[SunRescue] Dim Monitors (WAS: What exactly is a Sun 4/25 ?)

[Jeff Borisch]

I hope this is more or less on topic. 
I am very interested in learing how to identify if a monitor that has a 
degraded picture is worth working on and trying to fix. This especially 
true with the fixed frequency stuff that can be hard to come by or 
workstations that are hard to get working with your garden variety svga 
screen.

I have a NeXT meagpixel monitor that is exceptionally dim. For obvious 
reasons I want to get this working to play with its accompanying Cube. 

With the hood off I can see access holes to some pots. There are labels 
such as focus, horz cent, and the like. These are pretty obvious what 
they do. There is one called white point which I tweaked a bit and it 
made the picture a bit brighter. I was afraid to go further because of 
what iv'e heard about generating x-rays. For example, there is a pot 
labelled cutoff... cutoff what?! 

Regarding replacing caps and such, is there a good source of information 
regarding testing circuits and the simpler components like capacitors and 
transistors.

I know enough how not to get myself killed. Breaking equipment is another 
story.


best regards,
jeffrey


>The problem with these is that the monitor was on as long as the workstation
>was on, so they've degraded with time. You can fix them by replacing caps
>and other components, but taking them apart is a bitch. You had to run with
>external disk to be standalone, but lots of folks either ran them diskless,
>or as X-terminals. You can put either MB in either chassis, so if you have
>an SLC with a good monitor, and an ELC with a crappy one, you can put the
>ELC MB in the SLC and get a decent machine.
>

>Steve
>