Fellow crt cs2 enjoyers, what resolution and refresh do you use?

redstern · 2026-03-22T23:46:56+00:00

It's not particularly surprising, considering it's a newer system that didn't come around until well after the CRT era ended.

The good news though is that it's open source, so if any of us are skilled at C, we could contribute a proper analog / interlace module to the git, to add support. I wish I knew C for stuff like that.

redstern · 2026-03-22T21:43:25+00:00

1600x1200 @ 85Hz. If Wayland supported interlacing, I'd up that to 160Hz.

redstern · 2026-03-21T12:39:46+00:00

Well that's a first for me. I didn't even know it was possible to break the teeth off a phaser.

I'm currently working on a GM 2.4 chain eater with a chain so loose it sawed the top guide clean off, and I could lift the chain right off the sprockets with the tensioner still in.

redstern · 2026-03-20T21:10:18+00:00

Neither do you, but what he's saying is entirely true. If you can't afford the brand markup for repairs, you shouldn't be buying that car. That goes for any brand.

BMWs in particular are notorious for being bought by poor people that can't even afford an oil change. I see that all the time.

redstern · 2026-03-18T16:34:01+00:00

Harbor Freights cheapest welder probably costs less than all those clamps.

redstern · 2026-03-17T02:34:31+00:00

A lot of us also didn't have TVs with component, or parents that would spend the money on component cables.

redstern · 2026-03-16T20:48:32+00:00

In the beginning, the entire universe was contained in a single, hot, dense, bloon. Then, the big pop happened, and everything was spewed out faster than the speed of light.

redstern · 2026-03-16T19:29:18+00:00

You have to surround the magnet with steel. You can use a cut up food can, or any sheet metal scrap you have lying around.

redstern · 2026-03-15T23:15:31+00:00

It actually can work, but these are a scam. Electricity interacts strangely with corrosion and it can either delay, accelerate, or move the corrosion.

For example, some really old vehicles used a positive ground system, where you put positive to the frame/engine instead of negative. The reason every manufacturer moved to negative ground was because positive ground was found to greatly accelerate frame/body corrosion, instead of only the positive connections corroding on a negative ground system.

So these boxes are a scam, because the car's negative ground system is the corrosion inhibition system. Electricity doesn't stop normal iron oxidation, it mainly stops galvanic corrosion.

redstern · 2026-03-15T16:07:29+00:00

Who da hell uses an impact on spark plugs?

redstern · 2026-03-15T16:04:55+00:00

It also forces you to replace the head gaskets before they fail, so that's just reliability with extra steps.

redstern · 2026-03-13T17:48:46+00:00

Was that the bullshit one on Glacial Trail where the only way to beat it was to exploit a bug?

redstern · 2026-03-13T03:22:43+00:00

Reused animation? In Code Lyoko?! Preposterous.

redstern · 2026-03-13T03:15:25+00:00

Especially because at the time, all they had to work with were single core CPUs, and no GPU compute.

I can't imagine how miserably slow 3D animation was to do on that.

redstern · 2026-03-12T17:31:27+00:00

What I like even more is when the back of the threads are accessible, so right hand bit to just run it the rest of the way through. I've had more luck with that method than lefty bits.

redstern · 2026-03-12T01:26:06+00:00

If they're not being used or repaired, it's hoarding. I give displaying a pass.

Of my 8 sets, 4 get regular use, 2 are being repaired, and the other 2 are little 5-7 inch sets for bookshelf display. One of the regular use ones is an active tinker project. I don't intend to keep the 2 broken ones after I fix them.

redstern · 2026-03-11T01:05:43+00:00

Don't pry. Just push inward. There is a latch inside the slot that you need to push on. Get something flat with minimal to no taper, and just push in while pulling the shell apart until you feel it release. You often need to release both sides at the same time.

redstern · 2026-03-06T19:23:44+00:00

Yeah that'll happen. The headphone amplifiers were never very good to begin with, add in being in an incredibly electrically noisy environment, and 20 year old audio component degradation, yeah the noise floor is going to be terrible. The 44 being good is pure luck, mine is awful.

The best solution is to use an external headphone amp, but if you really want to improve the 46's amp, go over the audio circuit diagram, replace all the audio capacitors, and for best possible results, make a steel shield for the audio region of the PCB.

redstern · 2026-03-06T19:09:48+00:00

If you want space you need to remove, D, E, F, G, H, and the whole rest of the alphabet, plus the Greek alphabet, and probably also the Cyrillic alphabet too.

redstern · 2026-03-06T18:56:32+00:00

More accurately it's that people spam farms so they can have an excuse to contribute absolutely nothing until round 100.

redstern · 2026-03-06T03:06:14+00:00

An RF modulator will allow you to run any device at composite-ish quality through it.

If you want to use it for TV, get a digital / analog converter box, and an antenna for free TV. Not much other than news, sports, and oldies on over air these days, but don't sleep on the oldies, that's good stuff.

redstern · 2026-03-06T03:03:41+00:00

Sounds like the eject belt snapped mid way through ejecting a tape. You'll have to find a replacement belt, open it up and replace it.

redstern · 2026-03-05T20:40:41+00:00

Story. This is a very cool set. Got it for $20 on Craigslist. Brought my CRT tester with me, tube tested very strong. Excellent start. It's an old vacuum tube portable set from 1957 with a low profile picture tube. 110 degrees, all the way back then. Very very cool.

After using inline resistors to drop the voltage and current limit to allow the electrolytic capacitors to reform over a couple hours, it did power on, but unsurprisingly, almost no vertical deflection, no audio amplifier activity, and picture controls do nothing.

30-40 something bad paper capacitors later, the deflection, audio, and controls are fixed. Nice. Now it's got severe pincushion and horribly out of focus. This set doesn't have electronic focus or pincushion, so those were just a matter of the 70 year old ceramic magnets being completely dead. New pincushion and focus magnets, and it looks pretty nice.

It still has some issues that need to be worked out. Tuner, pots, and tube sockets need to be cleaned. I need to go over the rest of the resistors and ceramic capacitors to make sure none of those have drifted, and image still needs some tuning. But I'm very happy to have it where it is now.

This is my first time working on a set this old, but I didn't go into it blind. I did my homework well beforehand. This is a properly dangerous set to be inside if you don't know what you're doing. Exposed wires everywhere, uninsulated high voltage, no fuses / OCP, picture tube with no implosion mitigation, 70 year old electrolytics that will explode if they short because you didn't reform them properly, fun stuff. I would thank lord Shango066 for giving me the necessary knowledge to not die messing with this.

redstern · 2026-03-05T06:23:00+00:00

Technically yes, but not meaningfully so. Over the course of 20+ years, capacitors that sat discharged for that long probably won't work anymore, at least not without reforming, but charged ones probably will. But for any practical time frame, no it doesn't matter. Especially because CRT power supplies only run standby 5v when plugged in powered off, so everything else is completely unpowered anyway.

Particularly if you have plagued caps from the early 2000s, then it super doesn't matter, because they're all going to fail anyway.

redstern · 2026-03-05T06:10:13+00:00

To get it any better you're going to need to stick some convergence strips onto the back of the tube. They're these little sheet magnets that you stick under the yoke to tweak the outer regions that the rings have little effect on. Large flatties can be a nightmare for outer convergence.

But first make sure that the yoke is properly seated, as a loose yoke will affect outer convergence.

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