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  #46  
Old 10-28-2017, 10:27 PM
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That Italian guy's converter box is pretty neat though.

What Tom said makes sense, link the tuner shaft to the tuner of a little fm radio. You could use an o-ring, or similar rubber belt, maybe. If you get it tensioned, turning the tuner will turn the fm tuner also, but it can slip too, providing for the difference between the two tuners. Better yet, get an fm radio with a digital tuner, and rig it to tune with a rotary encoder switch, and belt THAT to the tuner shaft.
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  #47  
Old 10-29-2017, 06:07 AM
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Originally Posted by MadMan View Post
What Tom said makes sense, link the tuner shaft to the tuner of a little fm radio. You could use an o-ring, or similar rubber belt, maybe. If you get it tensioned, turning the tuner will turn the fm tuner also, but it can slip too, providing for the difference between the two tuners. Better yet, get an fm radio with a digital tuner, and rig it to tune with a rotary encoder switch, and belt THAT to the tuner shaft.
If I can't use the Pye's gang capacitor to directly tune the FM radio I would likely find a way to mount the one from the portable to one end of the gang's drive shaft and run wires to the board under the chassis. As far as I know they all rotate a half turn so I wouldn't have to concern myself with pulley/gear ratios.

By the way I got the dial glass cleaned up. It was pretty filthy on the back too so after a quick test to make sure a light wipe with glass cleaner wouldn't damage the printing I just went to town on it and now it looks great.

Last edited by Jon A.; 10-29-2017 at 06:13 AM.
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  #48  
Old 12-28-2017, 10:23 PM
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Any update on this project?
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  #49  
Old 12-29-2017, 02:41 AM
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Nope, the now former owner balked at the cost to restore it and left it here. I have no idea what I'll end up doing with it.
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  #50  
Old 12-29-2017, 10:51 AM
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Nope, the now former owner balked at the cost to restore it and left it here. I have no idea what I'll end up doing with it.
Isn'"t that always the case! This is why I don't usually like doing work on vintage electronics for other people. I recently restored an old early fifties Goodmans hifi speaker from England, and it made me think about your radio. The last time I even touched a British radio was over 20 years ago, and that was a repair I did for a family friend. I've been collecting vintage radios here in Alberta since the early 1990s, and have never come across anything from the UK except some rather large transistor radios from the 1960s.
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  #51  
Old 12-29-2017, 05:01 PM
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Isn'"t that always the case! This is why I don't usually like doing work on vintage electronics for other people. I recently restored an old early fifties Goodmans hifi speaker from England, and it made me think about your radio. The last time I even touched a British radio was over 20 years ago, and that was a repair I did for a family friend. I've been collecting vintage radios here in Alberta since the early 1990s, and have never come across anything from the UK except some rather large transistor radios from the 1960s.
No kidding, I wasn't surprised. I had papers drawn up with the parts, supplies and cost breakdown and had a Mouser shopping cart full of every part I needed. He was expecting everything to cost about 50 bucks.

Well, this radio is of a British design but made in Canada; same dif I guess. I'm guessing only final assembly was done at the Ajax plant; I noticed that some components were stamped "Made in Britain" or something like that. I have a tuner board I could probably modify to work with it, that is if the right person shows interest.
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  #52  
Old 12-31-2017, 10:08 PM
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Yeah I thought that was a great idea to make sure to minimize interference in my stuff when I'm recapping. But then I tried it, and came to realize that you need a super-accurate/sensitive scope to be able to figure out which lead is the outside foil. So like... I figure now if my scope isn't sensitive enough to tell the difference... why bother?
Now I'm wondering how you attempted that test with your scope. I finally succeeded with it yesterday by touching the cap leads directly to the BNC port. Hooking it up to a probe would not work. However, my scope goes down to 5 millivolts per division so who knows if it will work with yours.
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  #53  
Old 01-01-2018, 02:37 PM
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Now I'm wondering how you attempted that test with your scope. I finally succeeded with it yesterday by touching the cap leads directly to the BNC port. Hooking it up to a probe would not work. However, my scope goes down to 5 millivolts per division so who knows if it will work with yours.
I mean, I guess I could've been picking up interference. My scope goes down to 10mV. I'll have to try it straight on the port like you say.
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  #54  
Old 01-01-2018, 05:59 PM
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I mean, I guess I could've been picking up interference. My scope goes down to 10mV. I'll have to try it straight on the port like you say.
Oh, and don't touch anything metal while you're at it, it'll throw the reading way off. Just a thumb and forefinger holding the cap body and that's it.

I would have used a BNC connector, alligator clips and a short piece of shielded wire as was used in the video but what I did was all I could do in a pinch.

With a probe you'll get the same amplitude with either polarity.
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  #55  
Old 01-05-2018, 07:07 PM
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Hm, I see lots of people have made videos on how to find a cap's outside foil, but more importantly the video I saw a while ago shows that many with a band end have been marked incorrectly. I had to dig a little but I got it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnR_DLd1PDI

This fellow mentions that one should be fine using a digital storage oscilloscope that goes down to 5mV per division but he demonstrates with an old Tektronix 547 so my BK Precision 1479A should work just fine for this application.
It finally occurred to me yesterday that the circuit in this video is far more complex than it needs to be. A double-pole, double-throw momentary rocker switch and the ultimate computer (Star Trek reference unintentional) - you know, the one above our shoulders - is all that is needed.

On a side note, I'm wondering how the heck I can make a scan of a dial scale that's nothing more than white lettering on glass. I would have to take it to a print shop because it's too big for a flatbed scanner and it has to sit perfectly flat. I'm wondering if even they would know how to make a scan of such a thing.
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  #56  
Old 01-05-2018, 09:30 PM
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That doesn't seem like the best idea, to be honest.
Well if it's legit too wide for a regular scanner, a print shop might be able to help. In all honesty, whatever scan you get would not be perfect enough to just reprint. You'll need to photoshop whatever result you get. If the glass is clear, and the letters are light colored, probably put a sheet of black paper behind the glass when you scan it, to give the letters some definition on the scan, bc, you know, the top of the scanner is invariably white.

The real question is, how do you plan to print the new dial onto the glass?

Last edited by MadMan; 01-05-2018 at 09:33 PM.
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  #57  
Old 01-06-2018, 07:41 AM
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The real question is, how do you plan to print the new dial onto the glass?
I've heard of printing on clear acetate film and sticking that to the glass, and I don't recall saying what you quoted.
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  #58  
Old 01-06-2018, 08:03 PM
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Eh, probably just the typical copy/paste fail.
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