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  #1  
Old 10-05-2012, 10:24 AM
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AiboPet AiboPet is offline
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Singer TV6U

Just got this GREAT looking little set...Will post pics later:

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/singer_tv6u.html

It has a very odd curiosity though. All I have is a raster. A good bright one that fills the screen MOSTLY, but instead of the usual vertical raster problems I see in things like this, I actually have a dark left side. About an inch from the left side I get a fade all the way to ALMOST black. Turning the brightness down will bring it to ALL black except about the last inch of the RIGHT side.

It's not really a runner. I have no reception here at work....but also can't get even a hint of the couple Mexican stations I can usually get. Flipping the little "addon" looking tuner on the bottom from VHF to UHF does pretty much nothing. I can hear through the very faint audio just that I AM switching channels even though I don't even have snow.

All the geometry pots do appear to do their thing at least as far as I can tell from a blank white raster. The pictures on the site I posted up there really don't convey how SMALL this thing is..... It is only a 6" set, so it's a bit astonishing to see this early '60s set is only about as big as one of my 5" "cheap chinese sets".

I did see for the very BRIEF time I had the cover off...there is one VERY large bright yellow flat cap at the top of the thing. It "appears" okay, but I have no idea where this thing is in the circuitry, and if it's one of those I should just replace without question. I still have no capacitor checking abilities.

Anyone have pointers on where to start on this thing? It's built like a TANK...and took me awhile to figure out getting the cover off. This is one I'm likely to try and find a SAMs for. If I could get it to get any reception at all.....It looks like it would be a runner. It certainly IS a very good looking quirky set.
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My current "holy grail" is trying to get enough parts together to get a Singer TV6U going. Been kicking my ass for nearly a year now :-P

Last edited by AiboPet; 10-05-2012 at 10:30 AM.
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Old 10-05-2012, 11:33 AM
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jr_tech jr_tech is offline
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Sorry, never looked inside mine, but here are links to older threads:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=255340

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...ghlight=singer

jr
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  #3  
Old 10-05-2012, 12:13 PM
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AiboPet AiboPet is offline
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Cool!....Thanks Jr for the two threads.

I'm still at work where the thing showed up via UPS yesterday.....So I had briefly messed with it, but it hasn't come home yet to where I have a "known good" TV channel (my own in-house)...and a pattern generator.

SEEMS to act like if it got any signal at all, it would jump to life. I'm just concerned that I don't even have snow or "static" in the audio but REALLY faint. Almost like I'm gonna find no tuner at all when I get it home. This set is perfect and in completely unmolested condition...with it's little piggyback AC power pack. I think at some point it stopped working and nobody ever looked at it. Also got the 12V car cord for it (proprietary with a box inline)...and a REALLY tired looking leather kinda case that looks like a chinese take-out box that it came in.

REALLY like this set...and DO want this one to be more than just a shelf queen. I am deffinately going to be looking for a real SAMs for this one.
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Old 10-05-2012, 12:21 PM
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Is it just a white raster with no snow? If so, assuming the I.F. strip is fine, the tuner might just need a good cleaning. If that thing has been sitting a long time (probably has) the contacts in the tuner kinda glaze over with corrosion and impurities from the air. I've had that happen to several sets that were in storage a long time. A shot of De-Oxit cured them and they still are working great. Good luck with that cute little set It's one of the ones on my "wish" list. Made by Mitsubishi IIRC.
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  #5  
Old 10-05-2012, 12:52 PM
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AiboPet AiboPet is offline
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Yeah......Saw almost IMMEDIATELY it was all Mitsubishi inside. I hope nothing is wrong in that little bolt-on tuner underneath. It resembles just a Klondike Bar with wires coming out.....potted or sealed maybe? I assumed this is the UHF tuner, but there IS a selector in that bottom unit for VHF/UHF. It's quite obvious the VHF tuner is on the right side though in the main TV set.

I thought at first that if that unit underneath is seperated (looks like two small jacks are all that is between them)...that this set just becomes a VHF set, but have to look and see if that selector is simply a switch to one of those two jacks. I do know there is a seperate WEIRD connector for a UHF loop that I don't have in the back of that bottom piece.

Problem appears to be past both these tuners....no difference if switched to UHF or VHF. I'll know MUCH more when I get it home to where my pattern generators and stuff are. If I see nothing from my in-house transmitter, I'm gonna start looking around to see if I can poke just video/audio in somewhere for testing. I wanna see if I have other things to tend to in the picture geometry.
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My current "holy grail" is trying to get enough parts together to get a Singer TV6U going. Been kicking my ass for nearly a year now :-P

Last edited by AiboPet; 10-05-2012 at 01:00 PM.
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Old 10-05-2012, 01:56 PM
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I have one, it works pretty good, but needs to go see Terry for a re-capping...They ARE built like tanks...Them and the Sony 5-303 series...They'd hadn't figgered out how to make 'em Cheap 'n' Nasty yet...One of these weighs about 2-4X as much as one of the dreadful "Last Gasp" 5 inchers of a few years ago...Of course, one of these or the aforementioned Sony has umpteen times the parts in 'em...
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Old 10-05-2012, 02:17 PM
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The switch that selects the tuners may be dirty as well. I hope it is something simple like that.
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  #8  
Old 10-05-2012, 05:41 PM
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AiboPet AiboPet is offline
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Nope....no such luck.

Looks like that whole tuner/IF board is dead on the right side. Was able to seperate it out and give the set pure video. Some minor stuff has to be dealt with in picture geometry....but was somewhat passable. It is likely something on the little board right next to the VHF tuner, because I refuse to believe both the UHF and VHF tuners are actually dead. Looking at the two "jacks" that the UHF item underneath plugs into, The jacks simply interupt the tuner outputs and put that toggle switch into the circuit. The two jacks unplugged simply switch the VHF back in.

This set has that UHF item as an addon. If the set worked at all....it would become a VHF only set simply by undoing the four little screws underneath and pulling that unit off.

I keep seeing on ebay these little standalone tuner boxes for servicing TV sets.....I sorta wish I had one right now so I could continue playing with this set. For now though...I guess I'm gonna leave it alone until I can figure out whats up on the little IF board. There is also some weird thing going on with the channel 12 position of the VHF tuner. It shorts something out and that board gets REAL HOT in one section until you turn it OFF that channel.
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My current "holy grail" is trying to get enough parts together to get a Singer TV6U going. Been kicking my ass for nearly a year now :-P
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Old 10-05-2012, 06:34 PM
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Eric H Eric H is offline
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Those are really cool looking little sets, I always hoped to snag one myself someday.

I would bet it just needs a recapping being almost 50 years old.
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Old 10-05-2012, 07:36 PM
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AiboPet AiboPet is offline
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Yup.....has LOTS of small ones, couple BIG ones. I'll be able to start with the little board I know is dead though. It's probly gonna need some silicon as well. Like I said up there, I can get sound by injecting audio to one side of the volume pot....and I can get a rudimentary picture by connecting just a video signal to the "green" shielded cable that was coming off the little IF board. It's not a great picture of course since I'm just connecting a straight video out from a little DVD player....bypassing AGC and this ISN'T the signal that line wants to see.

The vertical has gotten narrower though since I started messing with it....so I think I need to just leave it be for now and stop running it till I'm actually FIXING it. I did just open the VHF tuner cage and just give it a good spray of de-oxit. For some reason that stopped the "channel 12 grounding something out" problem. Either I fixed whatever that short was.....or I rendered the tuner completely useless, who knows. I did make it a point to NOT touch all the little windings on the "barrel". I have bad luck with tuners....and have NEVER fixed one before if it's beyond just a cleaning.

I'm hoping that since BOTH tuners don't get anything, the problem is in the IF board right next to the VHF tuner. That was where I saw and felt the "getting hot" on channel 12. The picture would also wig out like I was shorting something when I saw that. Turn it OFF channel 12 and everything would go back to "plain white raster" and that board would stop being hot. Likely this is what killed the set in the first place.
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My current "holy grail" is trying to get enough parts together to get a Singer TV6U going. Been kicking my ass for nearly a year now :-P

Last edited by AiboPet; 10-05-2012 at 07:49 PM.
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