Sony Jumbotron extreme teardown

CRT module from an old Jumbotron huge-screen display gets taken apart

[@eigenvector7035]

Amazing! Can you imagine how much work was done to make this thing? It's pure awesomeness.

[@samitaha6970]

Ur username gives me ptsd

[@albear972]

Very cool! I always thought that the Sony Jumbotron used plain old colored light bulbs (not LED's of course). I never knew they used actual CRT's. Very fascinating. The reason I thought that was because I remember the very old giant matrix screens that used thousands of 15 W light bulbs to make up a picture back in the 1980's when I was a kid.

[@FelixTheHouseFreak]

I can already tell I am going to learn a lot on this channel. Thank you for doing these experiments and doing such a well laid out and communicated lesson. I am glad we get to hear the words of such an expert.

[@electronicbob6237]

Great Interesting Video Mike....I have never seen a display like this before.... good old 80´s....but it is good to have extreme bright LED`s...low current...today.

[@dangruner5926]

Very interesting but *please*, you need to control the camera movements. I've had to stop watching half way through, as I was getting a headache!

[@cipndale]

A bit to late to ask that.

[@AntiProtonBoy]

Flashed getters are generally alloys of Barium which may include Magnesium and other alkali metals. Magnesium alone only accounts for Oxygen absorption, so one needs to use alloys for trapping Hydrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen, etc.

[@dtiydr]

CRT, so THATS how they made these screens back then. I have always wondered how the hell when LEDs really didnt existed back then, cool.

[@JN.0_o]

Urgh, your videos are really interesting and educational but they make me feel seasick :(

[@The_Real_Chris]

That was fucking interesting. As a kid, I would have given anything to see the back side of one of these displays. Glad you tore into it and put the mystery to rest. Any idea how much power a typical display board would draw? It must have been enormous considering a large display could have close to 1000 of these modules.

[@davemckinney7097]

We were out walking a few days ago and noticed a large number of these Jumbotrons by the side of the road - someone dumped them. There are a bunch of the main units and piles of the plug in pixel units. Probably not the best things to be just laying in the elements for mother nature to break down. I'll call the county and have them removed. These are in Ramona CA, USA. The date on the main units is 1995 with a model number JTU-35A3L.

[@voltare2amstereo]

saw one in real life on the back of a truck as a mobile display - it had a handful of stuck lit pixels with black tape squares over them, im assuming it was a sony display -

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@CampKohler I guess the red phosphor is more efficient. The blades are to shade from sunlight.

[@Milehiguy48]

The eye sees (R) the best, then (B) followed by (G), research by Jumbotron in early '80's showed that! The divider gives the eye black to look at, the top louver helps block sun light from the face of CRT.

[@crapper1]

Make thousands more of these tear downs love ur teaching meathod show and tell and explained

[@baylinkdashyt]

Back in 1989 or 90, one of my co-workers was the only certified Jumbotron mechanic in the southeastern United States, he was the home guy for Tampa stadium, and got farmed out occasionally to some other places. He brought me home one of those two pixel Trinilite crts, where we worked, but I couldn't tell you where it is now, sadly. That was the large-scale unit, I gather there was a smaller scale unit that had eight pixels in one module as well. Perhaps that's what this is built out of, I haven't finished watching yet.

[@Mistamudd]

Mike ! Amazing ! I have learnt more about the heritage of my industry in the past 5 mins with your video than in the whole previous decade of working with LED screens. Brilliant teardown ! You have opened my eyes as to why these things were SO expensive back in the day. Incredible engineering. HV, Vacuum, right angled inductors Corona cups - this is pure Frankenstein ! Amazing

[@stumbling]

Data in and data out? Would the modules have been daisy-chained together then? PS I love all the chunky electronics on this channel!

[@roberthorwat6747]

Cracking open the CRT unit reminded me of the time as kids we were given an old telly to burn one Guy Fawkes night. We were advised to smash the tube from a distance before burning it. Dropped a very long tree trunk on it. Took a few blows then BOOM it imploded quite spectacularly. Great fun!

[@Milehiguy48]

Every Jumbotron IS a different size...> an average out side stadium sized screen would have up to 800 or 900 Units, they held 16 CRT or "Cells" as they were properly called. Each Cell would have any where from 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 RGB Pixels. The * Pixel was standard for out side Stadium Installations.

[@48snapper]

A fascinating video, ruined by the worst hand-held camerawork imaginable.

[@olayinkaogunjobi9663]

Like to know about the control system and the configuration

[@tesla500]

Loved that teardown! The color filters are likely not for color correction, I believe they're to improve contrast ratio. The intensity of daylight reflecting off the display is reduced by about two thirds, each pixel only reflects one primary color instead of all three.

[@puciohenzap891]

Technical masterpieces of back then. Incredible how complex it all was, PCB design must've taken ages.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@xmlisnotaprotocol I'd guess incandescent lamps are unsuitable due to a combination of slow reaction time, low power efficiency, heat and maybe most of all lifetime - even a smaller screen would have hundreds of thousands of pixels, so with incandescents you'd be forever replacing them.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@douro20 I'm sure there probably are a few, although Sony also called their LED based screens jumbotrons. This module pulls 80-150 watts depending on brightness..

[@guimbadriver]

looks lie a like a macro plasma dots display bus, each tube module employs a horizontal string filaments like the fluorescent alpha numerics tube displays

[@BGTech1]

Damn! I didn’t think that would use crts!

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@nodariel I think the system was introduced around 1985. datecodes on chips in this unit are 1995

[@nixietubes]

If anyone ever has some of these I'd be interested in buying a few, I collect displays

[@paulgene9416]

pretty bizarre the lengths they went too for such a niche market $$$. i hope they just didn't toss these into the rubbish. Controlled by a TRS-80 Model 4.

[@Wren6991]

The step up from "TV" to "building installation" leaves plenty of room for profit ;)

[@RandyLott]

Living in a room full of equipment? Perfect!

[@RandomInsano2]

Fantastic! Thanks for making this. I'm a huge fan of tear downs in general. It's great that you know what you're talking about.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Depends how big you want your screen - it's a modular system.

[@irtbmtind89]

The engineering in this thing is insane, it's super emblematic of stuff the Japanese electronics industry was doing at its height. We're spoiled with (relatively) cheap and simple HD displays these days. The Skydome in Toronto used to have a huge Jumbotron, I believe it was the largest in the world and it was state of the art (and obscenely expensive) when installed in the mid 80s. Despite the massive size it showed a 525 line interlaced NTSC signal and I remember the picture looked washed out and terrible. I had a chance to watch a standard VHS tape played on it in the 90s during a school event, it looked like shit even by the standards of the time.

[@pmscompany]

Excellent I love a Crt Tech Congratulation !!! I Have a question: I remembered was viewed scene from a old movie with an airship with installed a publicity screen (crt old technology?)

[@Milehiguy48]

Jumbotron, the original Large Screen Digital Flat TV....

[@RandyLott]

Pop Pop Pop.. "oops.." Love it!

[@Dr.-Smart]

i would be interested getting one of those modules or similar , anybody here who can tell me what i have to look out for ? like module name or something ?

[@rocketman221projects]

Wow, that's a lot of stuff for something I could make with an Arduino and a few LED's.

[@dazaspc]

Without a doubt still one of the best tear downs on youtube! It gives all the information not dumbed down to much, displays parts of it functioning and rare unique subject matter. If people are complaining about the speed of the camera shifts " well watch it on a smaller screen"

[@Unreality_3D]

Hi, been watching a few of your videos now and there really interesting but you blew my mind when you said Charlton football stadium as i live right next to the darn thing.

[@tristang444]

Thanks! I have been really curious about these things ever since I first heard that these things were actually CRT based. Fascinating stuff.

[@boonedockjourneyman7979]

Something as simple as getter compound conversion to oxide was inspirational to my kids. You have no idea how important you are.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Little bit interested in electronics but always avoid it as scares shit out of me for fear of death. This is way beyond me and I know I'd get bored of electronics quick. But you make it actually sound interesting with the teardowns.

[@randacnam7321]

The screen module tubes had expected lifetimes of about 8,000 hours. That fuse is a time delay fuse. Using a discrete resistor is fairly common in low current (hundreds of mA maximum) delay fuses. Higher current ones use insulated resistance wire wrapped around a metal strip on which the solder link is made. The rating is probably stamped on one of the end caps. The colored filters are to improve the color saturation as red and green have poor color saturation from just a phosphor.

[@08yannch]

keep are out to stop corona. that aged well

[@stdorn]

Wow you always get ahold of the most rare bizarre stuff. thanks for the cool videos.

[@xmlisnotaprotocol]

wow! why did they not use incandescent lamps?....I'm sure there is a good reason but WOW- 100s of CRTs!! ...getters and SMT in the same unit!! great vid I used to love finding hybrid junk - TVs with transistors and valves or valve radios with selenium rectifiers

[@robminmonaca]

did someone sell you this when a stadium or place replaced their videoboard or did you get this online

[@douro20]

There are still some Jumbotrons around. A full-sized installation needs 15-20kW of electricity and several tons of air conditioning.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Probably didn't bother. Having grown up in the 80s, there was no safety :) (not totally true)

[@CampKohler]

You would think that the red section of each pixel would be bigger than the other colors due to it having a lower light output. What is the divider blade between each row for, some kind of optical reason or to prevent something thrown from hitting the CRTs? Maybe you are trying to speed things up, but please move the camera around a little more slowly so we can see things without having to freeze the video. Thx.

[@pizzablender]

On the first flashover video, the uncoated blue seems a bit more green. The color filters also will increase contrast without losing much light. Aren't getters barium instead of magnesium?

[@wrestletube1]

How many of these panels linked together to make the full Jumbotron picture up?

[@teatrolites3446]

That. Is. Awesome!

[@thewii552]

I know a place with the original jumbotron like this. No LED!

[@FrankSandqvist]

Interesting teardown. However you really need to get a tripod, the camera movements makes me seasick! :P

[@TheDenzel2112]

Please use a tripod or something! This video is quite interesting but feel motion sick after watching it!

[@DgaDM]

Impressive, very impressive! This must have been at the time when Sony was a leader in technology.

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

this is like a gigantic version of the FED/SED flat panels, technologies which shamefully have been shelved.

[@mrcrtking]

Hi do you have a working section that your interested in selling ? seriously I would be interested in a couple of sections if they can go into the test patern mode, PM me if so, cheers

[@Dibblah1900]

Very nice. Is the side glass conductive? Looks like tin oxide to me...

[@bborkzilla]

Nice subject - but the shaky camera is making me seasick.

[@moeni9727]

Would be interesting if they could be used as a VU meter.

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

crt displays are horrible for emitting electromagnetic interference, not great for audio applications.

[@nodariel]

@nodariel replayed your video, my question is redundant.

[@nodariel]

This video was awesome. How old was this unit? 1980's?

[@robot797]

can i have some of those crts?

[@heinrichhein2605]

The Fuse looks to be Oil filled

[@lyokofans]

I know a guy who has a collection of these lol

[@HDXFH]

Interesting technology

[@BlakeFoxBlue]

Great videos!! but please, handle carefully the camera, is too shaky and very inconfortable to watch. ;)

[@amppower]

Very thanks :)

[@FrankenPC]

The device address switches have a max of 99. So, maybe 100 units?

[@whitcwa]

100 units per data bus. You would normally have multiple data busses. There's no theoretical limit to the number of pixels. Each bus needs an image processor, but there will be as many of those as needed. Just like LED walls.

[@Milehiguy48]

Ah ...> wrong.... air flow, but not air conditioning, get it correct now mate!

[@tickyul]

Thank goodness the era of stove-sized TV's is over!

[@wrestletube1]

How did they make this particular type of screen waterproof as well as electrics and water don't normally mix?

[@uzaiyaro]

I can’t help wondering how many jumbotrons in America have been shot.

[@OneCoolDude08]

1:30 FAIL... should have shown the label to show who manufactured it, model number, manufacture date, country made in, etc.

[@mitch19636]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumbotron