Mighty Monarch of The Air
 

I wanted to start a thread to show my Majestic 1600 restoration. I am a little late on posting progress but I'll get you up to speed. I found the unit in an antique store and fell for it pretty hard. It had a price tag on it for $125. I worked the owner down to $75 and tax and took it home that night. I thought it would just make a nice decoration in the apartment but then something started eating away at me to find out the history of the unit. Some Google searches later I found my way to this site and made the decision that I would restore it. The first thing I did was clean the insides as much as I could. It wasn't extremely dirty but it did have a fine layer of black dirt on it. It cleaned up very nicely with some elbow grease and electronics cleaner.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5221/...0e166bbf45.jpg
After cleaning the interior I replaced the missing tube you can see on the right hand side. I work with some one who is a wealth of electronic parts and he gave me one for free. With all the tubes in place it was time to fire it up and see what we've got. I brought the voltage up slowly with a variac and got raster :-). Unfortunately there was no vertical deflection, just a solid horizontal white line in the middle of the screen.
My next step was to pull the chassis from the cabinet and put it on a tabletop to get ready for recapping. I got a copy of the photofact and ordered my capacitors from www.wjoe.com, 17 of the them to be exact. Today I think I'll begin the recapping process.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/...eb1a2baa26.jpg

Underestimated the difficulty of replacing capacitors. I removed the first cap and I don't know where the markings are for polarity. I've read in another post
"The symbols are little cutouts in the phenolic material right next to the terminals."
I can't seem to find any markings though.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5149/...07623694_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/...8de0fef7_z.jpg

that's on the bottom of electroylic multistage cans. With most new caps (except electrolytics), polarity is not an issue, like resistors. The old ones had the terminal with the outside foil on it marked, not usually the ground. Be careful though, small electrolytics will have the negative marked and that must be followed. They usually have a paper or cardboard covering and are pretty easy to read. Electroytics are usually 1-2 mfd (microfarad) or higher. You usually won't see one lower than a 10 or 8 mfd. That .1 mfd you have in your hand is not an electrolytic. Some capacitors are rated in mmfd (micro micro farad), or pf (picofarad, same thing), which is even lower. Mmfd or pf caps are usually mica or ceramic.

Is this your first attempt at electronic repair? If so, I would suggest letting the TV sit for a while and buy a cheap AA5 tube radio. This will help you to identify parts and repair something that is a lot more simple than a TV. Also if you totally screw it up, like I did the first couple of times, you haven't wrecked anything important. I hope I'm not out of line. Just a friendly suggestion.

I think I'll forge ahead and break something important the first time. You have however made my evening a lot shorter. There are very few larger mfd capacitors in the set, and they are all very easy to read polarity.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5307/...61d10edc_z.jpg

What kind of capacitor did I have in my first picture?

Wax paper. Guaranteed to be bad. Nonpolarized. Replace with "Orange Drops" or similar mylar and foil cap. Use the same capacitance (or within 10%) and same or higher voltage rating. More at http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/repair.htm

I meant to say you usually won't see one lower than a 10 or 4 mfd. :banana:

Good luck, ask for help if you need it.

Here are more articles that may be helpful. The first one covers recapping:

http://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm

http://antiqueradio.org/restoration.htm

Regards,

Phil Nelson
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Thanks for the articles. I read both of them before actually. I did run into one more thing. I actually ran into it when ordered my caps. There is one cap that on the photofact says 600v but the one that is installed is 800v. I ordered a 630v trusting that the photofact is correct but now I'm second guessing myself into thinking I need something over 800v.

Which cap is it (Sams part number)?

Phil Nelson

I'm not sure to which part number you are referring. The parts list has an item number, which is C40. There is also replacement part numbers from-
Majestic- D03.100-12
Aerovox- P688-022
Centralab- DF-203
Cornell Dubilier- PTE6S2
Sprague- 6TM-622
The schematics state that it's used for audio coupling. Sams states .022mf capacitance and 600v voltage rating. The cap in the set is .02mf 800v.

I mean the part number given in the Sams manual (C40). 630V should be fine there.

Phil Nelson

Why do you think there is an 800v in there? Could it have been repaired in the past possibly?

Just about every old radio or TV that I've owned had at least a few repairs.

Or, perhaps the manufacturer was using up parts that they happened to have in abundance, even though the voltage rating exceeded the specified minimum. They might have gotten a great deal on a boxcar full of 800v-rated caps.

Phil Nelson

Progress!!!
Well if progress means moving backwards. I finished with the caps that I had ordered, but after spending some intimate time with the under side of the set I realized that I missed 7 electrolytics hiding under two metal cans. So they are on order and I await their arrival. I decided to fire the set up again to see what, if any, progress I have made. I fired the set up and... no raster. Moving backwards! I also thought that the flyback transformer was quieter than it was before, although that could be in my imagination. The tubes did light up pretty like a Christmas though.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/...7c41bf7832.jpg
I didn't spend much time trying to figure out where I went wrong. I figure I'll have some time in the next few days before the new caps get here.

BTW thanks so much for all of your help Phil.

Steady as she goes, Grasshopper...It ALMOST worked before, that is a VERY good sign...Somethin' THAT purty HAS to work well.