8liners chassis review

[Pac-Fan]

Most of those RCA's with the different tube pin connector that I've seen actually can have that connector removed (carefully) and the pins remain and in the correct order. You can then slide a standard 10 pin (screen pin keyed) cover over the bare pin base and use it in a CR-23. I'm assuming you mean the connector that looks more like one side of the inside of a molex card edge connector spread around in a circle? I believe that is a CR-24 adaptor. Same layout, just a different plastic connector.

Yes, there are still a few 10 pin tubes that are NOT CR-23/CR-24 that are still wide neck and 10 pins (or 9 if one of the unused/duplicated pins is removed). From what I've seen they typically have a 100 degree deflection angle instead of 90, therefore they are a shorter, higher deflection tube (good for use in a vector recovery? )

But always look up the tube number or be able to view the pinouts from within the neck before connecting a random tube, otherwise you can blow the chassis (neckboard/heater/flyback). I've saved the neck plastic pieces and a neck from each type after tossing bad tubes to help identify pinouts by holding up a matching one.

 

[bit_slicer]

Most of those RCA's with the different tube pin connector that I've seen actually can have that connector removed (carefully) and the pins remain and in the correct order. You can then slide a standard 10 pin (screen pin keyed) cover over the bare pin base and use it in a CR-23. I'm assuming you mean the connector that looks more like one side of the inside of a molex card edge connector spread around in a circle? I believe that is a CR-24 adaptor. Same layout, just a different plastic connector.

I didn't know you could remove the funky leaf connector! I've tossed about a half-dozen of those thinking they just weren't compatible. Oh well.

Yes, there are still a few 10 pin tubes that are NOT CR-23/CR-24 that are still wide neck and 10 pins (or 9 if one of the unused/duplicated pins is removed). From what I've seen they typically have a 100 degree deflection angle instead of 90, therefore they are a shorter, higher deflection tube (good for use in a vector recovery? )

But always look up the tube number or be able to view the pinouts from within the neck before connecting a random tube, otherwise you can blow the chassis (neckboard/heater/flyback). I've saved the neck plastic pieces and a neck from each type after tossing bad tubes to help identify pinouts by holding up a matching one.

Ok so they have to be CR-23/24 then? That's what I was wondering. For the price I didn't think they could be compatible for all different pinouts.

 

[Pac-Fan]

Yeah the connector may just pop off as the glue/silicone caulk has heated up/dried up, or may take a very sharp x-acto knife and patience to remove, but I've done it. The pins of the tube just slide against the back side of those leafs.

For all replacement chassis, they have CR-23 (they label as 10 pin wide neck) and CR-31 (they label as 8 pin narrow neck). For 19", CR-23 is the most common of the 1978-1994 era, though I've seen it on sets as late as early 2000's. CR-31 is almost all you see now and seen on things as eary as around 1990. It also was common to find on some earlier 13" sets a few years before that.

There also is another common pinout on 19" that uses 12 pins (A CR-20 or CR-25, IIRC) but there is no replacement chassis that uses them. I've mainly found these on mid-70's Sears sets in metal cabinets (Sanyo tubes?). Though one easily could, it's not worth wiring up an adaptor as most of these tubes have so much burn in the entire face is dark brown anyway.

One note: I've seen a strange Sharp CR-31 tube that actually had the guns in a different pinout than the official. They were swapped with each other, so it was safe to use a CR-31 neckboard, you just had to swap the RGB lines comming into the chassis. The tube was odd that the dog-ears where flush with the face of the tube for a super thin front bezel instead of recessed to the back of the large metal strap like all other tubes. Those reasons (swapped guns, hard to mount) as well as a very soft focus even on a JS chassis caused me to toss that tube.

That does remind me: I've found that the 8 pin JS chassis seems to be a bit softer than the 10 pin. My guess is that it's not the chassis but the newer tubes were made with different voltage ranges for screen grids or different in another way. The JS still was better than the WY, but a 10 pin JS using a mid-80's tube like a Toshiba, Philips or Orion gives a super nice sharp image.

 

[KenLayton]

There's the oddball CR30 pinout used in the Matsushita 14" and 19" tubes.

 

[Fibonacci]

Are the 8-liners chassis multisync? Can they do 25/31 khz signals?

 

[KenLayton]

Are the 8-liners chassis multisync? Can they do 25/31 khz signals?

No and no.

 

[gamefixer]

After much deliberation and PM's with people whom had purchased full monitor setups from Victor at 8liners.com I decided it was the perfect time since I had a restoration almost completed. It'd be a shame to put on old burned to hell monitor in a new restoration right??!!

FWIW, these chassis (or something very similar) have been around since the mid 80's. My experience with them in the past it that they have horrible issues with screen transitions (the picture will over modulate turn white and bounce), brightness issues (on a screen full of information the screen looks fine but a screen with less the back ground will lighten up and turn gray instead of black) and blotchyness.

Now its been almost 15 years since I've even had one of these in my hand so perhaps they have gotten better. But, that said, I'm a huge fan of buying TV's for their nice burn free tubes and fixing the OE monitor chassis (4900's and GO7 are really easy to fix). I pulled a 4900 chassis off of a monitor in a Tron that still works and has NEVER been pulled from the tube.

Those Taiwan and Chinese chassis are crap in my opinion. When you guys boot your old chassis for one of these things I'll pay shipping to have you send me your 4900 or GO7.

Good luck with those things fellas.

Sorry about peeing on the good reviews, I felt that I needed to add my experience with these things into the information stream.

Matt

 

[FrizzleFried]

Just keep in mind that the vast majority of the games these are going in by KLOVIANS is for home use... meaning they will get 1/100th the use (or less) than being out on location. A monitor that may last a year on location could last a lifetime in a home game room.

 

[Pac-Fan]

My experience with them in the past it that they have horrible issues with screen transitions (the picture will over modulate turn white and bounce), brightness issues (on a screen full of information the screen looks fine but a screen with less the back ground will lighten up and turn gray instead of black) and blotchyness.

Yes, that is a good description of the main issue (besides incompatible yoke geometry issues) I have seen with the Wei-Ya chassis. That's why, to me, it's worth getting the JenShinn chassis for a bit more.

I realize these don't last as long as a K4600, G07, K4900... but the ability to pick a random TV tube from the street during cleanup week, connect the chassis and have it working in under 10 minutes without any yoke swapping and converging is well worth the risk.

As Frizzle said... these are in your home and on very rarely (for most of us) so it's gonna take a long time to die in linear time. Actual power on time might be a lot lower, but it may not die for the time you own it. And that, along with a perfect picture is worth something.

 

[KenLayton]

Since no one is distributing Jen Shinn here anymore, if you guys want any, then you're gonna have to get a huge order together and buy a cargo container full of them.

 

[gamefixer]

Just keep in mind that the vast majority of the games these are going in by KLOVIANS is for home use... meaning they will get 1/100th the use (or less) than being out on location. A monitor that may last a year on location could last a lifetime in a home game room.

Not to get totally re-railed here but...

Tell that to the guys that bought a bunch of the last round of Kortek's from various distributors. Those monitors SUCK and in some cases last less then 48 hours in home usage, so maybe 3-4 hours in real time??

GARBAGE in = GARBAGE out. When are we going to tell these shitbag companies to go fuck themselves?

Matt

 

[Deadly]

When are we going to tell these shitbag companies to go fuck themselves?

When the other main contenders (WG) start making affordable CRT's again. If you haven't noticed - not many new ones readily available.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion but you are comming across like it's not an opinion it's an undisputable remark.
Keep looking at those burned tubes - I prefer the clean ones. and not everyone is capable of fixing their own chassis. So again - a person can spend $85.00 and get a new chassis verses spending $100 to have a "pro" fix it.

Only time will tell the true tale - I don;t think there's been enough time involved yet.

 

[gamefixer]

When the other main contenders (WG) start making affordable CRT's again. If you haven't noticed - not many new ones readily available.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion but you are comming across like it's not an opinion it's an undisputable remark.
Keep looking at those burned tubes - I prefer the clean ones. and not everyone is capable of fixing their own chassis. So again - a person can spend $85.00 and get a new chassis verses spending $100 to have a "pro" fix it.

Only time will tell the true tale - I don;t think there's been enough time involved yet.

If you have a working 4900/GO7 but the tube is trashed all you need to do is swap the tube out. The trick is to swap YOKES only! Keep the convergence rings that came with the tube on the tube! WG isnt going to make new 19's ever again, we already know that. That said these after market chassis are CHASSIS only not new complete monitors. If you (or anyone else) can swap yokes and chassis around you can fix a 4900/GO7, they are that easy to fix.

To me its not an opinion, its a fact. As I stated in my ealier post these chassis have been around since the mid 80's. I hated them back then and I hate them know. I'd much rather fix the original chassis and put it back in the game. Buying these shit sucking chassis is a bad shortcut to take unless your missing the chassis in the first place.

When ever I came across one of these chassis out in the field I replaced it with the chassis that was supposed to be in the game in the first place. Some of my fellow game techs found it easier to swap one of these things into the machine rather then repair the chassis that was in the game. The ONLY time I agreed with this practice was when they were pulling Polo's or MTC9000's (Hanatrex (sp?)) chassis. Those are worse then these pieces of crap.

Matt

 

[cdjump]

i ended up with a bunch of old tv's that the tubes were the small 8 pin neck on trying to do a tube swap. The solution ended up being getting a couple of frames from Bob, and buying the 8-liner's chassis's.
I've got 2 of them, and they're both well over a year old and going strong running on nice super dark tv tubes. I don't run them alot, and i'm sure they won't last forever, but, i ended up with about a hundred bucks (shipped) in each of them.
The picture's as good or better than any of the 4600, 4900, g07 or ez20's i have. I did finally find one tv with the right tube - and it'll eventually be replacing my burnt to crap upper tube in PO (i hope), or the burned up 4900 in my Kung fu master multi. For me it wasn't that i couldn't fix the orginal chassis, it was that i couldn't find the right tube to swap.

 

[Deadly]

I do agree with one point you make. If a person can swap the yoke/rings onto another tube then hell yes swap the yoke and be done with it. Unfortunately many people make it sound like you can go grab any 19" TV you want and find a 10 pin compatible tube. The reality is you're most likely going to end up finding a shitpot of 8 pin tubes and as I previously stated in the past, a person can go broke trying to locate the right tube. To each their own - but until there is solid documented proof that these chassis are less superior (for instance Amplifone flyback failures) I will continue to use them.

After all, cheap chinese shit - well where do you think most of these chassis originated from in the first place?

And FWIW - I have contacted Jen-Shin about possbile minimum orders needed.

 

[gamefixer]

For me it wasn't that i couldn't fix the orginal chassis, it was that i couldn't find the right tube to swap.

Which is a great reason to buy these chassis, this is what they should be used for. Not replacing a perfectly repairable chassis because you dont want/know how to fix it. Trust me when I tell you guys this, GO7's and 4900's are EASY to repair. They only have a few things that go wrong with them and most of the time caps fixes them right up.

Note to the OP, I'm not trying to say that you swapped out good chassis. From what I read in your post you had frames with no tubes/boards. You posted a positive experience with these things (which is good) but I've had no luck with them, ever. So I posted a bad experience.However, I've never had them fail to show a picture, I will give them that. Its the quality of said picture that I have a problem with. I've seen early GO7's/4600's put up a better pic!

Matt

 

[gamefixer]

I do agree with one point you make. If a person can swap the yoke/rings onto another tube then hell yes swap the yoke and be done with it. Unfortunately many people make it sound like you can go grab any 19" TV you want and find a 10 pin compatible tube. The reality is you're most likely going to end up finding a shitpot of 8 pin tubes and as I previously stated in the past, a person can go broke trying to locate the right tube. To each their own - but until there is solid documented proof that these chassis are less superior (for instance Amplifone flyback failures) I will continue to use them.

After all, cheap chinese shit - well where do you think most of these chassis originated from in the first place?

Yeah, that 8 pin tube thing does mess things up. The TV's that I've busted up over the years had the 8 pin tubes in them.

As far as where these things came from, I think the early Wells were built in Mexico (Ken could probably confim or deny that) not sure about Electrohome, I would assume that they were assembled here or Canada but I think the boards might have been built in Japan. These others (as well as many new WG chassis) come from China. D9200's are dog crap through and through. So are just about all of the rest of Wells new line up. What do they have in common??? Hmmm??? Place of origin, China.

We really need to go back to Built in Mexico or Built in Japan... Built in China sucks.

Matt

 

[KenLayton]

Wells-Gardner has a manufacturing plant in Korea.

 

[mecha]

I have a Toshiba D29CR55 with zero documentation available. I can't seem to get the horizontal output to survive on it. would one of these 8liners jobs be compatible with a 27" Toshiba tube? I'm assuming yes if you all get these to work with random TVs.

the tube on the monitor's fine, just the chassis is next to impossible for me to figure out and no techs want to work on it.

cue the: "you're a dumbass at electronics" comments.

the game it's for isn't worthy of a new-ish monitor. I spent 3 hours tonight doing frameswaps for that goofy Japanese cabinet only to have the monitor crap out on me again. I should really take Dance Maniax out back and put it down...

 

[thebman80]

I was thinking of going this route with my Sega Nano monitor the tube is basically brand new but the chassis I have don't work. I'm not about to spend the money to buy another nonworking Nano chassis.