Zenith System 3? set, i'm considering today
 

I saw this on c-list and i'm trying to figure out which chassis this is. It has push button electronic tuning and i'm guessing a inline gun crt. the price is cheap and without a way to hook it up to a input, they say it has snow on the screen. anyone recognize this set and know the good/bad points about this model?
https://nashville.craigslist.org/ele...573262979.html

If it has snow it almost definitely works. If the snow is bright AND
in B&W it almost has to work great.
Pinning down the date / chassis is harder. Probably mid to late
80's. Try to get a model number & date off the back. Sadly they
often fade from UV light. There are more tags inside.
Pretty sure its not one of the original S-3 chassii. Looks like a low
feature intro set w/out remote. Still a good set.
In any case $30 aint much if you like the pine cabinet.
BTW almost all Zeniths from about 1979 on are in line tubes.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

i got a text from the owner and it looks to be a may 85 date, to hard for her to read the model number.

The date sounds right. About 10 years ago we were visiting one of my in-laws and they were still using one like this on a daily basis. The picture was one of the best I've ever seen-it really made an impression on me. Of course, $30 is hardly anything these days.

Yep. $30 is just enough to keep the scrappers away and a deal if it's in good shape.

Zeno is spot on as always.

It's a non-remote, bottom of the line set but it was a reliable and great performer. If the snow is bright and white, grab it.

I like entry-level sets in nice shape. I say if the snow looks good grab it.

Seems to be an A2510PN or B2510PN 85 or 86 yr build.
Not remote basic TV. Custom series chassis probably uses
9-181 & 9-186 for main chassis. Reliable sets. Made way
before the CRT problems so a good bet.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I picked up one of those put out for the trash, maybe 12 years ago. It got buried in my big shed. IIRC, it still worked alright. :scratch2:

You shouldn't have to try to judge the picture quality by the snowy raster

If I were you, I'd bring a converter box and rabbit ears (or a VCR and a cassette) and try out the set that way (note that there will be less horizontal resolution if you use a VCR and the picture will be sharper when you hook it up to a better source.)

This chassis never had good color the faces was always orange. i believe there was an updated chip for the problem. i never liked to service these sets.

The orange color was from the auto color. Trouble was on the
cheap sets without a switch it was always on. When the chassis came out
( Y-line) we figured it out & started killing the auto on new sales.
Just a matter of grounding a pin to the secondary controls.
Somewhere along the line they changed the design & it was much better.
I agree the set wasnt fun to work on due to layout. After the first year
they were quite reliable. Junked tons of perfect ones 20 yrs later
during the switch over to flats & HD.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

those were good performers.i agree with disabling the automatic feature.seems like they always blew a few caps in the horizontal but other than that,they were workhorses and the crts held up forever.many of these sets were badged other than zenith.i have a friend who is still watching her table model.set have never broken down and its a daily watcher.crt is still bright and sharp after 30 plus years.one of the better sets from the 80s

I'd offer the seller a quick $20.
IIRC, that model only had one circuit board, plus the control assembly.
The models I liked better was the slightly earlier models with the separate module off to the side with the Fly and horiz sweep circuits.
That was around the time I quit servicing on a regular basis. :scratch2:

You are correct sir! chassis B2510PN . upon seeing the set the picture looked dim but got brighter after letting it play for 30mins. I told them i couldn't buy it with a dim pic but they came down to $20 and i figured worse case i could strip out the boards if someone needed them for a good crt set. Upon getting it home i figured i'd play with it a bit to see how good i can make it look. the main problem is there is too much green. i found 3 pots colored R, B and G i can barely get the green low enough to make a white image. is this a symptom of a weak tube or is there a board problem, here are some pics of the tiny chassis "my how they changed in 10 years from the vertical CC2 chassis.

There really wasn't much left for the factory to assemble at that point, was there?

All through the 80's whenever you read a Consumer Report's review of a Zenith set it said the same thing: the picture is too green. Not sure what the issue there was.