are monitors like gold now?

PatW

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Hi all,

So I sold off most of my games in 2003, after a house move, and I'm finally restoring a few of the dead cabinets I ended up keeping.

So things have gotten rarer in general, fine, makes sense, no more leaf switches being manufactured, etc.

BUT, are monitors like gold now? I'm looking at the "for sale" section, people are selling the monitor PCB's all day long, but an actual complete monitor - no go.

I don't understand this - do people have huge collections of tubes with no boards? Do they not know how to re-cap a monitor and buy a new chassis every time?

So confused... can someone let me in on why this is the practice?

Thanks,

Pat
 
Monitors are expensive in some cases. Sometimes people's tubes are bad. Sometimes people have extra chassis. People don't know how to cap monitors usually or fix them. And you can't ship tubes easily. Depends on the monitor vectors are straight platinum right now. Raster are 100-300 usually.
 
Chassis, yoke and tv tube is the cheapest way to get a brand new looking monitor. Tvs are still easy to find.
 
Two scenarios off the top of my head. One, people buy a working chassis to swap into their monitor while they send their original off for repair or repair it themselves. Two, people like myself, have a stash of tubes that are compatible with the chassis they're buying to "build" a complete monitor. For example, just from bulk garbage picking alone, I have about a dozen tubes which look to be direct swaps for a few chassis types (K7000, K7800, K4600, K4700). I have the tubes, I buy a few chassis, get (or fabricate) a frame and viola, I have a "new" monitor.

Short answer is "yes", monitors are getting harder to find, but not exactly gold. Vector monitors on the other hand, like Matt mentioned, forget it. Might as well be gold.
 
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Chassis, yoke and tv tube is the cheapest way to get a brand new looking monitor. Tvs are still easy to find.

Maybe in your area. No thrift store in this area will accept or sell them. That leaves random craigslist, curb finds, and garage sales, none of which are extremely dependable.
 
We still have them in the Salvation army over here, and most other thrifts, most people at garage sales still want $20-40 for a CRT TV, its ridiculous. SA is much cheaper. There's also recycle groups in your area, if you have them and facebook groups. Yard sales depending on how much they are going for in your area.
 
Most guys who do monitors have a lot more chassis than tubes. It just happens. You get a haul of monitors, and 3 of them have broken necks and 4 of them have to much burn and bam you have 7 chassis right there. Multiply that a few times and you end up with 30 or 40 of them like I did.
 
Hi all,

So I sold off most of my games in 2003, after a house move, and I'm finally restoring a few of the dead cabinets I ended up keeping.

So things have gotten rarer in general, fine, makes sense, no more leaf switches being manufactured, etc.

BUT, are monitors like gold now? I'm looking at the "for sale" section, people are selling the monitor PCB's all day long, but an actual complete monitor - no go.

I don't understand this - do people have huge collections of tubes with no boards? Do they not know how to re-cap a monitor and buy a new chassis every time?

So confused... can someone let me in on why this is the practice?
Thanks,

Pat


Unconfuse yourself.. then google CRT TUBE SWAP.

Then go on ebay and check out Chris's arcade monitor sales.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wells-Gardn...349448?hash=item3aca130d88:g:11sAAOSwV0RXrmhe
K7000 chassis + $5 tv = $500 ebay sale.
This is good for me as i am rebuilding 12 of those myself and setting them at $325 each.
His high prices will sell my 12 monitors faster .

People repairing monitor chassis leave out alot of details .. be weary of just sending a chassis to a person for repair.
I recommend arcadecup as chad is one of the most honest people who repairs chassis come.
Ecwestjr , I usually send him a couple for repair (G07) and a couple for free because he loves those things lol , then he sends me an invoice for me to pay.

Ive ran into a few that didnt tell me how it was gonna take them 4 months to fix 2 chassis after the fact of them just sayin "just send it in"
then send me back a half rebuilt barely working monitor , i sent one in for a new filter cap and tune up and he never replaced the filter cap.
Just be careful.
A 13 year old can learn to piece together a cap kit and sell it to you , be careful not to overpay for $40 cap kits too.
 
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I looked into that as well. In the end, the profit margin just did not work for the labor and resources. He is charging $500 with free shipping. That's $30 to $40 to ship, plus the cost to repair a chassis (at least cap and flyback), properly converge it with a new tube, box it, pack it proper, and figure that at least a few of your shipments will end up damaged anyway from dickhole UPS or Fedex clowns. You lose one or two in shipment and most of the profit side is wiped. I never figure my labor on this stuff as free either. Time is a precious resource.
 
I looked into that as well. In the end, the profit margin just did not work for the labor and resources. He is charging $500 with free shipping. That's $30 to $40 to ship, plus the cost to repair a chassis (at least cap and flyback), properly converge it with a new tube, box it, pack it proper, and figure that at least a few of your shipments will end up damaged anyway from dickhole UPS or Fedex clowns. You lose one or two in shipment and most of the profit side is wiped. I never figure my labor on this stuff as free either. Time is a precious resource.

Ive yet to have to converge a tube swap.
it takes me 8 minutes to swap a tv tube on to a frame and install the chassis.
chassis + parts for rebuild + tv comes to about $150
you said $30 to $40 shipping? $190

I don't think im gonna ship mine , they will sell locally just as fast.

My buddy actually bought a $350 monitor from chris.. good chassis,, horrble burn .
His dog ended up getting loose in his "mancave" and knocking everything over including
that monitor a day after he got it lol.

my point is this.. Anybody repair savy can swap a tube onto a frame .
so its not the end of the world for CRT's and they are not a goldmine.
I mean if you wanna say "F It" and just buy the monitor for 5 hundy and slap it in thats cool
but if you wanna save some gold, take alittle time , watch a few vids, ask a few questions.
Do your own swap.
 
One slip up and you go from having a nice working monitor to having monitor boards and parts for sale cause you snapped the neck...

:eek:
 
When they were starting to become more scarce, most of us put a few extra CRTs in the garage. Being out from 2003 you certainly missed the best time to stock pile. As others have said though it is still time to do that if you can find them as it is likely only to get worse.
 
a. Vector monitors were like platinum in 2003 too :)

b. Stockpile CRT's?!? I got rid of most of my collection back when to free up space, no way I'm falling back into that trap!

c. I already bought a metal frame for a vertical G07, so I guess I buy a chassis and find a donor TV with the right socket & yoke impedance and swap? Pain in the rear, but if that's the way of things now...
 
a. Vector monitors were like platinum in 2003 too :)

b. Stockpile CRT's?!? I got rid of most of my collection back when to free up space, no way I'm falling back into that trap!

c. I already bought a metal frame for a vertical G07, so I guess I buy a chassis and find a donor TV with the right socket & yoke impedance and swap? Pain in the rear, but if that's the way of things now...

Finding a donor tube for a G07 is difficult. Keep your frame. Buy a K7000 or one of the K7000 style Kortek's. Those are very compatible with TV tubes. Find a couple of 19" TV's and you have about a 90% chance of having a drop in compatible tube. But you will need to knock down the mounting tab on the G07 frame and then drill some holes to mount the K7000 but it should work fine.
 
Hi all,

So I sold off most of my games in 2003, after a house move, and I'm finally restoring a few of the dead cabinets I ended up keeping.

So things have gotten rarer in general, fine, makes sense, no more leaf switches being manufactured, etc.

BUT, are monitors like gold now? I'm looking at the "for sale" section, people are selling the monitor PCB's all day long, but an actual complete monitor - no go.

I don't understand this - do people have huge collections of tubes with no boards? Do they not know how to re-cap a monitor and buy a new chassis every time?

So confused... can someone let me in on why this is the practice?

Thanks,

Pat

No. Buy crap / broken / converted games on CL for monitors. :)
 
Ive yet to have to converge a tube swap.
it takes me 8 minutes to swap a tv tube on to a frame and install the chassis.
chassis + parts for rebuild + tv comes to about $150
you said $30 to $40 shipping? $190

What kind of chassis do you tend to use? I'll have to converge some of mine - G07s. I've actually got one tube where the yoke readings are a direct match for the 4600, so that'll be easy.
 
I haven't been able to find a tube in a long time. The thrift stores want $50, and they won't let me check to see if they will work before I buy. I haven't even seen one on CL that I think would work in years.
 
I too once thought it would be a pain to find a monitor when I first got into this hobby back in November of 2015. Nobody ships them, and nobody sells them. I then read about tube swapping and found a 25" tube about 55 minutes away and went out and grabbed it. Worked just fine in my K7000 chassis and was beautiful. Then I necked it. The damage didn't show up for quite a few months until one day while it was running the flyback squealed, the hiss of death happened, and I nearly had a coronary.

I honestly thought I was going to have to quit the hobby since I thought I wouldn't be able to get another tube. A week later and there was one on freecycle.org only 40 minutes away. That tube is now in my cabinet and looks beautiful. No yoke swap needed. (Of course now my chassis is defunct and getting fixed by Buffet at the moment).

I now have an additional tube with a minor mar on its surface (needs to be buffed out) that came with my cabinet when I bought it.

So tubes seem like they are super rare, but with some willingness to drive and mix and match things, they are still available.

As time goes on, however, maybe not so much...
 
Hit craigslist, picking up a 19" tv in an hour or so. Should work with an Electrohome G07 if I rewire the vertical yoke coils from parallel to serial.
 
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