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For nearly 6 years, our Paperboy monitor has needed a new tube. Red and Blue slowly got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. I rejuvenated the tube twice and it would generally last a few months, then get dimmer again. Green was the only functional gun with any decent emission. With all the color pots centered, green was pretty much all I could get. So I went on the hunt for a replacement tube. Found a commercial Orion TV on Marketplace for $10. Found it was a CR-23 and a good candidate...or so I thought.
After removing the Paperboy monitor, I noticed it had an 'all-in-one' yoke that had the rings as part of the yoke assembly. These types of yokes require a skinny hilt tube neck. They won't fit on any standard 19" neck. The diameter and thickness is different. So I was not able to use the Orion tube. As luck would have it, I just happened to have a compatible tube with an identical yoke setup (albeit standard res so the yoke would still need to be changed) that was running a Korean A-One chassis.
Broke down the original Paperboy tube from the frame, removed the yoke, broke down the Korean tube from the frame, removed the yoke, installed the Paperboy yoke on the Korean tube, tested the setup, it worked fantastically, swapped the tubes in the frames, put the whole monitor back together, inspected everything, and fired it up with the Korean tube in the original K7000 frame with the original K7000.
Success. After dialing everything in, it's beautiful. Was also able to re-purpose the Orion tube to restore the Korean monitor. Installed the Orion tube in the Korean frame, had to change out the width cap to increase the width slightly because the Orion yoke was sightly lower resistance, but after doing that and making all the necessary adjustments, the Korean monitor is back to looking great with the Orion TV tube. Honestly, better than before.
So a happy ending all around. Did not have to sacrifice anything to get this all done, unless you count the TV as it was originally. I don't. Now I can hear you all saying "What about the dot pitch?" Well, yes. technically you should use a medium res tube for this because the dot pitch it better and the image looks sharper, but you are guaranteed to not find a medium res tube in a commercial TV. So it's either this, or nothing. I still consider it a win.
After removing the Paperboy monitor, I noticed it had an 'all-in-one' yoke that had the rings as part of the yoke assembly. These types of yokes require a skinny hilt tube neck. They won't fit on any standard 19" neck. The diameter and thickness is different. So I was not able to use the Orion tube. As luck would have it, I just happened to have a compatible tube with an identical yoke setup (albeit standard res so the yoke would still need to be changed) that was running a Korean A-One chassis.
Broke down the original Paperboy tube from the frame, removed the yoke, broke down the Korean tube from the frame, removed the yoke, installed the Paperboy yoke on the Korean tube, tested the setup, it worked fantastically, swapped the tubes in the frames, put the whole monitor back together, inspected everything, and fired it up with the Korean tube in the original K7000 frame with the original K7000.
Success. After dialing everything in, it's beautiful. Was also able to re-purpose the Orion tube to restore the Korean monitor. Installed the Orion tube in the Korean frame, had to change out the width cap to increase the width slightly because the Orion yoke was sightly lower resistance, but after doing that and making all the necessary adjustments, the Korean monitor is back to looking great with the Orion TV tube. Honestly, better than before.
So a happy ending all around. Did not have to sacrifice anything to get this all done, unless you count the TV as it was originally. I don't. Now I can hear you all saying "What about the dot pitch?" Well, yes. technically you should use a medium res tube for this because the dot pitch it better and the image looks sharper, but you are guaranteed to not find a medium res tube in a commercial TV. So it's either this, or nothing. I still consider it a win.