inside the CRT
10:16 - Close look at the Indextron tube
14:35 - Problems with this CRT TV
18:33 - This Sony is small! Interesting features
21:35 - The shop has been invaded! - ending - Věda a technologie
The Indextron is unique because it only uses ONE electron gun instead of THREE like a typical Trinitron. That orange plastic plate that sits behind the tube is actually a UV sensor. It does not project anything onto the screen. It's complicated, but this is how it works. The Screen has 4 phosphorus stripes instead of 3. Red, Green, Blue, UV, and the Indextron has NO aperture grill (because there is not 3 electron beams to converge) The single electron beam scans the screen like a Black and White Picture Tube and when the beam hits the UV stripe, the sensor behind the tube picks up the signal. That signal is used by the circuitry to adjust the output and timing of the beam to allow the single beam to draw a color image. From the user's point of view, it looks like a regular color TV, however it works closer to a Black and white picture tube. The Indextron design allows the picture tube to be about 3 times shorter than a Trinitron, use less power, and there is no need for an aperture grill or convergence hardware because there is only one electron beam. Fun fact, because there is no aperture grill, Indextrons are completely immune to magnetic interference. They cannot be damaged by magnets!
Awesome info! Very intriguing! Thanks
Thanks for the incredible information. Thanks for also sending this CRT into the shop. It was a treat to document.
But you know that it's not the only tube having only ONE electro gun to make colourful image?
@@ITGuyinaction Yes, the Chromatron 😊
@@SupraguyCRT Point for you! You are very good! Btw, I'm not 100% sure, but something comes to my mind that also Diamondtron made by Mitsubishi had only one electron gun?
4:47 this is absolutely normal for unregulated power supplies and the tv should handle it if this is the original psu. linear unregulated supplies when not underload always makes higher voltage at the output. rectified 12v ac comes at around 17v so if your mains is slightly higher than 120v then it can easily result in 19v dc without load. also smaller mains frequency transformers make more voltage than usual when unloaded .
exactly, i was gonna comment similar, you should test power supplies on load, not just open with only a meter on it, load it near to one amp and i bet it'd be much closer to 12v, people are too used to these regulated switch mode psus these days! and i wouldnt replace that psu cap, its likely perfectly ok! far too much of this recapping nonsense!
i wanted to mention this as well, a trap for young players as Dave would say! :D that was 18v floating, not under load.
@@andygozzo72 how do you test you test a DC psu like this under a load?
I'm aware of the load vs. Unloaded voltage difference but I've not come across a technique or tool that allows for testing under a load.
@@rogeliozim456 load it with a resistor or resistor network to load it to full stated max load or just under , you can sometimes get away with using car or torch bulbs as a load but bear in mind their cold resistance is much lower than when 'hot' so if the power supply has current limiting, this may cause it to limit/trip ..
I've thought the same thing, verifying the output voltage of a power supply. When it's an unregulated power supply, like the one this TV uses, the voltage is going to be significantly higher until put under a load. If there is no load, the voltage will rise. This is normal behavior and not a cause for concern.
exactly
It's rare that a power supply should drift up THAT high above the nominal even unregulated. Then again there really isn't anything to go wrong there, so the high drift is likely just inherent in the construction of the transformer, it doesn't really give me worry.
@@SianaGearz oh, they can, zx spectrum '9v' ish full load ones are commonly 14vish unloaded, a 12v 300ma small plug thing is over 19v unloaded.. smaller, lower current ones vary more, due to the higher dc resistance of the windings ,
It's not too uncommon for SMD parts to be unpopulated. Especially with niche technology where the engineers keep changing specs as the boss keeps telling them to "make it cheaper".
Those are the tech equivalent of "poverty buttons" ... each of those is probably a planned feature that just didn't come to light because of costs.
the whole service manual of this tv is available on line , i have checked the manual and it has values of all components with whole schematics for this model. and goes through steps to diagnose and calibrate , so i think this could be saved if u give your time and patience . .
While the circuitry would be hard to save, getting the tube to display color again should be possible. Most of the support electronics are the same as an ordinary B&W monitor (electrically, it's a B&W tube). How the indextron works is by monitoring the UV pulses from the index strips in the phosphor, and using those pulses to synchronize a phase locked loop, which then provides a real time mapping between the beam position and the RGB phosphor stripes. So the custom circuitry required would need to monitor the signal from the UV sensor, implement the PLL, and then have circuitry to gate the demodulated RGB information from the input signal to the control grid in phase with the phosphor stripes. This was done with custom ICs (like the HT5180 and HT5190) but could be re-implemented with discrete ICs or possibly even with a fast-enough microcontroller these days.
I remember seeing one of these at an antique store a few years ago. I didn't get a super close look at it, but I remember being confused by it's size and the clock controls, to the point where I wondered for years if I'd misidentified the clock controls as such. Glad to see I hadn't imagined it, and that it's a real thing. I almost wish I'd bought it when I saw it, but if I recall correctly it was a bit out of my price range at the time. Either way, super cool to see one!
I made a video about this model a couple years back. I also tepaired a few. Not fun but vastly worth the time. If you want to get it fixed let me know, won’t be my forst rodeo with this set. I think I almost know its schematic inside out by now 😂
That thing is absolutely freaking sweet.
The smallest color Trinitron was the BVF-7700 7" viewfinder meant for use on standard definition broadcast cameras like the Sony BVP-900/BVP-950 introduced around 1999-2000, but they would likely work with even the earliest BVP-360/BVP-3000 3-tube cameras from 1984.
There was an HD version called the HDVF-7700 that was meant for use on HD broadcast cameras like the HDC-900/HDC-950 that were also introduced around the same time, but would likely again work with earlier Sony HD equipment that dates back to the '80s as part of the HDVS line that came about in 1984.
The specs for both the SD BVF-7700 and HD HDVF-7700 color viewfinders are the same except for the resolution, as they use the same Super Fine Pitch "7 tube: "The viewfinder uses a variable-aperture-grill catchode-ray tube with an aperture grill of 0.2 mm in the center and 0.25 mm on the sides. The result is a high-quality color picture with a horizontal resolution of 450 lines or more."
There were color-beam-indexing CRT electronic viewfinders that were 2" released for portable professional cameras around the early-to-mid 1980s as well.
The smallest Sony Trinitron is actually the 3.7" PVM-4000. I have one I'm working on right now. It shares the same 3.7" 110LB22 Trinitron Picture Tube as the KV-4000 consumer TV.
@@SupraguyCRT Amazing, first time I'm hearing about this.
@@NUCLEARARMAMENT Yeah, I just discovered it recently and there's almost no information out there about the PVM-4000. It was used in the early 80s as a Camera viewfinder or portable studio monitor and then quickly replaced with the 5" PVMs.
@@SupraguyCRT Very interesting, one thing I will add further about the BVF-7700 & HDVF-7700 is that while they are not the smallest Trinitrons, I feel like they are the sharpest color Trinitrons for their size, with a variable color dot pitch ranging from 0.2 mm towards the center, to 0.25 mm going towards the outer edges.
Super Fine Pitch tube, for sure, heh. 450 TVL effective horizontal resolution, which for a 16:9 tube is 253.125 lines, or at least 450x253 effective color resolution for these 7" BVF/HDVF monitors.
It makes me wonder what the dot pitch was on these older smaller sub-7" PVM Trinitrons and what the effective resolution on Indextron and similar beam-indexing CRTs were.
@@SupraguyCRT Have a KV-4000 Serial # 808928, Still works great when I saw this video I went and pulled it out. Plugged it in and great picture. was worked on in 01/29/03 I would imagine when i took it in they recapped it. Great video
For me from what I can see the power supply is not regulated and probably need some load to land closer to 12 volts. Also don´t expect that a PCB should always have every marked component installed on the board because it is very common it was made with different design first than at actual release. The indextron should almost be treated like a black and white monitor with some black magic circuits scanning the beam position via that Orange plastic strip because the same beam is lighting up all the different phosphors without an aperture grill. I would have checked the lose parts and put them back and at least try the thing before calling it quits because it might be so simple there is scratchy pots and poor solder joints that makes it not work
PSU is fine, it's unregulated. With the rated 1A load, it will be outputting the correct voltage. Shame the TV is damaged beyond economic repair, looks really cool.
Didn’t the TV say it was 15W? That’s more than the rated 1A load for 12V.
@@emmettturner9452 That psu wasn't the correct model for the Watchcube.
@@SupraguyCRT Interesting. I guess they had a whole line of products and power supplies in that size which clip together. I’ve seen similar but not quite this size.
Also there is linear regulator in the device itself to correct the voltage.
Looks like a TV shoved into a dream machine alarm clock! Cool!
very neat, I hope to one day find one at the thrift store!
This was so interesting! And I love the mantis at the end. :D
Because the power supply is removable, I suspect there was a rechargeable battery pack available. Since you never actually turned it on for your video what was the issue did it do absolutely nothing when powered up?
I would send that little darling of a TV to Adrian Black (Adrian's Digital Basement) for one last try to bring it back to life. If he can't fix it, nobody can.
I always wanted something like this back in the day just put it on the table or desk and watch tv.
I remember the smallest trinitron there was the 5XB5, they marketed it for kitchen's, very cool, my grandma ended up getting one, and it looked fantastic.
So cute little crt
Awesome! I have two vidimagic fp60 indextron projectors here that I need to fix. Maybe this video will give me the hype I need for it
great video retro tech keep up the good job sir
I think I read somewhere that sometimes physically larger capacitors are used in power supplies because they can dissipate heat faster.
Thicker foils, higher current, bigger can.
Over-spec'd caps (to a point) will most likely result in a longer lifetime.
What a fascinating lil tube.
My 13 inch Trinitron also still has that orange sticker in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It's one of my favorite things about it.
What a neat piece of tech!
If this wasn't so rare, this seems like it would be a good project to put a Raspberry Pi or other SBC and a small screen in.
Some weeks aco, I walking around rhe block, I found a Sony Trinitron 14" (1994 Made in USA) in the frontyard grass (sidewalk) of a neigbord. I taked it til my house, I pluged it and works super well, antenna required. We steal have NTSC aereal signal and TV cable (I know in the US 2008 kaput, black out they call). I have also a 21" Sony Trinitron 1992 edition, I had a doble cassette Sony radio and also a radio/clock, all those same black shape, matte finishing same colors of typografie, etcetera, I love it.
Greetings from 🇨🇱 Santiago Chile SouthAmerica 🥰😉
This little beauty was built in the same month of the same year when I was born.
It could be the little brother that I never had🥹
Those "rings" you think might be for purity or convergance are more then likely something that acts like the rings on B&W tubes. They are there for positioning of the screen. Given that convergence is something handled by electronics on these indextrons, there is no need for adjustment rings for those things. :P
That is the cutest thing EVER!!!
The PSU having a higher voltage than it rating isn't unusual in older devices as they are just a transformer to get the voltage in the ballpark. From there the device itself would have a linear regulator to get the voltage right and clean. If I had to guess the regulator circuit is on that top board as the key component of a linear regulator is the transistor device which is had to be bolted to a heat spreader to dissipate the heat from the over voltage supplied and in doing so level out the dips and peaks in the dirty ac voltage supplied.
Also, once you load the PS the voltage is going to drop a bit.
@@vintageshed965 Exactly. It is an unregulated power supply, so it's normal for the voltage to be higher than its rated output when there is no load applied. Under load, the voltage output will be correct.
Yeah if that's an unregulated power supply, higher voltage without load can happen. Connect a load if similar amperage rating as the TV to see if voltage drops to spec.
Miniature electronics of this nature have always fascinated me. They are very portable. The 1980’s were a great 😊 era to be in. The only disadvantage, is that the capacitors in these are bad, and need to be replaced. Happy Halloween 🎃👻. Your friend, Jeff.
Thanks for this amazing trip to the past. A truly awesome bit of tech.
You know why those units are so rare? Because the people who wanted them were kids. I remember drooling over TVs just like that when I was around ten.
But you know who couldn't afford them? Kids...
The translucent part of the tube is for the feedback system of the indextron these tube dont have an aperture grill in them and only have one electron gun it is almost like a monochrome tube but with rgb phosphor stripes on the screen i believe there are also uv phosphor stripes on the screen printed on the back of the screen that orange plastic part you thought was a display is infact the sensor for the feedback of the indextron the way these work is as the electron beam passes over the coloured stripes the corresponding colour signal is applied to the electron gun to light up that particular coloured spot this system modulates the electron beam with the red green and blue signals sequentially the uv stripes are there to synchronise the electron beam so when the electron beam passes over the uv stripe the sensor emits a pulse that tells the controller circuit that the electron beam is about to pass over the first coloured stripe eg red so the video circuit then sends the red signal to the electron gun then it switches to the green then to the blue then this is repeated over again for the whole scan line the pulses from the sensor keep the timing of the RGB switching so the correct colours are displayed on the screen. that tv is definitely well worth fixing as these are very rare i have been looking for one of years but the dont come up for sale on Ebay if ever!!
Yeah, dude is a moron who didn't do any research about what he was presenting. And to leave it up and not make corrections..WTF. My first and last video that I'll be watching by this guy.
love the video i would loved to see the TV working
I've been wanting to get my hands on one of these because I have a cool project idea for one, but they're super rare and the only ones that ever come up go for too much money.
What makes it so appealing is that it is a cube. If you've seen a lot of small color TVs you know that they tend to be very deep. The beam index tube is able to be much more shallow, which would be super handy if say, you wanted to incorporate it as the display in something...
You are much braver than I am opening up the power supply and electron beam gun. I think you know what you are doing though. Did you check to discharge any parts before touching? Nice vid BTW and very nice tech
Finally a CRT that will actually fit on my desk
I want one so damn bad. My my childhood would have been complete with this.
I managed to get a Sony FDM-330 Colour watchman working. It is the modular design with separate display, tuner, speaker, and battery holder.
I have a question is the Sony kv-27v66 controller compatible with Sony kv-27v42 ?
Got a question to ask
i decided to open up my RCA e13169gm crt from 1989 to check the caps and clean out dust but i noticed on the left side of the board it has a picture slider nob and focus slider nob but on right side of the board are red and white slider nobs
What are those for?
OMG that CRT is sooo adorable!
Imagine Watching Movies next to your computer with this. It'll be interesting to me ngl!
Similar models of The Indextron mini tv is selling used in the $1000.00 range. It may be worth the time and effort to repair?
that's fascinating.
Hi master, i have a question. Where can i find a flyback for my ikegami tm14-17R? How can i find a compatible one? Mine one does a terrible noise
I fixed mine, yours is even clean to begin with, shame that you did not at least try. I ended up replacing most if not all capacitors, the TV works now, the tuner still runs but receives only FM transmission (as analog video was discontinued, but this japan set has lower band frequencies and runs it's PLLs from ~68MHz up to over ~130MHz, I think, where it overlaps the FM band on the channel 1 and 2).
Wish I had stacks this stuff
Nice displays for the computer rig electronics test bench
Well that would be one awesome alarm clock Is pretty cool technology
I had a question if you sold any refurbished small pvms and how much they would be?
I do, but that is pretty much only listed on Patreon when they are available.
its a linear power supply dude. they are normally higher until its put under load. id see if using a resistor or light bulb of some kind to load it down, should drop to around the 12 volt range. not uncommon in older trnasformer based power supplies.
The term is "unregulated". "Linear" means that a transistor is controlled in it's linear region to limit the current in a way that the voltage drop will lead to the exact voltage being present on the output. They can in many circumstances even regulate to closer tolerances than "switching" regulators.
You're also mixing up various things here. You can easily combine "older transformer based PSUs" with linear and even switching regulators, and a number of rather new analog Class D amplifiers employ such a topology (Class D being a switching topology anyway).
I have a Sony Trinitron KV-4000 color TV with about 3.5" screen. Great picture STILL, Looks like maybe a bit of a following. Great TV have had it since the mid 1980's, Have that same power supply which outputs 17.78 Volts. I think the load of the TV takes up some of the voltage.
been trying to find one of these, id love to attempt creating a real 'Commodore HX-64' based on Cem Tezcan artwork
Interesting!
Actually the smallest crt by sony IS a Trinitron. It's the Sony KV 4000, which has a 3.5 inch screen, while the KVX 370 has a 4 inch screen.
Somewhat adding the Supraguy: The transparent part works the other way around. As said, there are RGB and UV stripes - and when the UV stripe is hit, the electronics know that a new RGB triplet is following and adjusts its timing to hit each stripe with the correct color intensity meant for that stripe - this would be too sloppy if being made over the whole screen and wouldn't hit the right phosphors due to the way the tube is bent and analogous tubes work. But that is the whole beauty of this design - we had shadow masks bc electronics were not capable of doing that what the Indextron did at the time of color TV's introduction (Sony tried with the Chromatron before, which used fine stripes instead of UV phosphors, failed, and invented Trinitron based on knowledge from the Chromatron design).
Larger TVs based on this design were never made, possibly bc it's not working well with larger scale TVs.
I'd love to get a portable 5' color CRT TV just for my older consoles.
The "MiniTron" would of been a marketing hit.
I had a smaller sony back in the day from Hong Kong lol was a portable one with an antenna that pulled out. And a magnifying glass on the front I think it was called a sony watchman lol
I would like to see someone playing Time Crisis (Light Gun game) with this little Indextron just to see how it will look like. There at least seemed to be video connection, but I was wondering whether there is audio connection...
I have a feeling that the power supply runs around 20v unloaded, the newer capacitor may have had less time to begin working whiskey might have been why it showed 17v, the 20v will most likely drop to 12v when placed on load
its so cute
What is the size of this CRT screen?
Sunny had a single rubber crt projector based on one of these.
19V on a 12V linear power supply with NO regulation is perfectly normal. It needs a load before the voltage drops to nominal level.
Don’t they have smaller CRTs in viewfinders for camcorders?
Yes, much smaller, but not in color. AFAIK color viewfinders are all LCD (or OLED).
The Indextron reminds me of the mid-1950s Philco beam-indexing Apple tube color CRT, the Uniray CRT and other experimental tubes which relied on beam-indexing to actively guide the single beam to the correct phosphor stripe during scanning. The goal was to eliminate the shadow mask or wire grid. I guess Sony figured out how to make one commercially viable.
good old unregu;lated transformer wallwart. you need a small load to get the correct voltage.
Damn, thought my 9" Trinitron was small
i got a dell p1130 and the image is sharp 100% only if i view it from the angles, if i sit in front of the monitor it is a little blurry and anoying after 1h of use.
in 2022 i started not to use the lcd bullshit tech. tired of it.
i can do multiple resolutions, i find the best for me 1920x1080@105hz dp>vga passive.
i opened it up, played with all the rings possible, made it a mess and made it look crysp again but the 10% blurr is not going away.
do you think i should play with the flyback knobs to see if i can fix focus or remove blurr?
it is so weard, i stand up and look@ it, sharp af, i sit on chair centered 10%blurry.
i tryed the gama correction and calibration from windows but nothing helped, 10%blurr all over the screen still present when viewing centered.
now i am thinking... shall i loosen the yoke and play with it?
shall i play with the flyback knobs?
the screen has the protective layer cut off the glass, should i polish the glass in hope that it can remove the 10% blurr?
thank you all for taking time to read this, i am in need for help and sugestions and will apreciate it 1000%
I have 2 of these Indextron TV's that both need restoring due to leaking caps. Both turn on and I can hear sound but the CRT will not turn on. Common :)
Excelente,^^
It's a crime to scrap this unit. There are no components missing, just corroded solder because of leaking capacitors. Alle capacitors should be replaced. It can very much be fixed.
Damn!! I remember my grampa has a tv like that! For this hardware store!! And I use to love to see him and watch tv on that little on when I was little boy!
My grampa passed away on 2016 and all his things got stolen by my savage cousins and I was living out of the country, I wish I still have that little tv, it was not identical but very similar little bigger maybe 5” or so
The transformer will give you a higher voltage of it is just rectified without a load. It will settle down a bit of you have a load on it. As well, normally it wouldn't be this high, maybe this is a Japanese domestic model for 100V power?
Also, for capacitors, largest ones often have higher current handling capacity, newer smaller ones don't always exceed all the metrics of the older ones. In this case at a bit over 1amp of draw, i guess that wouldn't be an issue.
if it was for 100 volt mains it would be closder to 24 volts unloaded about 14 to 15 volts loaded.
aren't there also any color crt-viewfinders that would be even smaller?
I want that... So bad.
I know you just said its extremely rare...
*but I want it.*
Old transformer based power supplies always put out more voltage than the rated when not under load, hence the 19 volts instead of the rated 12...
Make sure Try gets EVERYTHING back with his 20L5...
🦗
Hi thanks.i love Sony.
does it work with VGA or Antenna"?
I actually have a small Sony trinitron thats like new i got my grandparents house after they had passed. Been trying to find some use for it. But i cant see well. Was think if i got an Atari 7800 again id use it with this. Mine has these little dials under these plastic doors on the top. I have no idea what they do haha. But the TV works. Help me find a use for it folks. If you have one f these what do you use it for ? I think mines 9in.
Man, I had one of those . . . .
Will this work with lightgun games?
4:51 Many C64 PSUs have this exact issue.
It would be like watching a movie on a smartphone. Except I think my phone screen is wider.
The capacitor is charged without load this voltage is normal on nom regulated ones...
Should be able to use a power adapter off a full size external USB Hard Drive... they are 12V and looks like it has the same plug.. just check the polarity
AMAZING. Imagine if they tried to use this thing in old handhelds. Would be very impractical. But neat nonetheless. Wonder how long a battery it'd manage compared to old Casios LCD portable TVs.
It's you!
Hook it up to a car battery 🔋 😎 lol 😆
Never knew that Sony made these very tiny and very rare televisions that are so small.
You should have Adrian Black (Adrians Digital Basement) have a look at it! Perhaps he can fix it!
I can say with that I have never seen a pretty mantis crawling on a Sony PVM before.
I breed exotic mantises as a hobby. You have an adult Carolina Mantis. If you keep it in captivity - mist it's enclosure every few days and feed it other insects it will last a few months longer. Once it frosts outside it will die. They are fun, unique pets.
trinitron: i am the straigh
index tron: i am ther agender
I have a small white Sony Trinitron I had it for years.Too bad some thrift stores stop selling CRT TV's.
They sell a bunch of HDTVs now.
I had a Sony CRT black and white back in the 1980s that was smaller
It is normal for a transformer power supply to give more voltage without any load.
19V from a 12V unregulated power supply is normal. Voltage will be lower under load and regulation happens within the device instead.
Just to say you could hold a CRT in 1 hand is hard to believe especially from that time frame kinda sad that we gave up CRT technology for plasma and projector tvs .... Yeah we got OLED and stuff like that but I would have loved to see what could have been made now if CRT was still being made and added on