Emerson 609 projection TV
 

So, I'm chugging along, replacing electrolytic and paper caps in a 1949 Emerson 609 projection TV (on the left):

http://antiqueradio.org/art/DuMontRA...Emerson609.jpg

In addition to the usual wax paper caps, I see about a dozen of these little guys in white cases (ceramic or porcelain?). Some have wax gooping out the ends.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...CeramicCap.jpg

They have values (1500pf) in the mica range, the kind of thing I'd normally leave alone during the first pass.

Are these paper caps in sheep's clothing, or something more reliable? I would rather not shotgun parts unnecessarily.

Thanks!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Suspect caps; at the very least check a few by lifting one leg and testing it at/near rated voltage.

Plan on replacing them in any case. I'm even finding "normal" mica caps that are shot in '46 to '50 era sets.

For what it's worth, they're described as "ceramic" in the Rider's parts list, although I guess that could mean garbage paper dielectric inside a ceramic tube.

All (14!) of them occur in the audio & video IF sections, where they are used for bypass, AGC filtering, and decoupling, according to Sams. Examples: C6/C8, C10/C11, and C13/C14 in this schematic snip:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...io-VideoIF.jpg

I'm usually loath to replace a dozen of anything in the video IF, because . . . alignment.

Phil Nelson

I think you'd better leave them alone. Even if they're paper types, the leakage should be insignificant with such small values.

That may be the case with Russian made paper caps, but American made paper caps (and many Japanese caps) are crap...I've seen plenty of papers in that value range nearly dead shorted or leaking heavily even below 50V.

I can see "HI-Q" printed on the side. All the vintage caps I've encountered that look like that have been true ceramic and just fine. I'd leave them alone.

At that point in time I don't believe the state of the art even allowed winding paper caps that small? Well maybe, but they'd of been too expensive for consumer electronics.

Thanks, I'll leave 'em in peace for now.

These caps are definitely smaller than any of the TV's paper caps in that general range (.001, .003).

Phil Nelson

I've found those in other sets and left them alone, they don't seem to be troublesome.

I suppose you could replace one and bust it open to see what it is inside.

Here's the ceramic cap next to the smallest paper cap in this TV:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...ramicCap01.jpg

My Dumont RA-102 has a number of ceramic caps about the same size as these, but they have a different profile, more like a dogbone style resistor, and no wax dripping out the ends.

Phil Nelson

I see those all the time, and I've always left them alone.

In 30 plus vintage TV restorations I might have replaced one, and I didn't have to.:smoke:

After replacing the factory-installed electrolytic and paper caps on my Emerson 609, I'm looking at this big .25-mfd paper cap, evidently added by some sloppy repairman:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...AddedCap01.jpg

The cap isn't shown in either Riders or Sams. It's hard to trace things in this messy chassis full of long, wandering leads. But as near as I can make out, the guy wired this new cap in parallel with the Horizontal Size adjuster coil (L-8 in Riders):

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...AddedCap02.jpg

Any ideas as to why someone would add this? Tacking stuff onto a width coil suggests an attempt to get more (or less?) width, at first glance . . . .

I normally remove mods and restore things to match the schematic, especially messy work like this, on the theory that the repairman was attempting a quick fix for some symptom that will be cured by the time I'm done recapping, etc. But if someone thinks this is a great improvement, I suppose I could try a new .25 cap there.

You can read the full schematic here:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...maticSmall.jpg

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

That is a width mod. I've seen .05 uF caps occasionally attached to RCA KCS-20 flybacks to fix a width issue.:smoke:

OK, that rogue cap is gone.

In preparation for powering up, I checked out the five-element ballast (Emerson # 397023). Most of the elements test bad. There's a lot of corrosion where the elements join the pin leads. Even if I could coax it back into life, this doesn't seem like a good bet for long-term reliability:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...023Ballast.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson6...astDiagram.jpg

I found an eBay supplier with a Clarostat ballast, so let's hope that one works. Can't wait!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

It's alive!

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...FirstImage.jpg

OK, that looks underwhelming, but it's exciting to me. After replacing the ballast and doing, well, a bunch of other stuff, tonight I saw the first coherent image on the Emerson's little 3NP4 CRT. (That's the Xfinity cable TV guide screen, in case you're wondering).

With the chassis spread all over the workbench, there's nothing to project on (the ceiling's much too far away to focus). So peering slantwise down into the Protelgram optic box is the only way to see what's happening.

This set had more problems than I had noticed at first, including an under-chassis meltdown that burned everything around the sockets of the vertical and 1st video IF tubes. But now, the vertical & horizontal are stable, brightness & contrast work as advertised, and the audio is excellent.

There's more checking and tweaking to do, but it's always fun to see the first signs of life.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Ahhh! Isn't it fun? Even though we've restored countless old tvs, it still puts a smile on your face when another one springs back from the dead.

Well done. Keep us posted. :smoke:

After recapping & whatnot, the electronics are working pretty well on my Emerson 609. The optical (Norelco Protelgram) portion . . . not so wonderful.

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rstPicture.jpg

Apart from issues like bad horizontal linearity, which is only an adjustment, the image is not only dim, but unable to focus despite fiddling with the electronic and mechanical focus adjusters.

The 45-degree mirror in the optics box appears to be in bad shape:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...nBadMirror.jpg

Is this the mirror that people send out to be resilvered? If so, where?

I haven't made any attempt to clean it, having read horror stories in the past about people who destroyed projection TV components by inappropriate cleaning.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

How does the image look directly on the CRT? (I use a mirror to avoid X rays)
I've cleaned these mirrors with soap and water, I even removed the silvering on one and it was really tough to do, that said it will depend on what condition it's in to begin with.

The image on the CRT looks good, although it's a little hard to judge when peering in at such an angle. Of course, the smaller the CRT, the sharper things look, too. If I remove the side plates from the optics box, I should be able to inspect the mirrors more closely.

On another note, has anyone ever seen patent documents for the Norelco Protelgram unit? I assume it was patented somewhere, although a quick search of US patents didn't turn up anything.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Never cleaned a TV mirror but I have cleaned telescope mirrors, which I imagine are affected more by scratches. I use water and soap, a squirt bottle with warm soapy water blasted right on a chunk of smeg will usually get it off. Soak and blast. soak and blast. Garden hose type of pressure washer is good too. Just don't use anything in actual contact with the mirror. That seems to work well with dust/disuse build up.

I have also under duress used a super soft artists paint brush on a mirror that was really gunked. As it turned out the mirror was trashed but I didn't see any scratches from working it GENTLY with the brush.

You can get the mirror redone. If you look for places that make telescope mirrors you can sometimes have them do yours when they are doing another and save some dough. Can take a while that way. I had a mirror I home ground done that way, took two months but was cheap.

Make sure the cardboard/fiber shield is on the crt. From the pics, it looks
like the crt is not as far in as it should be [if memory serves me]. I always
use distilled water on these mirrors to avoid water marks after drying.
I have restored several of these Norelco units and have NOS 3np4s and a resilvered concave mirror........
Currently have a Scott and an Emerson with the Norelco system.

Update?

Anyone see this? Perhaps a cheaper way to get your mirror re-done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8iTQwnDaLg

The problem with that is the mirrors in a projection set are on the surface of the Glass, that is behind it.

I had a mirror resilvered (or more precisely, re-aluminumed) for my Philco projection TV. This outfit does a good job, and won't break the bank. You'll see they show prices right on their website: http://www.spectrum-coatings.com/

The symptom of a bad mirror is poor contrast. Too much light scatters off the rough and dirty spots on the mirrors, putting some light into the dark areas of your picture that doesn't belong there. It will not cause bad focus, so that is a separate problem to be worked out.

Here's a thread on ARF from when I got my mirror recoated: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...524069#p524069

Later I made some further improvements to the set, that resulted in better pictures than I showed in the thread linked above.

Thanks for the info. We have been away on vacation, but I will probably get a chance to open up the optical box this weekend. I suspect I'll send off the mirror for resilvering.

Apart from that, the TV still needs more work on the focus and horizontal sweep sections.

Regards,

Phil Nelson

Keep chugging along! This is one of the prettiest of the projection sets.

Well, I got the 45-degree mirror out. Kind of a tricky process. First, you remove the side panels from the box:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rRemoval00.jpg

After removing four nuts, you can draw out the entire tailpiece assembly (including CRT) from the rear:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rRemoval01.jpg

Use care when sliding out this heavy assembly. Judging by some little nicks around the hole edges in the 45-degree mirror, this CRT was replaced in the past.

The spherical mirror must come out first, to make enough elbow room to withdraw the 45-degree mirror:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rRemoval04.jpg

You must unscrew the 45-degree mirror clamps from the slanted rails, and then remove the clamps from the mirror. Then with some cautious jiggling and sliding, you can slip the mirror out the side of the box:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rRemoval05.jpg

The reflective surface looks pretty bad, so off it goes for resilvering:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...rRemoval06.jpg

The spherical mirror looks much. much better, so I may try to use it as-is.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Is there a way to test my 3NP4 CRT? My Sencore CR70 manual doesn't list settings for it.

The CRT is obviously good enough to make some sort of picture, but it's hard to judge its performance by looking at that tiny CRT face, and I can't view the full image at all, while the mirror is off for recoating.

The turnaround time for recoating is something like 30 days, so I'll try to make progress in other areas in the meantime. I hope to be able to address the horizontal issues by viewing scope forms and peeking in at the CRT face.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

The recoated mirror is back from Spectrum Coatings, and it looks good.

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...orRecoated.jpg

We're about to leave on a short vacation, but next week I should be able to install it and give the 609 another trial.

Fingers crossed,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

That looks a lot better!

Sigh. I was full of hope when I reinstalled the recoated mirror, and then things began to go south. At first, the only problem was (still) bad focus, and when I changed one resistor in hopes of addressing that issue, the image size suddenly shrank by about half.

You can read more (much more) by looking at this article-in-progress; it includes links to the full Riders and Sams service manuals, as well as a pretty full recap (get it?) of what work I've done so far:

https://antiqueradio.org/Emerson609P...Television.htm

Scroll down to the end if you're impatient and want to know where things stand at the moment.

Has anyone restored an Emerson 609 before? I'm fairly confident about the electronic side, but the Norelco Protelgram optical box with its mirrors & lens & whatnot is new to me.

I'd appreciate any advice from someone who has tamed one of these beasts. At this point, my plan is to move all the chassis back onto my workbench and start looking for a cause of the sudden reduction in image size. You can see on the CRT face that the image is smaller than normal, so I assume the problem is on the electronic side, not in the optical/mechanical parts.

Thanks!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html[/url]

Hang in there Phil, this is the toughest phase of a restoration...pulling the chassis back out :sigh:. We've all been there and it's no fun. Keep at it and you'll tame the beast!

At least the CRT looked like it was bright when it was working.

I have an RCA Projection set that I've kind of lost interest in, it's such a nightmare dealing with all the chassis's (Chassi?) in the darn thing, plus having to trying to carry the barrel along with the sweep chassis since they can't be easily separated.

Hang in there Phil. Your articles have helped a lot of people. I'm confident that you'll get it fixed and it will be working great.

Since both H and V sweep are reduced equally, seems like the fault would have to be B+ related and pretty easy to nail.

Check B+ . . . We hear and obey (tomorrow).

Thanks,

Phil Nelson

Ding-ding-ding! old_coot88 was on the mark, as usual. Broken lead between C6 and junction of M3/M4 in the Sams schematic, so no juice coming down that line.

Simple to diagnose (once you know where to look), and a big fat pain to fix. It will take 1/2 hour of horsing around to get all the heavy chassis out of the cabinet and back into the workbench, and about 1/2 minute to repair the break!

While it's on the bench, I'll be able to view the CRT face and judge the focus there.

Later,

Phil Nelson

If face focus is good, look into optical focus. There may be mechanical adjustments for it.

Yes, there are several mechanical adjustments, as the Rider manual shows in detail.

I temporarily reconnected the broken wire with a clip lead, which brought back the power supply and full deflection. Now I'm back where I was before, with lousy focus. This is the best I can get using the two electronic focus controls:

https://antiqueradio.org/art/Emerson...onRestored.jpg

The focus on the CRT face looks good to my eye, so I'm guessing that one or both of the reinstalled mirrors is cockeyed. I didn't mess with any of the mechanical adjusters before, such as the tilt adjusters on the base of the box. It's possible that some adjuster was seriously screwed up long ago, but the image that I got before resilvering the mirror was much closer to focus (and correct screen geometry) than this. Maybe I'll spot something obvious after I open the optical box back up.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html