Finally, the work on te packard bell has begun...

[jpdylon]

Almost one year ago, Eric H was kind enough to pick up a 1964 Packard Bell Roundie for me. Being swamped with work at the time, i basically went to his workplace to get it, took it home and put it in the workshop.


Where it has sat ever since....until today.

I was cleaning things out and thought...."It's time to get to that packard." I pulled numerous boxes of parts and junk out and underneath was the set just as I had left it. I cleared out the inside of the cabinet and dusted everything off. The chassis swings out like me heathkit, and boy is it packed!
This is an actual Packard Bell design, and not a clone of another company. I tried to variac it, but it started pulling two amps as soon as I got to 30 volts. The electrolytics in the PS have no shorts, however one of the main rectifiers was shorted.

The chassis has been serviced many times judging by the scores of different mis matching caps in various parts of the set. The tech also did a shotty job of replacing the diodes, not to mentioning only using .75 amp 250v diodes
The small .001 ceramic cap that shunts the diode is also bad. It measured 500 ohms out of circuit.

Further troubleshooting in the power supply is necessary due to the heater line being dragged down by a short somewhere. The heater line gets very hot and the voltage is getting pulled down to about 3.7 volts. Time to pull the tubes and track down the short.

The CRT was replaced with a ColorRama in 67 (?), however it was tired. 10 minutes on the beltron and all three guns came back to life with equal emission and a long interrupt test. This is the first RCA CRT I've seen that has the green Halo rather than the PVA cataract.

The cabinet is also trashed on top. I can probably resurrect the sides as they are, but the top will need to be refinished.

This set is probably one of the biggest challenges I have come up against in a long time. The condition of the patient is still unknown until i get its heart beating again. It may be some time before I get back to this thread with all the stuff going on right now, but I hope to get this set on its way to fully functional again and take some "after" pictures to show it off while I'm at it

[andy]

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[David Roper]

My family's first color set was a '66 Packard Bell, rectangular CRT, but the same chassis. Not surprised you see evidence of a lot of repairs because I recall that set being serviced an awful lot. I'd call it a lemon...but it was the family's main watcher more or less continuously for almost ten years.

[kx250rider]

My first color TV was a Packard-Bell 21CT7, which was a roundie but it was the later flat-chassis. I think it was a '68 model. Mine had a 21FBP22 with separate safety glass. I have a soft spot for those...

Charles

[kx250rider]

Maybe SgtRob would want to comment on this set... He got one with that chassis from me a couple years ago, and has restored it beautifully!

Charles

[Eric H]

Hey Jordan, good to see this set again!
Can't wait to see how it works.

[peverett]

I have a spare Packard Bell chassis that appears similar to this one if you happen to need parts. I have already sent one part from it to a person in Italy.

The CRT in the set was toast and the wood case heavily water damaged, so they were tossed.

(My wife would agree with David Roper-Her families first color TV was a Packard Bell that needed repair quite often. Her families second color TV was a Zenith that did not need repair for 10 years).

[Carmine]

Huh... I never would have guessed those sets to be unreliable... I see a big power X-fomer, and no circuit boards... Sounds like an alternate universe Zenith to me. (I'd also love to have one!)

Only thing I remeber being bad about Packard-bell was that the motherboard would self-destruct if you unpluged the keyboard with the power on; although I would expect that isn't the case here, lol.

[jpdylon]

Hmmmm.

Well, I worked over the power supply, replacing caps and installed two new rectifiers --only to run into another problem.

The problem with a short in the heater line has been found. Its the transformer

I isolated the heater lines from the transformer and there is near infinite resistance with all the tubes removed. However its a dead short between the heater winding and ground. Even disconnecting the lead still results in the tranny getting hot and eventually tripping the breaker on the variac at about 60 volts

Since I have no service literature I can't find a suitable replacement. The model # and chassis # tags are missing so there is no way to identify the set.

This one is dead in the water, boys. Don't think this patient will recover

[Steve K]

Jordan:

You should be able to find a Sams for it. There weren't that many Packard Bell color sets made at that time. I just looked in the Sams index and a 21CC5 is in that time frame. If you have access to Sams just start looking through the folders and you a bound to find the correct chassis.

Steve

[disco]

Jordan; If the filament winding is the only problem with the xfmr, you could try repairing it yourself. The filament windings are usually the last to be wound. They are usually a few turns of large gauge wire depending on the current rating. You will have to disassemble the iron core to access the windings. There are several sites on the internet that could guide you through it. Good luck. Fred

[blue_lateral]

Yeah, its probably repairable. Worth opening it up to look. Also, Is that a voltage doubler power supply? For what it's worth, you can probably substitute some common transformer. Maybe ctc-12-15. Voltage doublers in roundies are almost all alike. See if you can find the sams. If you just had some voltage specs to work with, it should be possible.

John

[Eric H]

Jordan, see post #7 above.
Perhaps a transformer is available?

[jpdylon]

Good point Eric. I'll shoot him a PM and find out.

Don't want to pull a tranny apart unless I have to.

[polaraman]

Is this the power transformer? My Thordarson book only lists 2 PB roundies.

Your chassis is either 98C3/4, 98C6, 98C7C/D/E, 98C8.

26R150 subs from RCA CTC 7 to CTC 15.


polaraman