OK, I'm working in unfamiliar territory... and
since there seem to be a lot
of video experts of late, this seems like the time and place to ask...
I'm working on an H-89 that seems to have a problem in the horizontal drive
on the video board. The unit powers up from cold to a good display,
OK...
properly sized, and stable. After the unit operates
for 10-15 minutes, the
video breaks down, first by jittering slightly for 30-60 seconds, then it
goes to a single vertical line on screen that fades to black. At this time,
the filament on the CRT also stops glowing. If I leave the unit off for
20-30 minutes, it comes back with good video for a bit, then repeats the
above. If I turn the unit back on right away without a cool down, there's
no display/no filament glow.
After tracing the (good) horizontal output signal from the terminal logic
board into various part of the video board, and checking voltages where I
felt I could reach safely in a hot set, I discovered that if I shot
horizontal output transistor Q217 with cold spray I'd get video back right
away.
OK, it sounds like the HOT is getting too hot :-). This could be due to
one of 3 things :
1) The HOT (Q217) is faulty.
2) The load is too heavy. This could be the flyback (but I doubt it -- a
shorted turn in the flyback is going to have more serious effects that
this), it could be something powered from the flyback (again unlikely)
3) The drive waveform is wrong. I don't have the H89 schematics to hand,
but there's often a low-value electrolytic capacitor (a few uF) in the
base circuit, particularly if it's transformer-driven. If this
deteriorates, the drive waveform is incorrect, the HOT turns off too
slowly and disipates more power than it should.
1) Although the flyback _appears_ OK, could the leak
have caused some unseen
damage that is now causing excessive current through Q217 and shutting it
I think this is unlikely.
down? My limited understanding of flyback
construction is that they are
sealed units. It takes several minutes (10-15) before the failure is
observed. Could a flyback failure allow operation for this long? How do I
test this thing?
The only real test is a ringing test (you resonate one of the windings
with a capacitor, apply a voltage pulse and observe the decaying
oscillations on a 'scope). Problem is, this doesn't work too well on
intermittant faults!
2) If I proceed under the assumption that the flyback is OK and Q217 is
not... Q217 is a BU500: 1500V, 6A, 75W, SI-NPN. I normally buy from Mouser,
DigiKey, and Jameco, but none of them seems to have this part, and I wasn't
able to turn up anything useful Googling. A possible dealer or two in the
UK, but for a $2-3 part I was hoping for a more-readily-available source or
Can't help you, I'm in the UK, and it's not hard to get the BU500 series
hre.
an equivalent. The closest I can find in the family
is BU508A, which is
1500V, 7-8A, 120-125W (depending on whose specs you believe). Is that OK or
too far out of spec? Does anyone know of US source for the real McCoy?
Specs are not normally of much use in choosing a HOT, because it works
under such strange conditions. But the BU508 is also a HOT so it might
well work.
But check the base network first.
-tony