Recently Acquired 1969 Motorola Color Tube Tv

[Lain94]

Update: Another dumb moment for yours truly turns out the Klixon brand thermal degaussing switch actually was fine all along. I am so used to most old tv's having the disc style posistors and thermistors failing that I just assumed as a given the degausser switch was bad as well...I was wrong and am kicking myself for it. First off there were no symptoms of the switch actually having failed since there was never any discoloration on the tv screen indicating that. I was looking for a problem that did not exist out of preemptive paranoia. Talked to an older gentlemen who is a semi-retired tv repairman and former zenith/motorola tv/radio dealer that has a repair shop a few hours away in my state. He told me I won't hear the degausser kick on nor see it work because it all happens BEFORE the screen even lights up. He also said this switch is special and I can not just put in a dumb one button switch to manual degauss due to it needing a specific ohm range.

Good news....despite ripping it off it appears to still be ok and work as before according to my multimeter and thus I then successfully rewired it back on and lengthened the leads and secured it back onto the chassis after a bit of patience and time.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Lain94

Update: Another dumb moment for yours truly turns out the Klixon brand thermal degaussing switch actually was fine all along. I am so used to most old tv's having the disc style posistors and thermistors failing that I just assumed as a given the degausser switch was bad as well...I was wrong and am kicking myself for it. First off there were no symptoms of the switch actually having failed since there was never any discoloration on the tv screen indicating that. I was looking for a problem that did not exist out of preemptive paranoia. Talked to an older gentlemen who is a semi-retired tv repairman and former zenith/motorola tv/radio dealer that has a repair shop a few hours away in my state. He told me I won't hear the degausser kick on nor see it work because it all happens BEFORE the screen even lights up. He also said this switch is special and I can not just put in a dumb one button switch to manual degauss due to it needing a specific ohm range.

Good news....despite ripping it off it appears to still be ok and work as before according to my multimeter and thus I then successfully rewired it back on and lengthened the leads and secured it back onto the chassis after a bit of patience and time.

Yeah most degaussers work before screen light....One way to confirm operation is to stack another working tube color on top, have it running, then turn on the set with the questionable degaussing system and see if it momentarily disturbs picture on the working set...When you stack working sets and use them like that you get used to seeing this.

[Lain94]

Update: Final two capacitors on Motorola replaced. Motorola is now 100% fully recapped and ready for final setup with HV, purity, static and dynamic convergence ect.

[Lain94]

Turned on tv for first time since last two remaining electrolytic capacitors (they were on pincushion board) replaced. No noticeable improvements but not worse off either I suppose. The HV anode cup is quit rigid due to age. Could the anode cup being rigid cause any issue when trying to measure HV or cause issues with the raster or picture in any way? Is it a good or a bad idea to replace the anode cup? It does not seem to be a particularly costly thing to replace luckily as they were commonly made for many decades after vacuum tube tvs stopped being made since CRTs were still a thing into the 2000s.

Here is a image of what it looks like with a grid pattern on the screen. Seems to be possibly still having linearity issues or pincushion issues? Or do I just need to adjust control more?

https://imgur.com/a/F07YAyr

[old_tv_nut]

The only concern with the high voltage cup would be if it arced - no effect on picture otherwise.

The pattern looks vertically compressed near the very top. You can try adjusting the vertical linearity to see if it can be improved without bad results elsewhere. A DVD with an Indianhead test pattern might be helpful at this point.

Sometimes when the linearity is best over-all, it may be a bit out at the extreme top. This is the case for my RCA CTC-5. I don't know what could fix it, so I just use the best compromise setting. Maybe fresh tubes in the vertical section?

Anyone else have a idea what could be done to get closer to perfect?

[Lain94]

Vertical issues seem to have improved with me adjusting the controls, along with patiently waiting for the tv to fully warm up for a full 20 minutes as recommended by the photofact for the tv. It is interesting that while the tv can generate a raster and image and become watchable in less than a minute, optimal performance indeed does take a decent chunk of time.

This should have been obvious to me but this is coming from someone who grew up with solid state CRTs and never actually used an old tube set let alone saw one up close up until I was given this tv for free.

Either way aside from the minor yellowish cataracts and slightly off dynamic convergence for blue, the picture is not bad considering the age of the tv and the hours the CRT has had on it. I am done with the restoration of this tv and have been able to enjoy watching this tv for hours at a time without any problems for a few days so far! Motorola really did a great job designing tvs....Ford Philco on the other hand...I am not very impressed. This tv is very rugged and seems to keep on going after a straightforward full recap.

I caught a typo in the Sam's photofact for this tv as well, it says you can sub a 6LF6 (the tube this tv uses for the horizontal output) with a 6BL6 instead...they meant 6LB6 I believe. A 6BL6 is a very uncommon tube that has a completely different pinout.

https://imgur.com/a/MJrNeaJ