Reverse Engineering Camcorder Viewfinders - Mini CRT's

[@UpcycleElectronics]

So cool!!! I had one of these laying around after taking apart a camcorder. I just wasn't sure how to use it. I just hooked it up and it works perfectly with composite video... A small lens from binoculars and a mirror seem to project and enlarge the image well, and now I even know how to invert the image! Perfect! Now it's just a question of build it into a clock with an Arduino or a miniature retro display with a Raspberry Pi. Thanks for posting this!

[@allenu]

That's pretty awesome that they are self-contained CRT monitors. Could probably make some neat art project by putting a whole bunch of them together.

[@anachrocomputer]

Thanks for making this video! I took apart a Panasonic S-VHS camcorder viewfinder at the Bristol hackspace yesterday, and found a surface-mount chip in it. The chip, AN2510S, was helpfully listed as a "camcorder viewfinder driver IC"! But the data sheet (partially in Chinese) includes an application schematic that's most likely the same as the actual circuit in the viewfinder. It takes composite video input, but the connector is 11-pin -- must be lots of unused pins.

[@dan3a]

Salvaged a CRT from a faulty Hitachi VHS camcorder and the SMD chip it had wasn't even known on the internet!

[@MiamiUFO]

Great video, out of coincidence I am working in an old JVC viewfinder, this will be great as small monitors for observation cameras at night. Thanks for sharing.

[@electronbeam]

I've done this before! I have one black and white crt and one colour lcd. I noticed the lcd one is much fussier on signal strength/quality, from memory the picture jumps if the signal isn't right (like from a tv that has poor reception). I once posted on the FMCG forum (as bugminer) about using the lcd one as a second monitor(not being used that way now. It's hooked up to the tv as I type!). I have each one hooked up using a common ground for power and signal. This video made my day! :D

[@jimjam742]

Awesome video. I actually grabbed a couple of these and a motion sensing thingy and a pair of goggles (plus an Arduino) to make the $30 equivalent to the Oculus Rift, except it looks kinda tacky with the two CRTs epoxyed into slots on the goggles and the Arduino ziptied to the goggles. But hey, it works great with Rift-Compatible games due to reverse-engineered drivers.

[@DogSnakes]

DEAR JERI THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR INFORMATION YOU ARE LIKE A HERO TO ME

[@guanglier]

no, in fact it's more complicated ! reversing is only finding the pinout. Great video. Should add : to find GND look for copper pour too !

[@thorneyethecreator]

This vid was extreemly usefull to me and i wish to thank you for upload!

[@Gazdatronik]

Wow, I ended up doing this, but in reverse. I had a 4" color LCD screen from a 12V portable video system and wanted to integrate it with my ancient 3 tube saticon camera using the eyepiece's original cable, for cleanliness. That meant losing the eyepiece, but it did work. I got to cheat on my conversion-the video signal was the shielded cable. The eyepiece was 12V, so the thing fired right up. I need to watch the rest of these!

[@cyberteque]

Some view finder CRT's need an external horizontal and/or vertical sync after you take them off the camera. Composite monitors let the horizontal "free" run. It's no big deal to provide a H-sync, either use a sync separator IC or make a simple capacitor one. Then feed the H sync into the view finder board. I've only found 4 or 5 view finders that needed external sync and they were huge mid to late 70's cameras that had heavy VCR shoulder killers. I even have a couple of reel to reel camcorders!

[@KyoshoBallard]

Another way of finding the composite-in of a screen is to hook up your ground, and take the composite lead from your video source (in this case, your gamecube) and touch it to each pin to until you see an image. I've used this method to get use out of many portable DVD player screens that don't have a documented video-in.

[@uzimonkey]

Those things were CRTs?! That's crazy, didn't know they made them so small. I thought the CRT on my Commodore 64-SX was small.

[@039dalekmoore2007]

Hi found your video very interesting and well done ,i just found 2 old camcorders at my local recycling store for the reason i wanted to do what you showed in the video! This has made my life easier ! I want to use them for narrow band television ,i want a bit of test gear when making mechcanical televisions. Thankyou for your help unkowingly !

[@sonicase]

Saw an old camcorder today, thought of this vid... Not sure if I'll pick it up but it would be a pretty cool display for a raspberry pi when that comes out

[@Kageitenshi]

Fantastic! Just found a JVC one I had stashed away that had broken off of someone's camera at the swivel point and I picked up somewhere many, many years ago. Looking at it, the wires seem to be properly color coded to boot. However... PAL or NTSC signal is the question. Might have to open it up to see if the image can be adjusted accordingly if it's the wrong one.

[@jeriellsworth]

@cyberteque I haven't found one of the external sync viewfinders. I have ran into a lot of the small LCD ones, but I haven't figured out how to fire them up yet.

[@DogByte2012]

This would be a great place to start to make the worlds smallest pocket analog oscilloscope! :)

[@russelly22842284]

Thanks. Enjoyed your video

[@Tage-Labs]

This was a great video - super helpful. Appreciate it. Thanks

[@JohanStrandberg]

Thanks! Gotta take a dive in the scrap box tomor^Wlater today and see what I can find. This and a propeller chip to generate video has some real potential.

[@TheDaniel366Cobra]

Nice video! BTW, I happen to have exactly the same viewfinder unit that you are holding while explaining the deflection coils connection. I have already identified the ground and +5V wires and found a wire that, when pulled to ground, lights up a red LED near the screen. I tried your method of identifying the video input (grounding the wires one by one) but failed to get static on the screen, however upon touching one of the wires with my finger, the CRT starts showing wavy patterns. Is this the video wire? Thanks from Russia, Dan

[@zaprodk]

+TheDaniel366Cobra Yes, that should be the video. Connect it to a video source and see what happens.

[@TheDaniel366Cobra]

+zaprodk thanks, but you are a bit late, the CRT is already working in my night vision cam :)

[@Jalict]

Does every older analog camcorders have CRTs? Any specific thing I should be looking out for?

[@8bitbubsy]

Very nice! Now make the ultimate CRT geek glasses with two of these, do you think it could be good? Would probably take a lot of time to make them comfortable to look at though. Then you can play Game Cube in "full vision"... or how I should put it.

[@rodjownsu]

wow that is a very cool video... I remember as a kid I would have loved to have extracted the small screen in the video finder of my parents video camera.... I'm sure they would have extracted my teeth if I destroyed their camera though... great video!

[@ianjuby]

Learn from my mistake: back in the 90's I used a matched pair of these to build a stereoscopic headset for an submarine robot with two cameras. The viewfinders were absolutely awesome and perfect and worked really well. However, when I first tried it out, I just ran the viewfinders on 6 volts. The video was blurry. Turns out the viewfinders actually ran on 5 volts, and that little bit of overvoltage didn't just mess up the video, but was probably producing X-rays which were focused through my eyeballs and brain. Some might say "Oh, so that's what happened?" But anyway, thought I should mention it. :D

[@brianindiana9375]

Thank you for mentioning this as I am working with one at the moment, but I was going to run it at 3.3V, I didn't know they used 5V

[@jeriellsworth]

@TheEPROM9 I find a lot of the tube camcorders and less LCD ones in my area for some reason.

[@smartpartzzkidd]

have you tried directly controlling the deflection coils to make a small oscilloscope? OOO, battery powdered pocket crt scope, sweet diy project, I might try that now

[@jeriellsworth]

@hermistressimage Makes it even more exciting when they blow up. I've had great luck, but it could be the garages are better her in Oregon.

[@JimmerSD]

Yellow and Brown are usually Vertical. Red and blue Horizontal on the deflection yoke.

[@breandanvallance3107]

Hello! What should you do if the CRT is drawing excess current? I set the current limit on my power supply to 1A but it only hits around 2.5 volts before it reaches it. There is no obvious short anywhere. Thanks!

[@mileswales]

thanks so much for the video. your method worked like a charm. now i can play super mario bros on a 1/2" screen!

[@cyberteque]

@jeriellsworth the small lcd's sometimes use an I2C interface. Do you know what the voltage is on these small tubes? I have been thinking of using these tubes for video goggles for over 20 years, but a friend of mine suggested it might not be a good idea to have a couple of devices that might potentially have a couple of KV strapped to either side of your head.

[@ericslighton2230]

Great Video... I got a nice picture after coupling the video through a capacitor. However the picture rolls 1 or 2x a second (like an old TV with a vertical hold problem). Might it be because the CRT was from USA (NTSC?) while the video signal is from a B&W camera from Asia (PAL?). Or is there some way to fix the vertical hold?

[@kinglonewolf104]

Hehe, I was just about able to make out the Gamecubes BIOS cube :) Have you actually tried playing any games on it!!! Another cool video. Are there any particular makes of camcorders that are better than others, or easier to take apart? . &eB

[@1miltond]

Hi love the video I know this video is old but I like to ask a question any how I am interested on the other part of the camera the lens and image sensor and how to get the signal and get it in to a screen just using the camera and lens can we get the signal coming from the image sensor to the viewer and get to a pc or wherever any ideas on that ?

[@jeriellsworth]

@haitianflagrep36 A composite cable that came with it the game cube.

[@antiElectron]

Nice video!!

[@PococraftOrg]

i loved this video it helped me out alot!!!

[@chadcastagana9181]

Even by 1994, LCD-based viewfinder screens on camcorders was prevalent

[@paulbadenhorst2981]

Can make a little low frequency Scope but would have to change the scanning and input gain for frequency band

[@googacct]

I wonder if you cut the end off of that, mount it in a vacuum chamber and make a crude electron microscope with it or maybe a miniature electron lithography device.

[@fkodama3]

hey Jeri, what about diy a single ccd from raw materials? just boolean, much light, few light.

[@thebossindustries5306]

I am having a problem with my crt and hoping you can help, when I have a camera connected to it it displays a bunch of black and white dots. If I move the camera they change as if it is receiving a partial signal. How do I fix this?

[@thehillfolk4041]

Jerri.... I am hacking a panasonic mini crt viewfinder. Its a colour one and has 7 wires going into it......I will indentify the power feed and ground as you recomend but am wondering if, due to the number of wires, that this unit may require an RGB feed instead of just one composite...your thoughts??

[@coondogtheman]

I have an old video scan sounder fishfinder which uses a CRT for the display. Is there a way to add composite video to this So I can use it as a monitor. Kind of impractical b/c it's a 6" screen but can it be done? Where do I put the video into?

[@8088argentina]

can you make works the capture lens to composite video out?

[@Nopp3]

I've done this, and the quality of them seems to vary wildly. i finally got a decent. (old) at a scrap dealer last year i think. it was fun to mess around with improvised nightvision. however, it never got used in a more permanent project. any ideas?

[@Prometheus2171]

Working on a slightly different project... What if the crt doesn't have a composite input?

[@l3p3]

Then it may have x, y and brightness channels.

[@colzilla090]

Great video Could you maybe help me, if my view finder has +5v, Gnd, y, vd and hd Then My view finders +5v Right? any idea how many amps or millamps it roughthly is? What do the y , vd , HD mean? I'm guessing vd is the signal but starting up the CRT is where I'm at now and not sure on current draw. Don't wanna feed it 1amp and fry it. Its a sharp vf c790h camcorder Thanks

[@haitianflagrep36]

@jeriellsworth as in how did you hook the composite to the video output of the gamecube

[@jeriellsworth]

@haitianflagrep36 This is what I explained in the video.

[@siiv7973]

Къде има информация за захранването на анода, катода, подгряване на катода волт, ? Datasheed for m01kua07wb02?

[@owenaero]

can you supply some of the pinouts for the ones you have dome please it would help me alot

[@BenderZee]

I have a 6 pin crt, the wire connected to the first pin is colored differently, i was wondering if this was the ground or positive lead, or if the power lines are throughout the connector. (can i assume that the first and second are the power lines?)

[@MusicVideoMakerPro]

So you just can follow the connections from the capacitor? for ground and power?

[@PezDJ]

Is it possible to remove the black plastic framse without breaking the tubes :O? I don't want to break mine, so I hope you have a tip on how to remove them :)!

[@PezDJ]

+Jeri Ellsworth read the above :D

[@zaprodk]

+PezDJ Yes. Just be careful. On some tubes the black plastic is holding the anode lead on a contact on the face of the tube - it is very easy to break this connection.

[@williefleete]

i've done a similar thing except i used a pinhole mini camera and modified it to see the IR spectrum with an IR spotlight and made a night vision cam its defunct at the mo but the screen and cam should still work

[@mocatz187]

Do the viewfinders with tiny lcd's in work with composite video?

[@jeriellsworth]

CRTs are not very easy to drive, because of the high voltage and acceleration. Deflection isn't trivial either, because of linearity.

[@AxleGear89]

i was wondering....what could happen if i cut rgb cathodes traces just before the tube on 2 screens, and rewire them swapped to each other? could this allow me to swap the image on both or just fries everything?

[@ObiTrev]

I thought it would be cool to take 2 of these and make a basic 3D pong style game.

[@arctictimberwolf]

I would mount that on a pistol grip so that I can bring it to show and tell and say: "This is my puppy brother..I mean ray gun" ; ^ )

[@1marcelfilms]

make one with a video input, like the yellow plug

[@nilz__]

You can find them on ebay, search for hi8 sony camera's, those have decent (colour) viewfinders.

[@phunkyphantom619]

i have managed to get mine lit, but i cant get any video on it, help

[@phunkyphantom619]

is there anyway you can help with with mine? i cant seem to get it to work :/ i tried running an analogue video wire from a dvd player and it didnt work and im really stuck :/

[@haitianflagrep36]

wait. how did you hook the viewfinder to the gamecube?

[@urbandiscipline88]

Thanks, you're amazing! I like you.

[@phunkyphantom619]

i cant get any video on my crts and im struggling i have them lit but no video

[@martinda7446]

I have an old camcorder lying about and was wondering if I should pinch the CRT out and make a little teddy size monitor...so I search and who comes up first? Jeri Ellsworth...Cool aint they.

[@DogDog173]

LOL just smoked out an IC on the board when I attemped to follow the video. It seems my 12V adapter outputs 18V actually... :(

[@elyeli6250]

I have a Minolta camcorder, I'm going to try this

[@hangebicom]

It would be great if someone can start-up a database, which will say, which camcorder has CRT in viewfinder and which one - not.

[@jeriellsworth]

@robot797 I hoard these for some reason.

[@DasIllu]

And now let's build an oscilloscope for sqirrels from it :-)

[@danmyself5341]

I've repaired lots of those

[@sheba134]

Hi dan, not sure if you will see this but I am wondering if you have ever come across one of these crt screens that just shows a white horizontal line across it and nothing else. If so, do you know how to fix it? I just picked up a 1980 panasonic pk-800-c and the viewfinder is doing this. I took apart the viewfinder and part of the circuit board(?) - sorry dont know much about electronics but im trying to learn - looks corroded and discolored, so I am thinking the solders are gone and something isn't working properly. I ordered a cheap soldering iron on amazon so I am going to try and fix it this week, any insight would be really appreciated!

[@eddiebirdsong]

I would like to know if you have some crt's you woukd like to sale. Or where could I find them for sale?

[@lochinvar00465]

One I have only has a 4 pin plug. Two orange wires(one of them is +volts) and a small diameter coax with the shield being ground and center (obviously) video. The other wire.......I dunno, maybe it isn't needed.

[@schmeckelgruben776]

lochinvar00465 it could be for the “Record” LED.

[@FlagFootballWiz]

you should take to and make gamer optics

[@luisludwiktecnicoeletronic5516]

Girl eletronics is very good , i am the from Brasil , Bahia conquista !!

[@frankowalker4662]

I tried to make a HUD using one of these. Utter disaster. It was so small, all I got was a headache. LOL.

[@jeriellsworth]

@hermistressimage I'm the same way.

[@1marcelfilms]

turn a old camcorder into a tv, with built in tuner and stuff

[@ArcadeMachine15]

we have a tom boy going on here!

[@univac2000]

I'm pretty sure I love you.

[@joyange1]

OMG: that remind me of a prank I pull on my mother when I was 12 years old. I took the back off the TV in our living room and swap the horizontal deflection wire on the yoke. It resulted in the picture being mirror flipped and all the text was backwards. My mom thought it was bad reception.

[@yngvae2]

is that a dude witha super high voice? girls dont know electronics! hahah