MUTR Televisor

[Colin-JB]

Hello everyone,

I have one of these televisors and took it to the convention last year. My son (who is 4 yrs old) decided he wanted to build a televisor, so I thought we would build from scratch. Cutting long story short, I dug out my MUTR one to fire it up and it no longer works

However, using bits we have acquired for the new build, I managed to work out the broken bit is the battery pack that contains 4 AA batteries, as my twin AA pack will power the motor or the LED, and the 4 pack would not even power the spare motor.

The twin pack AA I'm guessing is not powerful enough to power the whole unit, but I assume a 9v would be? But I'm not sure if that may be too powerful and damage it.

Does anyone here know if it is safe to wire up the 9v instead of 4xAA?

I know I could just buy a replacement 4xAA pack, but as I have a 9v at hand I'd rather try it if it will work.

Colin-JB

[DrZarkov]

I've connected a transformator to my MUTR kit, a transformator cost nearly the same as 4 high quality AA cells.

[gary]

I wouldn't if I were you. The MUTR power circuit doesn't include a voltage regulator, so, at the very least, you may over drive the LED to extinction.

If you have a soldering iron (and solder) at hand you could quickly lash up a 4 x AA power pack by wiring them in series (soldering wires directly to the ends of the AA batteries) and the wrap a rubber band around them.

If you use a "wall wart" (mains adapter), I would recommend you use a 6V *regulated* version (as I do).

[Klaas Robers]

For the MUTR-kit I use a power adapter as well, 6 volts 0.5 amps (or more, the amps).

I have built a power inlet on the back plane of the MUTR televisor and soldered a suitable connector as well on the battery pack as the power adapter. so I can use one of them.

In the 4-AA battery pack you should use alkaline type of batteries, manganeese type have a too high internal resistance. May be that is your problem, because otherwise there is little that can go wrong in a 4-AA battery pack, unless you stored it for too long with exhausted batteries still in the pack. When the springs and the contact points are heavily corroded, that is the end of the battery pack.

I expect you to get it running again. It is a nice experience for your son.

[cuteorkill]

I just got my kit today. It was easy to assemble, but it's going to need modifications right away.

I have read about the inversions, diffuser, white LED and such, but mine has a much simpler problem - the sticker on the back of the disk is poorly printed and off-center. Of course I'm printing a new one on the thinnest adhesive paper I can find.

No doubt this is the start of the problems with the display. The test pattern is fine, but nothing else is. There are only fleeting glimpses of the video.

The non-flat condition of the disk is a little irritating. It causes some image distortion. I'll do my best to flatten it. Has anyone fabricated a replacement?

[gary]

The non-flat condition of the disk is a little irritating. It causes some image distortion. I'll do my best to flatten it. Has anyone fabricated a replacement?

Dear me, out of the box it should be flat, at the very least it should be flat when spun up. Sounds to me like you are due a free replacement.

[cuteorkill]

...you are due a free replacement.

It's nothing that a few days inside a heavy book won't fix. It wasn't bent or I'd ask. A reprint of the sync bars has improved things already.

Speaking of the sync bars, here's a handy PDF:
http://genefender.com/tv/mutrsync.pdf

[Lowtone]

Ah thanks, my synch pattern was a bit scratched

[gary]

It's nothing that a few days inside a heavy book won't fix.

Fair enough. Whilst mine was originally flat, after a couple of years it began to warp and I was able to restore it somewhat by placing it between two boards of melamine with a heavy weight to hold it all together. That worked for a while, but as time went on it became less and less effective. In the end, I tried very gently heating it up before putting it in the "press". This also worked for a while, but it too became less effective over time. I can only assume these disks are fairly susceptible to changes in temperature (in Oz a days temperature can vary about 20-30 degrees C). In the end I replaced it with a bead disk similar to this one:

[cuteorkill]

Instead of improving the kit - apart from getting it to work properly - it's probably time better spent if I fabricate a larger televisor.

[AncientBrit]

>cuteorkill

Thanks for the pdf, useful,

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve G8CYE]

I just got my MUTR Televisor this morning. Took about an hour to put together (mainly cos I couldn't find the double-sided tape). Anyway switched on and would you believe a rock solid test card without any adjustment!
Only problems:
1 when I picked it up the battery box fell off.
2 my wife wanted moving pictures and my cd player wouldn't work.

[Dave Moll]

2 my wife wanted moving pictures and my cd player wouldn't work.

This is possibly because your CD play outputs out-of-phase - a lot of them do. As long as both channels are phased the same, this is completely irrelevant for audio, but NBTV needs brightness info to be positive and synch pulses to be negative.

Given that the MUTR itself is not earthed, try wiring your connection so that the earth return of the video signal goes to the signal in of the MUTR and vice versa. If this works, it may be worth building a simple signal inverter - circuits for which can be found elsewhere on this forum. If I can find one, I'll edit in a link to it.

[Steve G8CYE]

I should have said ...it is deceased, if it were not for the 6 inch nail it would have.... Actually tried it with the the line o/p of my PC, the video was inverted, so played the inverted tracks and it was fine. I've even viewed a couple of converted George Formby songs! audio

[Dave Moll]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant that the CD player wouldn't work with the MUTR, rather than didn't work full stop.