Looking for the best, most comprehensive book on designing circuits for CRT TVs - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: matttintoshplus
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 06, 2025, 07:06:43 pm
content: Undergrad EE (UC Davis anyone?) student here just curious to mess with CRTs. I've been a fan for a while and have enjoyed what little work I could do on them but I'd really like to become an expert. I was just wondering if anyone had recommendations for books or other resources that cover them thoroughly. One day I'd like to make my own vector display. A few books I thought to read were:Color Television: Simplified Theory and Techniques by Philco (from the mid 50s though so lots of its diagrams involve tubes. I am planning on using transistors where necessary so I figured this might not be the best place to go.)Basic Television Principles and Servicing by Bernard Grob (same issues, although its from the 70s and does include a decent chunk of diagrams involving BJTs so I figured it may be a bit better)Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter Cookbook (the focus is on text displays and not graphical ones though)Don Lancaster's Cheap Video Cookbook ()What do you guys think? Any better recommendations?If there's a better place to ask this let me know.

author: jwet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 04:12:19 pm
content: National Semiconductor (now part of TI) made some TV parts in the CRT era and were famous for good app notes. They had one called "A Color TV Primer" (iirc) that I remember reading that finally made some sense out of analog TV. They had other app notes- they made a fair number of parts and functions.Another possible vein of gold could be Sams Photofacts publications of the era. Sam's, the electronics publisher used to sell schematics and service data that were very comprehensive. Look for these at hamfests as they have little value anymore but were once widely distributed.Radio and Electronic magazine's roots were TV repair and they ran a lot of article and had a regular column on TV stuff. A lot of Don Lancaster's stuff was published there. There is an amazing archive of old magazines including all of R-E called World Radio History. link-https://www.worldradiohistory.com/index.htmA crt that's relatively easier to play with is Oscilloscope tubes. They're electrostatically deflected which simplifies things, use more sane voltage and the tubes are still pretty available as new old stock. Eric Schlaepfer, an old friend and co-worker, has a web site that's called Tube Time that is amazing. He has published designs for CRT clocks, etc. His interests vary widely, he is currently doing a lot of sectioning and taking apart different parts and IC's. The most amazing thing I've ever seen is is his Monster 6502 CPU, a working picture frame size board using transistors that is a working 6502. He lives in the Bay Area and is an active Maker Faire participant, etc. You'll enjoy his website.There are vendors on Tindie that sell CRT Scope Clocks- some are open source and are fertile grounds to poke around and learn.The early Apple's had some fascinating video circuits in them especially to generate color with no parts. Some of Steve Wozniak's genius. I understood this once and its devilishly cleverl.Hope that helps- good luck. I'm near 70 and I repaired some CRT stuff but I was fascinated by the smaller end of electronics and all of the IC's. Few people understand this anymore and the gray beards are forgetting it even faster.

author: timeandfrequency
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2025, 04:41:38 pm
content: Hello matttintoshplus,Here are some books presenting TV parts and assemblies :Philips DC03 1992 Television TunersPhilips T05 1986 Cathode-ray tubesPhilips C20 1987 Wirewound components for TV and monitorsPhilips T8 1986 Colour TV picture tubes and deflection units Colour data graphic display tube assemblies

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:34:22 am
content: I would also suggest scouting ebay for some Philips documentation - they created ICs for almost everything, and were a major player in the TV business (and also a major supplier of parts for other companies).

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 11:00:06 am
content: Another good source is getting hold of old Service Manuals. Whether it's Philips, Nokia/Salora, Telefunken, Grundig or whatever, they're all based on similar circuitry.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 02:22:55 pm
content: Being an 'expert' on C.R.T's would be more of a personal hobbyist goal than that of a career portfolio!! Tektronix published some great literature on C.R.T. circuits and C.R.T.'s. They developed some of the most sophisticated C.R.T.'s in existence as well as phosphor chemical blending. DuMont prior to Tektronix doing its own manufacturing was making the best C.R.T.'s available with better focus and higher brightness than what RCA or Sylvania could produce. Just for fun you may want to learn about the 'scan conversion' C.R.T.'s that had an image orthicon attached to the same glass envelope. Or look into the old avionic radar C.R.T.'s that had the neck offset from the center. One of the craziest oscilloscope tubes I have ever seen in real life was for a four channel four beam scope and the C.R.T. had four guns inside!! It was made in the early to mid '60s and was a DuMont or Fairchild as I seem to recall. One of the most oddball phosphors was P10 and I only recall ever seeing one of those in real life. The screen appeared grayish white under normal light and the trace written into the phosphor was a dark purple/brown. The trace would remain until it was somehow erased by an external means which I forget. It was for capturing 'one time' events in the 'Los Alamos' days!!

author: supertrabuco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2025, 07:50:29 pm
content: Hello, back in the 1980s, I learned about CRT TV with a German book called "Fundamentals of Television" by Otto Limann.It's a great TV book, but it also explains a lot about analog electronics.Best regards.