Sunday, November 27, 2011

About 20 years ago I dumpster dived an old Panasonic WV series Newvicon video camera and its broken VTR (which still supplied power) and fell in love with video feedback produced with the negative image function engaged. Sadly, this camera wound up stolen in 1993 while enjoying my first taste of communal living. Every once in a while, for over a decade, I would reminisce about that set-up and bemoan the fact that I didn't have a very solid footing in regards to rebuilding it, as I couldn't recall what it was. Of course, as my internet literacy grew I became a bit more proficient in searching, and eventually the string of widely spread out casual searches bore fruit.

Armed with the name of manufacturer & the type of element I was after I began my patient hunt, and eventually landed a good deal on a WV-3250 with power supply.

Of course, with one source comes the desire of additional input flexibility, so the search for a video mixer came next which led to this early example from Panasonic the WJ-545P.

Inputs & outputs are primarily UHF connectors.

Support for 5 cameras (the mixer only handles two channels at once) includes the EIAJ 10 pin connector that the Panasonic camera has, though the voltage feed that the camera requires is absent, so external PSU is still required. This would be an easy enough fix, though very low priority since I have the external supplies already.

At lower left of the above image is the wired side of the EIAJ connector, further reinforcing my satisfaction with using the external supplies. Also evident is a single wire ground buss that ties to chassis at one point.

I think very few machines were bothered by the construction of this unit.

You don't really see this sort of build outside the DIY circles any more, which is sort of a shame.

...unless you were the one assembling these, one right after the other. All grey wire is shielded & tied to ground wires.

TO-100 package IC in a protective sleeve. The IC count on this thing is fairly minimal.

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