i have an old lxi rear projection tv. the problem is that sears no longer caries the parts for the darn thing. i realy need the vieweing screens 'they' use a lens, and a front panal that seams to act like a screen/lens. now sears wants like 700 USD for a simaler screen combo. i know that i have seen a lens selling less than 50 USD on Ebay. So how the hay do I get a hold of these parts without paying out the nose?
the model #is 626.54552 19
thanks

:i have an old lxi rear projection tv. the problem is that sears no longer caries the parts for the darn thing. i realy need the vieweing screens 'they' use a lens, and a front panal that seams to act like a screen/lens. now sears wants like 700 USD for a simaler screen combo. i know that i have seen a lens selling less than 50 USD on Ebay. So how the hay do I get a hold of these parts without paying out the nose?
:the model #is 626.54552 19
:thanks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~That unit uses a translucent front plastic sheet with its lenticular rulings and internal black lines. The inner sheet is a Fresnel lens, it basically replicates
the circular angles of a lens at MULTIPLE uniform outward spacing rates but then is flatttened down to no more height than is required. Thus all of the angles of a lens, but without the unused center dead area of glass that is not contributing to the lens effect.(Get a used one of those and put it out in the bright sun and focus on a newspaper and you can't even count to 2 before the sheet is ablaze !) For all the units manufactured theres still a high defect rate in the castings due to bubbles and voids so a lot of units fail and get scrapped and melted down for remolding. Also theres the high initial cost of the precisely machined press molds.So they still command quite a price. The E-Bay units are most likely smaller lenses that are made to be placed in the front of 19-20-25 in direct view TV tubes to then project onto a beaded/lenticular type Movie screen.
As done back in the "70's prior to big screens but then, they were using an ~ 5-6 in conventional glass lens .
If you could find any brand of a good junked unit of the same size or a smidge larger( to trim) you could certainly attempt that pair in place of yours....as basically the units are the same...just realize that the front to back spacing will need to be maintained at the same distance to acquire proper focus( without internal access and focus adjustment).