Westinghouse K840CK15 Restoration

[etype2]

UPDATE, JANUARY 1, 2021
We shot a 4 minute video of “Meet Me In St. Louis” today. The movie is Christmas themed. I wish I could show it to you in HEVC (H265) or 4K, but don’t have the adaptors to transfer to my iPad Pro. So this MP4 will have to do for now. Please excuse the specks, there not from the television. Somehow some debris got on the camera sensor. Happy New Year. Westinghouse H840CK15 with 15GP22.

https://videopress.com/v/LzKGKOzA

[old_tv_nut]

Thanks!

[kvflyer]

Nice...

[Popester]

Very cool. Marshall, how many tubes does that Westy have? I bet that heats up the room just a bit. Childhood memory I have is of my Uncle’s cat would lounge on top of their tv because of the warmth the tubes would give. Just amazes me the America ingenuity we once had as a nation. It would sure nice to recapture that innovation and ingenuity again. That’s a time when American was really leading the world in technology.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by kvflyer

Nice...

Thank you.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by Popester

Very cool. Marshall, how many tubes does that Westy have? I bet that heats up the room just a bit. Childhood memory I have is of my Uncle’s cat would lounge on top of their tv because of the warmth the tubes would give. Just amazes me the America ingenuity we once had as a nation. It would sure nice to recapture that innovation and ingenuity again. That’s a time when American was really leading the world in technology.

Thanks. The Westy has 43 tubes but Mike replaced two 5U4’s with silicon rectifiers. Innovation: The problem as I saw it in my career and with America’s great electronic companies was a lack of vision. Example, RCA invented LCD and the top brass nixed the project, seeing it as competition to their existing CRT’s rather than the potential. The rest is history. Other companies look at short term profits, not willing to go the “mile”. I blame it on the “suits” not the engineers and scientists.

[kvflyer]

Originally Posted by etype2

Thanks. The Westy has 43 tubes but Mike replaced two 5U4’s with silicon rectifiers. Innovation: The problem as I saw it in my career and with America’s great electronic companies was a lack of vision. Example, RCA invented LCD and the top brass nixed the project, seeing it as competition to their existing CRT’s rather than the potential. The rest is history. Other companies look at short term profits, not willing to go the “mile”. I blame it on the “suits” not the engineers and scientists.

43 tubes!!! And I thought that 30 tubes (RCA 630TS) was a lot.

And as to owning cats, I can see that right now!!!

If only engineers and scientists were in charge. Can I go slightly OT? I taught Verizon FiOS installation. At first, the engineers ruled and decided what needed to be taught and how to install it. There were many "Don'ts!" like daisy chain outlets. You had to pull a homerun to every outlet. Eventually the "Suits" prevailed (AKA Bean Counters) and shortcuts creeped in like a submarine with screen doors. The rest is history...

[etype2]

Originally Posted by kvflyer

43 tubes!!! And I thought that 30 tubes (RCA 630TS) was a lot.

And as to owning cats, I can see that right now!!!

If only engineers and scientists were in charge. Can I go slightly OT? I taught Verizon FiOS installation. At first, the engineers ruled and decided what needed to be taught and how to install it. There were many "Don'ts!" like daisy chain outlets. You had to pull a homerun to every outlet. Eventually the "Suits" prevailed (AKA Bean Counters) and shortcuts creeped in like a submarine with screen doors. The rest is history...

Exactly. If the integrity of optical fiber is not maintained continuously straight to the clients home, the benefits are lost. Another great American company, Kodak, sold their OLED patents to LG.

Here is a photo of the sub-chassis with two SS rectifiers, new fan and 300 ohm, 50 watt resistor.

Edit: Also a relay installed to shunt high current from the on/off volume switch. We had a failure here when restoring a 21CT55.

[kvflyer]

Originally Posted by etype2

Exactly. If the integrity of optical fiber is not maintained continuously straight to the clients home, the benefits are lost. Another great American company, Kodak, sold their OLED patents to LG.

Here is a photo of the sub-chassis with two SS rectifiers, new fan and 300 ohm, 50 watt resistor.

Edit: Also a relay installed to shunt high current from the on/off volume switch. We had a failure here when restoring a 21CT55.

Yes, understood and thanks. Gosh, if we could go back a few decades and have Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and grabbed up the 15GP22 tubes, many of which I would bet were just chucked into the bin in good condition...

[etype2]

There was no Rose parade this year, so here, an encore presentation of the 2020 parade.
Four minutes, thirty two seconds into the video, we zoom in so you can watch the vivid saturated colors on full screen. Duration, 10 minutes.

https://videopress.com/v/Dsgtyac5

[etype2]

Update: The above video (post #451) cannot render the color fidelity of this three strip color film, nor can the Westinghouse H840CK15. Our endeavor is to demonstrate and document 1954 color television technology while this set is operational. One day, there will be an unrepairable failure. Until then, we enjoy the magic from this 67 year old beast.

The next four photos demonstrate the difference in color fidelity between a 6000 X 4000 (downsized here) resolution digital render by a Sony A6300 using manual controls and the same camera shooting video with MP4 quality, 30 FPS, 14.2 BPS. We pulled two frames from the video for this demonstration, beginning with photo, video frame, photo, video frame.

We can edit the look of the digital photo (jpeg) with the camera. The video is another thing having no video editor.

Digital photo.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...E51E35DFF.jpeg

Video frame.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...E2343BD07.jpeg

Digital photo.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...72378304A.jpeg

Video frame.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...7EC4D0C84.jpeg

[Tom9589]

Why didn't Mike Doyle replace the third 5U4 with a solid state replacement?

[dtvmcdonald]

Interesting to see that relay. When I got my CT-100 the switch on the volume control
was jumpered on. It would have been difficult to replace, and the volume control was nice
and quiet so I left it. I use the switch on the Variac (but unplug the set too).
That set was a lot kinder today to red and orange uniforms than it was to the Vikings
with their Q-ish uniforms.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

Why didn't Mike Doyle replace the third 5U4 with a solid state replacement?

Mike’s comments:

Hi Marshall. Recently I have noticed that the power supply voltages are not stable at the voltages that they need to be at. There are basically 3 voltages supplied here. The Westinghouse prints call them to be 410 VDC and 310 VDC, and 120 VDC. The issue with the variations in voltage are simply design related. The 310 VDC supply is also supporting the High Voltage regulator circuits and the bias on that stage is critical. I was having problems with the High Voltage regulator becoming unstable and causing fluctuations in the high voltage setting. I decided to replace the two 5U4 rectifier tubes that supply the 310 VDC with silicon rectifiers. I added a 300 ohm 50 watt resistor in the system to keep the voltage at 310 VDC since the silicon rectifiers are more efficient than the 5U4’s. I also decided to keep the 5U4 that supplies the 410 VDC since that is mainly for the sweep circuits, and that is all working fine.

Cheers, Mike”

[etype2]

Originally Posted by dtvmcdonald

Interesting to see that relay. When I got my CT-100 the switch on the volume control
was jumpered on. It would have been difficult to replace, and the volume control was nice
and quiet so I left it. I use the switch on the Variac (but unplug the set too).
That set was a lot kinder today to red and orange uniforms than it was to the Vikings
with their Q-ish uniforms.

That purple is very difficult to render properly, however my OLED reproduces the color well.