Electronics Sony Trinitron Monitor - It works, well sort of...

is the red on the icons there in reality?

 

No, it's not. I tried to simulate the colors as best as I could. The Blue down in the sytem tray is not so pronounced either.

 

Well that looks exactly as my monitor did when my cable died from it being plugged and unpluged so many times, it just broke the wires insid eand it only cost $15 for a new cable and it fixed the problem.

 

looks like BOTH red and blue are dead... try fiddeling with that card hanging on that glass tube... there should be a plug there... (to take the whole PCB off the tube) try cleaning the connectors with some contact cleaning spray.. if that don't work you'll have to bring out the DMM...

edit: like taliban raider here says... chekcing the cable isn't a bad idea... (i thought it was a TV) monitors have 3 seperate wires for each color... try to find a pinout diagram and check the right pins...

 

Just be *very* carefull doing this. There is 5000V on that board and it takes no prisoners.

 

keep someone nearby to pull you loose if you get stuck..

 

Thanks for the confidence inspiring comments. I did notice that where the card plugs into the tube it is rather loose. Is there any way to tighten it up? Or is that the way it is supposed to be?

 

my old monitor did the EXACT same thing as yours, I messed with it for a while and was never able to fix it. it turned a serious shade of green, and wouldn't go back. I through it in a dumpster and through gigantic rocks on it

 

I had a LCD that did the same as your monitor but istead of green glow i had a red glow.
Solution to my problem:
I toke it apart and checked the connectors found out that the the pin/connector for the red ground was broken. Fixed it and now it works.

Basics:
You have 3 colors to generate all colors in a monitor, RED, GREEN and BLUE. Each of these have their own ground, RED GND, GREEN GND and BLUE GND.

Your problem:
Might be the Green Gnd is broken (check cabling).

 

Crazy Ivan: it is normal that it's a bit loose as it only hang by this plug...

Blue max: did you still have some of the other colors? i had one turn yellow once.. it happened slowly (over about a week). This happends when the electrode (?) in the canon (tube) gets bad.. often covered with some stuff i dn't really know what is.. there is one way to fix this though... you can get a special device that sends high(er) voltage trough the electrode, burning off this stuff.. wears out the electrode if done to many times though..

I (and my dad) have been trough LOTS of monitors... all cinds of problems... all RMA'ed though..

kracso: the green GND is defeneatly NOT broken as it's the only one that works... it's the red and blue that isn't working..

 

Thanks Smilodon- I have to check more closely on the wiring but everything seems like it is connected right. I did not go poking around to much in there though. I just pushed the card in to the back of the tube and cleaned out all the dust. I have not tried it yet but will after work today. Thanks for all the help guys. If this does not work I think I'll just get another monitor.

 

another ting you might want to check is bad soldering joints (?).. i know they are REALLY hard to spot, but it's the most common error in today's electronic devices...

take out the pcb's discharge them and start pulling slightly in the components.,.. at the same time look at the loints and see if there is any movement... if you find any bad joints, just heat them up with you'r soldering iron and you are ready to go..

 

How would I go about discharging the PCB? Please excuse my noobness

 

find the capacitors (speciallly the big ones) and short them with a cable... don't use a screwdriver as it will get burned... to prevent huge sparks you could put in a resistor and hold it for a while... bur that's not REALLY neccesary...

it's the same as discharging a PSU...

 

Well, it is sort of working now. The brightness/contrast is a bit on the dark side. I figured it was the contrast/brightness controls but now those controls will not respond. At least not very much. I can just barely perceive a slight change in brightness when I lower or raise the brightness setting. Same for the contrast. It is not that bad though. I hooked up the dreamcast to it and loaded up Tech Romancer and it was very playable at the settings it had. One level was way to dark though. Oh well, I think this monitor is heading for the dumpster tonight.

 

You're well on the way to getting it fixed. I know I've heard of TVs geting to this stage and they are repairable, I just don't remember what was done to fix them. Try checking all the voltage rails to make sure they are on target. There is normally 5V, 12V, maybe 7V and 9V, 115V and 400V.

It will look good on your cv if you can get it going!

 

This is too much for for an old 15 inch moniter

Chuck it and buy a good used one (dispose of it properly too )

 

Well, I did not dump it. I just got a dual head video card and might try to see if I canget a dual monitor setup going....

 

cool