CTC177AD2 Chassis Eeprom

[Console User]

Looking for a Preprogrammed eeprom that would work in the RCA CTC177AD2 Chassis. My TV Repairman has used his supply up of the eeproms he had for these sets. I have a 1996 RCA ColorTrax Console Set.

[Console User]

Turn the power On and TV comes on with no picture and sound then goes off with about three times of clicking sound on and off. When it comes on it calls what I call Excites the Picture Tube as you can see the flashes around the edges when it comes on. If you unplug the set and repeat hitting the power button it continues to do the same.

Is this in the eeprom or is there an high issue of high voltage in the transformer?

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by Console User

Turn the power On and TV comes on with no picture and sound then goes off with about three times of clicking sound on and off. When it comes on it calls what I call Excites the Picture Tube as you can see the flashes around the edges when it comes on. If you unplug the set and repeat hitting the power button it continues to do the same.

Is this in the eeprom or is there an high issue of high voltage in the transformer?

First of all, check the ground tab at the horiz output heatsink.


If you have the schematic, check any voltage on the secondary of the flyback with a meter with a min/max feature. If the secondary voltages are high, the HV is too high.

There isn't a parameter for B+ regulation or HV regulation in the eeprom, or at least one that has any effect, but I have seen cases when the horiz oscillator was so far off (high) that it caused excessive HV and shutdown. RCAs of that era did try three times before shutting down.

A new eeprom would come with the horiz freq set below the normal rate, so when a new eeprom is installed, the horiz osc parameter would need to be adjusted upward.

A trick that we used to do when someone got into the serv menu and screwed it up or if the eeprom was corrupted by bad grounds was to add some capacitance across the retrace capacitor right on the horiz output. This would lower the HV to below the shutdown level and cause excessive width. Once the horiz osc was set, the cap was removed and the rest of the eeprom alignment could proceed.

Check the B+ out of the regulator. It should be 140 IIRC. There are two low value, high voltage electros in the power supply that started to bark just as these TVs disappeared from our shops. I seem to recall them 10uf at 200V or so. C4105 pops in my head but I'm not positive.

John

[Console User]

I am thinking what happened to the set may have been caused by what I tried to do.
We were watching a program and someone in the household complained about the way the set looked. I entered the Service Menu as I had done many times before and was going to adjust the three color drives and I am thinking hit the buttons when I wasn't into the V76 to do those adjustments. It recently had grounds and etc. checked and repaired and he ran short little wires where he felt it was a problem area and soldered them in. It is probably myself who has it not working.

[joe111671]

I have this. It's not for AD2 but if anyone knows if it's in the ballpark and might work, you can have it for shipping. Socket included.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by joe111671

I have this. It's not for AD2 but if anyone knows if it's in the ballpark and might work, you can have it for shipping. Socket included.

The CTC17X series was very forgiving on eeproms, and that one may work fine. The features may be different though. I used to stock only four for the whole line, most of the differences were in customer menu items. When I put in a new eeprom, sometimes the TV would now have a couple extra features like speakers on/off or show stereo adjustments when the TV was mono, etc.

But IIRC, there was a later micro revision whose eeproms didn't play well with the earlier ones.

I have to reload the RCA CD to my computer (didn't do that after last HD install). That will get me access to the exact part numbers and bulletins.

John

[joe111671]

Originally Posted by JohnCT

The CTC17X series was very forgiving on eeproms, and that one may work fine. The features may be different though. I used to stock only four for the whole line, most of the differences were in customer menu items. When I put in a new eeprom, sometimes the TV would now have a couple extra features like speakers on/off or show stereo adjustments when the TV was mono, etc.
John

Off topic but that makes me think of my 1997 Magnavox 27" BPC that I got new and still have, still works and never needed a repair. It was a bedroom set with very low hours. Years ago, I decided to try and get into the service menu and see if I could get the total hours on it. I don't recall if I ever got that, but I did see a bunch of feature options, and monkeyed around with it. Ever since then, it powers up with the volume muted, and a dancing remote graphic. It goes away after a bit, pressing vol+ or vol- gets rid of it too.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by joe111671

Off topic but that makes me think of my 1997 Magnavox 27" BPC that I got new and still have, still works and never needed a repair. It was a bedroom set with very low hours. Years ago, I decided to try and get into the service menu and see if I could get the total hours on it. I don't recall if I ever got that, but I did see a bunch of feature options, and monkeyed around with it. Ever since then, it powers up with the volume muted, and a dancing remote graphic. It goes away after a bit, pressing vol+ or vol- gets rid of it too.

Yeah, there is an options list on most Philips TVs printed on a label by itself or on the inside cabinet layout label. This continued into the plasma and LCD era that Philips actually designed. Later Philips became Funai, but that's another story..

We had situations where the options would get corrupted. I recall several that had no sound and the serv bulletins would have us go in and enter the proper option codes.

John

[joe111671]

Originally Posted by JohnCT

Yeah, there is an options list on most Philips TVs printed on a label by itself or on the inside cabinet layout label. This continued into the plasma and LCD era that Philips actually designed. Later Philips became Funai, but that's another story..

We had situations where the options would get corrupted. I recall several that had no sound and the serv bulletins would have us go in and enter the proper option codes.

John

I had no idea there could be an options list in the cabinet, I've never even looked inside. Now I'm curious about that. Someday I'll open it up and look for it. At the moment, it's just sitting next to my BT modulator. I turn the set on whenever I change channels on the converter box that feeds the modulator, so I can see what I'm broadcasting to the house.

[Console User]

Hey Thanks.

Hold onto it if you would and wait for John CT to chime back in. I hope I didn't corrupt the eeprom when I got into Service Menu and got into the wrong adjustment.

[JohnCT]

Sorry about the delay. I had to find a computer that had both a CD-ROM drive installed and a Windows that would run it. My old Windows XP machine had both, so I installed the PartsFinder program.

Now, your chassis (CTC177AD2) doesn't show up in the PF program, and the date of this version (the latest CD I could find) is 2008, so it should cover your chassis. It also doesn't show the chassis that Joe's eeprom fits, and this doesn't make sense. The CTC177 series lived in the 1990s and ended in 1996 or so to my memory, and my database is from 2008 and doesn't list either. Strange.

Joes part number does back cross to the BH2 and BH3 chassis series, but doesn't list the AH2. Again, weird.

But according to the PF program I have, all series chassis in the suffix 2 use the same micro: 222394, so the "preprogrammed" eeprom that Joe has will work in your chassis. It may have more or less features listed, but it will provide a fairly good running chassis if the eeprom is your issue.

I know I have other copies of this program somewhere, and I'll see if I have an earlier version that might cover your chassis in order to provide an exact part number.

John

[Console User]

The Repairman who works on my Sets gave me the following eeprom part numbers if I got it down correctly.
218401- CTC177AD2 Chassis; 22887 eeprom for CTC177AM2. This set originally had the CTC177AM2 chassis but someone changed it to the current CTC177AD2 that is in it currently.

I am still thinking when I got into the Service Menu and got into the wrong adjustment is what messed it up.

Thanks.

Rustin

[joe111671]

If you want to give my eeprom a try, let me know.

I got it back in the early 2000's for a set that was dead, I couldn't order just one, that's why I have a couple extras. IIRC, the new eeprom was close enough to get the set working, but to get it back to the exact settings of the original, the set needed to be powered up with the new chip, turn power off but leave set plugged in, then put the corrupt chip back in. The set would still power up with the bad chip, but the service menu options would now display the original values. Make a note of the values, reinstall the new chip and adjust them to the values that you recorded off the old chip.

It's been a long time, but that's how I remember it and the set came out fine. In your case, I wouldn't use any of the settings of the corrupt chip that you had messed with. John, does that sound right?

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by joe111671

It's been a long time, but that's how I remember it and the set came out fine. In your case, I wouldn't use any of the settings of the corrupt chip that you had messed with. John, does that sound right?

That's correct. I was an RCA ASC and we did it by the book, which was a new eeprom and a full chassis and tuner alignment. Any eeprom failure meant *something* was corrupt in the eeprom, and it usually affected a bunch of areas. I never used any data in the original eeeprom.

Back when a lot of these TVs were used on antennas or cable systems with no cable box, some servicers would replace the eeproms either with a new RCA chip or a "preprogrammed" one, and have issues with certain bands being snowy.

As an RCA ASC, we had to buy the TAG001 tuner alignment generator, which made alignments a snap. Basically it's a frequency agile modulator that had RCA video inputs. It worked on the RCA remote so if you punched in channel 2 on the remote, the TV would go to channel 2 and the TAG would display a channel two and modulate your video source on channel 2. Punch in channel 6, and both the TV and TAG would go th channel 6 at the same time.

Back when these were new, I was doing a ton of these and I could do a full eeprom alignment in about 10 minutes, including the tuner. These tuners covered 125 channels but had only 19 specific channels which had to be aligned/peaked. Tuner alignment only required a DMM to monitor the AGC line, and truth be told, you could do it by eye just watching the screen for signal level. The TAG generator had four attenuator switches so as each band's target channel was adjusted, I would just drop the signal and peak it for no snow. No DMM needed.

If the TV is only going to be used on channel 3 or 4, only one alignment point needs to be adjusted (three parameters for each alignment point IIRC) to cover low band VHF. Full alignment is no longer needed.

John

[Console User]

Originally Posted by joe111671

I have this. It's not for AD2 but if anyone knows if it's in the ballpark and might work, you can have it for shipping. Socket included.

We got the Set into the Repair Shop Today. It tested it was getting high voltage when the set was turned on. He replaced several capacitors and still would not turn on with the voltage set below 120. He had an eeprom out of a chassis he uses to test sets with. The Set fired up. He then installed the eeprom you sent me. It came on. I left the Set with him as he wanted to check for anymore weak or failing capacitors. He was going to greyscale etc. He was hoping to be able to get the excess blue out of it. The Picture Tube tested real good yet with his checker as that is where he started before making any repairs to it.

Thanks so much for the new eeprom. It brought life back to my Old 96 RCA Console Set. I'll update again once he is completely finished with it.