philco-ford roundie score - pics - Page 2 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

fujifrontier · #16 08-16-2011, 12:41 PM

Especially since i don't know how to get the tuner back into alignment or check and see how well it IS tuning... i'd rather leave that to someone who knows what they're doing. I wish I had the knack to get old beasts like this running again.

fujifrontier · #17 10-24-2011, 03:18 PM

Hey guys! It's been a little while...

I took the TV to a local shop which has been in business since the fifties.

After a month and a half of waiting in line the old man figured out it was the tuner which is completely shot.

He wants $300 to either:

A) rebuild the tuner
B) sell me his beat up 70s "subtuner" (which is what he calls it)

now, i was able to find a TV tuner bypass/substitute unit which apparently hooks right into the IF section on ebay for $20. It has manual gain control. Are there any modern alternatives to those old units?

He kept promising he would find something that would be automatic but then finally admitted he couldn't.

And btw what is the official term for those tuner bypass boxes?

DaveWM · #18 10-24-2011, 03:31 PM

wow, cant fix the tuner? its just not that complicated assuming its even at fault.

So a tuner subber was tried and we KNOW its the tuner. I would be looking at AGC voltage, tuner tubes, and voltage checks to know for sure its the tuner (I guess this was done by the shop). One last place to check is the balun, I had a smoked one on a set that killed the pic.

Did you ever clean the tuner? its not that hard.

holmesuser01 · #19 10-24-2011, 04:12 PM

I'd sure look into cleaning the tuner. It's not hard to do... $300 for a tuner repair? Sounds like he doesent want to work on it.

DaveWM · #20 10-24-2011, 04:37 PM

hmmm looking closer that may have a solid state tuner, so even less likely to be the prob.

cleaning involved removing the knobs, removing a few screws that hold the tuner/controls (it comes out as an assembly), removing the metal cover on the tuner (prob the hardest part of the process), remmoving a few tuner strips by pushing them back so they can pop off (do 8,9,10 stay away from 3 and 4), then using some tuner cleaner on a q tip wipe the fingers that run on the strip contacts, use more q tips to clean the actual contacts, put it all back together, and replace the cover (again the hardest part).

while its out examine closely the ant balun for any hints of burned wiring, check with a meter for continuity.

The Most important part of working on any old set is to not force things, (like screws and plastic parts). Ham hands will def do more damage than a light touch. Those plastic tuner strips have small coils on them, that's why I recommend only removing those channels that are not used for gaining access to the take off fingers.

if its a snowy weak pic that can be momentary fixed by careful movements of the tuner (not the fine tuning but the actual channel changing knob help partially between channels) then its no doubt just cleaning required. I agree
with the other poster, he prob does not want to work on it.

These old sets are somewhat labor intensive, that and the fragile nature of hard to get parts would make most folks want to steer clear.

DaveWM · #21 10-24-2011, 04:44 PM

here is a pic of the tuner on my philco, with the cover off

DaveWM · #22 10-24-2011, 04:46 PM

under the heading of "assume nothing", are you sure you have the ant hooked up to the VHF leads and not the UHF leads?

init4fun · #23 10-24-2011, 05:51 PM

UMMMm , , , , My Spidey senses are screaming "RUN FOREST , RUN !!!!"

That the price for either , vastly different "solution" , just happens to be the same $300 , , , Sure makes it sound from here that the repairman needs $300 to pay some bill or another , and thats why he's now finally willing to finally tackle the job ... I'd be bringing my tv home from there PRONTO , , finding a more honest shop , , , or be learning the nuances of tuner repair myself , were it MY tv .....

Yea , Really .............

Electronic M · #24 10-24-2011, 07:52 PM

It isn't very difficult to clean a tuner, I've done two tuners (both 50's Zeniths), and it was easy. The first one I did was much more complicated than yours (my old 53' Zenith has a super complicated mounting scheme compared to most newer tube sets including yours), but was still at worst only time consuming. It is not rocket science, just care, some finess, patience, and a bit of common sence.

If a repair guy told me it cost 300$ for a tuner cleaning I'd have to invite him to try my 100$ a job car wash.

marty59 · #25 10-24-2011, 09:40 PM

At least it's a turret strip tuner and much easier to deal with than a wafer switch type.

I'd follow DaveWM's approach with the addition of using a little vasoline on the contacts. Put the cover back on to minimize attracting any dust/dirt and the petrolium jelly will help prevent the contacts from tarnishing.

fujifrontier · #26 10-24-2011, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

UMMMm , , , , My Spidey senses are screaming "RUN FOREST , RUN !!!!"

That the price for either , vastly different "solution" , just happens to be the same $300 , , , Sure makes it sound from here that the repairman needs $300 to pay some bill or another , and thats why he's now finally willing to finally tackle the job ... I'd be bringing my tv home from there PRONTO , , finding a more honest shop , , , or be learning the nuances of tuner repair myself , were it MY tv .....

Yea , Really .............

Precisely, because he had been pushing the idea all along when I'd call to ask about the progress, that he was "looking" for a replacement tuner or another solution. When he called to say that he "had bad news" I said, "OK, $300 for rebuilding the tuner; now, how much to just drop in the tuner sub box?" Erm, well, $300, due to the expense of finding another sub tuner box and the labour of putting it in! is what he said. So then I knew he was full of it.

OH. OH. I called in today and played stupid, i said "well, if i ever find another one of those tuner boxes like you have, how much would you charge to wire it up?" and he said "$150 for the labour" LMAO! It didn't look THAT complicated, just a RCA-style type connector that connects to the IF section, pulled off the tuner.

I visited the shop and saw the TV running with the tuner subber box, it has a thrift-store-TV kind of passable picture, and needs a convergence. after that it will definitely have a watchable picture. It was an old box but could generate a crosshatch, shows severe misconvergence in the lower right hand part of the screen. the focus on it is a bit soft, however. the convergence doesn't really scare me as I have an old Sony PJ that converges with pots. it does suffer from a bit of overbrightness.

One thing I noticed is that when I would change the channel on the tuner sub box, I'd have to retweak the gain on the box and the colour settings on the TV to get it looking "good" again. I had him reassemble the set and put the tuner back in the way it was.

I really don't want to have anything to do with the tuner; I don't have cable and would prefer to feed it a component source, since that's all I really watch TV for is laserdisc or dvd movies. and to answer other questions, yes, I did have it connected to the right place :P

Electronic M · #27 10-24-2011, 11:09 PM

There are ways of feeding component video to these sets, and bypassing the tuner.
Miniman82 has a somewhat decent scheme to feed component video in to his Philco roundy. I believe that he had/has a timing issue that he plans to butcher an old delay line from another set, and build an amp scheme to compensate for the timing issue at some point. If I were him I'd try playing with different lengths of coaxial cable on one or both of the channels to resolve the timing issue (maybe I should suggest this to him at some point if he doesn't read this post).

Charlie · #28 10-25-2011, 12:12 AM

Fuji, I don't know if he's still in business, but there was a guy here in Texas that was popular for rebuilding old tuners for a reasonable price. I think there may have been someone here on this site that used his services. Hopefully someone here will read this and know who I'm talking about and speak up.

For giggles, I did search and found this guy...

http://godard.delhi.la.us/qualitytun...le.htm#pagetop

This may be the person I'm thinking off. Give him a call... might be worth it.

Also, I think you may find it beneficial to get those circuit boards cleaned. Your photo shows a lot of dust in there. My Curtis Mathes had a good coating of dust like your set... wouldn't show a picture at all. I got in there with a small paint brush and a vacuum to get most of it cleaned up, and then some compressed air for places I couldn't reach. I was really surprised when I turned on the power and there was a pretty decent picture (had a weak green gun so that didn't get fixed till later).

I figure if there's enough dust in there to hide the color codes on resistors, then it's time to do some cleaning.

Had a similar issue with an old radio.... I could only get static from it. Put all new tubes in it and still only static. Pulled all the tubes again and cleaned out the dust around the tube sockets... then the stations came in just fine.

zenith2134 · #29 10-25-2011, 12:14 AM

Gonna need a pretty long run of coax to make up for that delay,assuming that's the fault. hey also, haven't seen you at ak or vk in ages, fujifrontier. Dont get overwhelmed; these things sometimes turn out to be minor fixes like adjustments.
I personally would NOT suggest that you perform the mods necessary to inject component video into it yet. Reason being, if tuner troubleshooting makes you bat an eye this will be much more involved (to do safely on a tube set)

Charlie · #30 10-25-2011, 12:20 AM

Forgot to mention... I have a spare Philco roundie chassis.... I think the tuner is still on it. I'll check and see what the number is... I'm sure it will be the same as yours. I don't know the condition of the tuner; I never tried the chassis. Just had it for parts since I have a Philco roundie that uses the tuner with the green bar indicator (I don't think the spare tuner has this). I'll look for it tomorrow. You're welcomed to have it if you like. But hopefully, you can get somewhere with that guy I mentioned earlier.