Mitsubishi CP-1411L. Grease ball.

[linescan87]

Good afternoon,

You know how it is, people get to know that you collect old tv's and radios and such. Sometimes they will offer you something you don't really want but you don't want to refuse because you could miss out on something you really want next time.

That's how I felt when I was given this the other day. Totally caked in grease, probably lived in a kitchen beside a deep fat fryer all it's life. However I smiled and said thanks pal. Brought it home and this morning I started scraping the dirt of it. Needless to it's working perfectly, Japanese reliability strikes again.

Cheers,
John Joe.

[Nuvistor]

Possibly been in a take away food shop for customers to watch while waiting for their order. Has you say Japanese reliability.
I had a Bush T20A chassis in a similar shop, had to be careful it didn’t slip out of my hands when lifting it down from the high shelf. Being a T20A chassis it didn’t like the atomosphere, plenty faults apart from the stock ones.

[Lloyd 1985]

Nice telly!

I have a Hitachi 80’s portable that I got from the tip many years ago, that was slimy and smelled of chips when I got it, I took everything out of the cabinet and bunged it in the bath! It came up a treat, the paint on the front and sides was like new, the only give away that it wasn’t was the top was a bit scratched where things had been placed on it. There had been some EHT tracking under the anode cap, which had etched the glass and the cap, I swapped the cap for one out an old PC monitor and it’s been fine ever since.

Regards
Lloyd

Yuck to lovely, I bet you have more weight of dirty wet wipes than the telly itself!

[linescan87]

If it did come from a take away I certainly wouldn't want to eat their food! Merlin, let's just say she won't be too happy when she sees her tea towel!

Hi Lloyd, it's a great little set, worth the bit of effort.

Cheers,
John Joe.

[Nuvistor]

Originally Posted by linescan87

If it did come from a take away I certainly wouldn't want to eat there food!

I wouldn't eat the food at the take away with the T20A TV either.

[1100 man]

Originally Posted by linescan87

Needless to say, it's working perfectly, Japanese reliability strikes again.

I'll bet it's probably never been repaired either! The Japanese just don't seem to understand the concept of unreliability! Puts British products of the era to shame. I'll also bet that there wasn't a repair shop on every Japanese street corner in the 70's & 80's!!
Cheers
Nick

[Maarten]

Every Japanese engineer ever that actually understood the concept of unreliability was probably hired by Funai. It's probably in their application form, and always has been

On topic, I must say this set is a good catch even though it required some elbow grease.

[John123]

Love those old Mitsubishi's. Interesting how the mask around the screen makes it resemble a 90s portable shoved into an older style case! It's something I first noticed with the Sony Trinitron's of the same era.

[mark pirate]

Originally Posted by 1100 man

I'll bet it's probably never been repaired either! The Japanese just don't seem to understand the concept of unreliability! Puts British products of the era to shame. I'll also bet that there wasn't a repair shop on every Japanese street corner in the 70's & 80's!!

I have a couple of Japanese sets from the early 70's, both had never had the back off since they left the factory, needless to say they both work fine apart from one needing the volume pot cleaning.

I have dealt with some filthy sets in my time, but dealing with cooking grease is by far the worst to deal with.
While it is possible to wash off the cabinet & back, removing it from the chassis is nigh on impossible!
Does your set still smell of chip fat once it has been on for a while?

Mark

[Studio263]

We used to sell that whole range, they were brilliant sets which were the most reliable we had. They went from a lovely little 18" model up to 30AX-tubed ones in the usual sizes. The tubes used to go flat in these of course, but the rest was as good as it got. Most had a big mains transformer and a simple linear regulator in them, which goes a long way to explain how sturdy they were. I never changed a LOPT or a mains switch in any of them, even the touch tuners seemed to be untroubled by the usual muck.

One weakness though was the aerial socket. They pulled the inner of the coax too tight inside, so if the centre pin got wiggled about the wire fractured. A lot of Japanese sets have this as their only real failing, maybe the habits of Belling Leesan are less well known in the Orient... 300 ohm feeders were more the norm there I think. The aerial socket fitted to the 1970s 13" Sony sets is an imported British part.

Latterly, the line driver transformers started to suffer from cracked solder joints, but of course it never blew the rest of the set up. Four dabs with the iron and off they went. The only "nasty" I recall was a 22" one with a Japanese tube, it had a frame collapse due to open circuit scan coils. Luckily the break was in one of the lead-outs so it was easy to fix, but much time was spent elsewhere in the circuit before this was spotted. I should have known, since the frame collapse line had a little wiggle at one end.

The matching VTRs were excellent too, the HS-304B was the most reliable model we sold.

[Heatercathodeshort]

I hope you didn't waste that fat Joe. Makes good chip fat if you can put up with the fumes when you drop the chips in.

Japanese products were designed to work in any climate. Hot, Cold, Damp, Dry, Wet, Smokey you name it.

These early Mitsubishi receivers were top notch. John.

[linescan87]

Hi John, Mrs Linescan won't let me recycle the grease, says it's bad for my heart or somethin'.
Could be okay for greasing up a fifth wheel though, I'll let you have some for the price of a stamp!

Mark, I had the back off thinking the chassis would be a greasy sticky mess, but luckily it was just full of dry dust so I gave it a quick clean with the vacuum and paint brush. The grease obviously didn't make it past the vents. Only has a slight hint of lemon when hot.

Cheers,
John Joe.

[mark pirate]

Mark, I had the back off thinking the chassis would be a greasy sticky mess, but luckily it was just full of dry dust so I gave it a quick clean with the vacuum and paint brush. The grease obviously didn't make it past the vents. Only has a slight hint of lemon when hot.

I bet that was a relief to find that the grease had not permeated the chassis!
I had an early Samsung CRT widescreen set that came from a Chinese takeaway, the power switch had failed, but once replaced it worked well apart from when it got warm the smell of cooking was quite noticeable.
It was not unpleasant, but did make me feel hungry

Mark

[usradcoll1]

Originally Posted by Maarten

Every Japanese engineer ever that actually understood the concept of unreliability was probably hired by Funai. It's probably in their application form, and always has been

When Funai made a good product, they were as good as the competition, but few and far between. Their VCR's TV/VCR combinations were almost irrepairable. Most were binned. Some of their CRT's were made in Vietnam.
When the US went to all digital, Funai made the least expensive set top convertor of the lot, but strangely, very reliable. They weren't as sensitive as some of the others, but in a strong signal area they were fine. Most were branded Magnavox.

[Welsh Anorak]

I have one of those in the pile which, oddly enough, has a faulty mains transformer. Must be the only one that failed!
I agree these were the best time for Mitsubishi. We saw a lot of CT200 and 202s - the 200s with the odd colours due to the PAL/NTSC decoder and the 202 with dried up electrolytics. They learned from these and came up with the excellent flat chassis. As Tim says, the line driver transformer went dry-jointed and on the larger screen sets the odd fusible resistor went for no obvious reason with either no sound or no results. I think they were 1R2 and 2R2 respectively. We hd a batch of 2627s with no sound. Mr Mitsu came to the rescue and told us to 'remember Uncle Charlie'. This meant remove plug UC from the remote panel and solder the wires direct. Job done.
The later UK-made plastic sets were nowhere near as good. Usually you needed a dozen capacitors to get them to work again if you were lucky.
I have two 2627s here, both working. One was in use till last month! Just needed the aforementioned resistors, plus a couple of odd electrolytics in the frame stage throughout its working life.
In the Eighties the place I bought ex-rentals had a few of the 20" sets for sale as oddballs. I bought them all, repaired them (oddly one had the scan coil fault mentioned above) - once sold I never saw them again.