Astro CRT blurry startup

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skykid
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Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by skykid »

My new AC cab has a beautiful burn free monitor with a crisp image, but I notice it takes a few minutes after power on to come clear. It's initially quite blurry and takes around 3 minutes to reach its proper look.

A guy here suggested:
"Some older high impedance CRT's start up cold blurry then sharpen up after 5 minutes. As in the arcade days it's on all day so it doesn't matter. Is your CRT a 12 pin type?

I have one that's been like it for 10 years & still running sharp, in focus & crisp but fuzzy for the first 5 minutes on cold start up. I wouldn't worry about it. :)"
https://www.aussiearcade.com/archive/in ... 38127.html

I just wanted to ask you experts if you know the reason for the blurry startup, as my E2 didn't have this (that I ever noticed).

Thanks!
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nem
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by nem »

Might be worth recapping the chassis.
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skykid
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by skykid »

That's what I thought it might be, leaky caps. It's totally stable when warm though.
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grantspain
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by grantspain »

caps or a dirty crt socket or dry solder joints
bagheera369
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by bagheera369 »

Have a similar, but more complex issue, along the same lines.

ms9 29su, always been super sharp, and clean. booted up one day, and full blown bright raster lines, and washed out screen, and terribly out of focus. Thought it might be a flyback going out, so I just swapped with another working chassis, and that one has the same issue.
I adjusted it, by lowering brightness on fly almost to zero, and focus all the way to zero. the moment i touched the focus knob on the second chassis, the screen shows raster lines completely.

Since this is two chassis, behaving exactly the same, could there be a short in the tube, that would make a monitor act like this?

thanks for any advice.
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grantspain
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by grantspain »

bagheera369 wrote:Have a similar, but more complex issue, along the same lines.

ms9 29su, always been super sharp, and clean. booted up one day, and full blown bright raster lines, and washed out screen, and terribly out of focus. Thought it might be a flyback going out, so I just swapped with another working chassis, and that one has the same issue.
I adjusted it, by lowering brightness on fly almost to zero, and focus all the way to zero. the moment i touched the focus knob on the second chassis, the screen shows raster lines completely.

Since this is two chassis, behaving exactly the same, could there be a short in the tube, that would make a monitor act like this?

thanks for any advice.
yes must be tube as its unlikely that you have two chassis with such an odd fault
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by bagheera369 »

Grantspain....could that tube issue be something that a B&K might solve...like a short somewhere causing the brightness or focus not to adjust properly, or is it just gonna be a case of use the tube till it finishes dying, and move to the next one?
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by grantspain »

bagheera369 wrote:Grantspain....could that tube issue be something that a B&K might solve...like a short somewhere causing the brightness or focus not to adjust properly, or is it just gonna be a case of use the tube till it finishes dying, and move to the next one?
rejuvenators can sort out tubes but the results can be mixed and the length of time the repair works can be anything from days to years. We never bothered with these and just replaced tubes that were dying, but that was when tubes were easy to find.
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by zak »

I've only ever tried rejuvenation once, on an 18" tube. It's been 8 months and still going strong.

Device was a TR-850.
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nem
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by nem »

Yes, but yours just lacked colors. It wasn't shorted.
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skykid
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by skykid »

Recently the machine has been booting up without the blurry screen issue. I'm unsure if it's the length of time it's not turned on for. For example use it one day and turn it on 24hrs later and it's fine. Leave it 48hrs maybe it starts off blurry. (I'm just theorising I haven't actually tested this yet as I'm using it daily). If that were the case would that point to caps?
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trev1976
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by trev1976 »

I'll give this a little bump as I have the same problem.

When i bought the monitor I was told it had a slight blur problem on start up but was burn free etc etc, so I got a second chassis I had laying around recapped by grant and fitted that but it still has the blur start up for about 2/3 mins then looks perfect.

I take it ,it's something to do with the monitor it's self ?which is a shame as other than that it's pretty much perfect.

Can anything be done to sort it ? The blur dosnt really bother me it's just I'd like to prevent it from going faulty in the future if possible.

I do have a spare ms9 here but it's quite burnt 😣
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by Asure »

Are these in 'cold' places in the house?

The crt gun assembly/focus/heater etc are all in the neck of the tube. If you ruled out the chassis and/or flyback then it must be the tube itself.

I'm still for a flyback issue, we had a lot of 19" vga crt's in Photoplay machines which went out of focus/drifting/brightness when the flyback was on its last legs.
(Once warmed, you could dial them in perfectly, only to have them blurry the next day on fresh powerup.)
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Re: Astro CRT blurry startup

Post by trev1976 »

Hi

Yes this one is in a place where it would get cold over night.

Maybe I'll see how it is when it comes into a different room

Thanks
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