How long was the PVM-2530 manufactured?

[BazookaBen]

So a local technology recycling company has a PVM-2530, so I'm going to check it out later in the week. I saw a post elsewhere on here from someone saying they were looking at a 2530 that was manufactured in 2001.

I'm wondering if this poster was mistaken, because the manual for the 2530/2030 available on sony's website is dated 1986.

[muckyfingers]

My PVM-2530 had a date stamp of November 1990.

[kamiboy]

I had one from '91, though I believe that SONY manufactured these throughout the 90's.

[cfx]

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[gray117]

Every crt is a bit of a crap shoot, aside from pot luck if it works fine and you want it - then take it

pvms had a long manufacturing and distribution periods - much of this specialised stock often sat around before being sold - not like these days where nearly all stock is turned over fairly quick. Part of their value was not 'technological' per se but quality/grade of components - again helping to lengthen the viable lifetime of each line.

Ironically 2002-04 manufactured equipment may be more vulnerable to capacitor failure than 90's kit - there was a surge in faulty/sub standard batches of capacitors...

Aside from pot luck, the only issue is whether it saw constant heavy use; so perhaps the more pertinent issue in terms of gauging possible longevity is where this came from... but even then you'd be surprised how many of these sometimes just sat around in case they were needed at some broadcast companies, where as others got 24/7 use...

[Ed Oscuro]

Ironically 2002-04 manufactured equipment may be more vulnerable to capacitor failure than 90's kit - there was a surge in faulty/sub standard batches of capacitors...

The short answer is no, I don't think this is the case.

An interesting note on this: My 20L2s, coming in at 2004, have different brand capacitors in the same places. One has a Nichicon VZ (a flat can with no wrapper - it has more typical Nichicon series in other places), and the other has a Rubycon something in the same place (or close). I don't know what this signifies - did Sony just run out of stock and get better prices on one batch, and they are original to the units? Or did somebody do a repair during the nearly ten years of working condition checks?

I have read that some Japanese-made top brands have had the occasional dud series with problems. But these seem to be pretty rare, and when people talk about "capacitor plague" they usually mean some of the off-brand, non-Japanese capacitors made with an incorrect formula. There is a world of difference between a Korean or Hong Kong-made PC motherboard made for the mass market between the late '90s and the early '00s, and a Sony PVM.

Of course anybody could have slapped a replacement capacitor of any type in these monitors, but from what I have seen in three monitors, Sony seems to have liked using top-brand capacitors. If you check out the parts of cap replacement kits from Sony, these also use the top brand capacitors. So, unless there is some problematic series to point to, I think that Sony monitors' capacitors are just fine.

I would therefore count a recent inexpensive set from the 2001-2004 series to be much better than buying an older set, or paying a huge premium to get a really late model BVM or whatever, which may have seen much harsher use anyway. And if the capacitors somehow do go bad, there are other technological features of the '04 PVM that can make repairs much easier - like the reduced number of boards to deal with in newer sets (I only see two boards in my '04 20L2s - a mainboard at the base, and the neck board! It is roughly similar in the PVM 20L5 except there are other boards hanging off here and there to deal with the extra functionality, and as I've said elsewhere these are a pain to deal with.)

Recently I have been looking into reconditioning capacitors to prevent a start-up bang in some electronics. Using a multimeter to slowly charge a cap (to half its rated voltage) might work, but then again it might not.

[kamiboy]

Actually all the 90's caps that shit the bed and are killing PC Engine Duos, Sharp X68000's and Nintendo brand JP21 cables that I've seen have been Nichicon branded capacitors.

Nichicon really soiled the bed back in the 90's and I think there are people to this day that do not trust the brand for the very same reason.

I do not this their misstep was related to the formula getting stolen as I doubt Nichicon had their caps made in china. Maybe the problem was that counterfeit Nichicon caps found their way into Japanese electronics in the 90's.

Rubicon capacitors are very highly regarded though.

[Ed Oscuro]

And I can point towards the Elna caps in my (dead) XVI's power supply, and the still-going-great giant Nichicon in my old MSX2+ F1-XDJ.

Aside from being literally the first time I've ever heard anything bad about the Nichicons, whatever they did in the '90s really isn't relevant to the discussion of '00-'04 monitors.

Capacitors made in the '90s, and often in equipment that was simply left unused for many years at a time, are naturally more at damage of failing when suddenly pressed into service now. It's totally different to have Game Gears and things die years after their expected service life was over than it is to have new components failing in their first few years of expected service - which is what happened with the "capacitor plague" units from Taiwan and similar.

In any case, I'm happy to report should anything start to happen with my 20L2s in use now. But so far, they seem to represent Rubycon and Nichicon caps from the era doing just great.

And as I said before - the capacitors shouldn't determine the choice of monitor. We have to choose monitors based on the design and the quality of the non-replaceable components, like the CRT itself. Any replaceable component like a capacitor will naturally add to cost, but you can't fix a CRT that is going dim due to having reached the end of its life, or trying to source replacements for obscure and obsolete ICs.

[cfx]

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[Ed Oscuro]

Yes, I mentioned that. Pretty much the same information I gave - was going to mention the majority of failures are related to high heat and voltage requirements in constricted under-desk workstation PCs too. Obviously it's of little relevance to the topic at hand, because you don't reach the same temperatures inside a CRT monitor, even if it's not especially well ventilated.

[kamiboy]

In any regard, any quality capacitor manufacturer offers different lines differing in grade. I am sure SONY opted for industrial grade capacitors in their professional level equipment whereas console manufacturers most likely opted for the lower end variety in order to cut costs.

I have not heard of any problems with widespread capacitor failiures in SONY PVM monitors from any era, so there is nothing to worry about there.

A well cared for 2530 should be good for a decade or more at very least.

Manufacture date has little to say. I once got my hand on a mint condition 2530 from '91. I really regret selling it.

[Xan]

I've heard about issues with the M-series, here is one page about it: http://archives.bengrosser.com/avid/200 ... g02329.htm

[Ed Oscuro]

Research is good, but I'm not too worried here. I'd be more concerned if it showed up some characteristic like tube problems in the HD-era widescreen sets (I don't know exactly what form these problems took, only that many had to get tubes replaced, which might have been down to their professional demands and not gaming-level requirements, or it might have been total tube failure).

Assuming that is true, it's worth mentioning that many problem units were long ago weeded out and probably fixed one way or another (cap replacement, put in a closet or bin). The major unknown is whether some caps simply didn't experience the right conditions to fail - but, in modern-day usage, is it any more likely that they will fail than any others for reasons other than age alone? It's really down to the caps. If it was something like the crap in a Game Gear - sure! But these are different units. If the failures were just luck of the draw - some caps being out of spec and others being fine - things don't look so bad. The problem is when there is a unit which for whatever reason still has a cap in it which is going to fail, and which gets put back into use.

So far, I think we're still doing pretty good for the early '00 sets. I think the M series predates that slightly. Also, I don't think people had any big problems with sets like the PVM-1954q (and similar), which are from about 1997 or so.