VT330 - Phoenix from the ashes
No picture, just sound - a familiar behaviour...
... and the sound was most unpleasant, just like with the VT340: Tick - tick - tick - tick...
The terminal even wasn't able to come up with the indicator light after being powered and of course the self-test was started neither. Hence checking the flyback transformer and its final stage transistor was nothing but the humble attempt to identify a less exasperating fault causing the defect. The circuit diagram was found at archive.org
"Unfortunately", the terminal came up just fine without any problems after having removed the final stage transistor "Q203", a BU406 - without showing a picture, of course. This proved both the flyback and the transistor most likely were carried off.
The required and possibly required parts were procured, apart from thre flyback transformer - hoping the latter perhaps had survived. The replacement of the transistor and its neighboured capacitors unfortunately didn't fullfill this hope and a flyback transformer had to eb procured, too.
The search for the flyback or a suitable replacement was without results all over Europe. One American distributor ignored my request for a quote and another one asked USD 140 for shipping to Europe, but had more than plenty of these beasts in stock.
Remedy was provided by making a call to a friend in California: Shipping inside the USA to my friend and from there with USPS to Europe for a total of ~ EUR 30:
Postal Services - a bargain compared to competitors
Corpus delicti - Flyback, defective and new
Red: Defect - Green: Preventativly replaced - Yellow: To be checked
Spare parts package
Defect transistor and flyback are gone
Last visual check prior to reassembling the terminal
And yet another piece of legacy hardware was saved from going to the junk yard !
The terminal was put back into the IT cabinet where it is used as a console terminal for the VMS machines.
