COL-R-TEL on ebay
 

1950s COL-R-TEL Color Wheel Converter Mechanical TV NR - eBay (item 190257288438 end time Oct-12-08 14:01:21 PDT)
http://cgi.ebay.com/1950s-COL-R-TEL-...d=p3286.c0.m14

-Steve D.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/col-r-tel.html

An explanation of how it works.

Unfortunately this one is missing to many parts to ever hope to work unless you build your own circuit to run it.

And it's not digital. :thumbsdn:

Good one Carmine!!!
Kevin

That occurred to me as well. Who would want this adapter without the interface unit between it and the TV?

I also question the statement that this converter made "reasonably good color pictures" when used with a very small b&w TV. I cannot see how a color converter such as this, using a color wheel spun by an electric motor, could produce color images anywhere nearly as good as those from a modern color TV receiver. I would think color pictures produced by the Col-R-Tel system would be mediocre at best.

---

I have seen one demonstrated at an ETF convention and the picture was surprisingly good.

Listen to the video on the ETF Col-R-Tel page and you will get a nice description of how it works. Quite ingenious. The interface box picks off the color information from the signal and then makes the TV show the red information when the red part of the wheel is in front of the CRT, and so on. So you are viewing "real" color TV using a black and white receiver plus this gizmo.

Even though it's missing the electronics, this could make a cool display item for someone interested in early color.

Phil Nelson

Great display piece, and I bet it goes in the $1K range... But for every pair of Col-R-Tel chassis sets I've seen, there were about 5 wheels.

Charles

i see chris nailed that sucker. i knew he would ;-)

It was as the seller described, had been sitting in a very hot attic for many years, plastic windows warped beyond usable, some of the wheel filters warped too.

The good news is I've recently learned the filters can be flattened out again by laying the wheel on a table and carefully placing heavy books on top covering all the warped segments...for at least a month. [!!!]

The motor bearings were very dry as was the wheel bearing which took a while to work loose from the 53 year old gummed up lubriplate in it. A good treatment with Hammond Organ Generator [turbine] Oil and it will spin easily again.

The wheel itself is complete and I can probably make it work again like the one in my Avatar. Don't have an electronic chassis for it, but I've always wanted to build something like that from scratch, maybe using the Colordaptor plans from R-E January and February, 1956.

Film@Eleven

Cliff,

I think I have a parts chassis around here someplace, if you're interested I'll look around for it tonight.

I have my wheel working and one is enough for me.


Chuck

That's incredible!
 

I think it would be wild to watch that thing work. That image of Superman in that avatar looks beautiful. I saw another photo somewhere on here of one operating and the picture looked fabulous. It would be very funny to have to turn up the sound to over power the sound of the motor and whirling wheel. I wonder how much that set-up was when new? I would guess it was about half the price of a standard color table model. Maybe $350.00?

Im thinking the CRT he is using in that avatar is the one he cam and picked up from me, from a scrapped GE. good CRT :)

As far as warped plastic, the best for that is to "heat press" it. get some strong humidity/steam up the wheel to a high temperature and press it. and leave it pressed as the wheel cools down for the longest time period. I had to do this for my peter yatzcer wheel. hehe...


P.S. the wheel operates at a very low RPM, its hardly audiable. unless its scratching against something of course, or if the motor is shot.

From the June 1955 issue of FARM JOURNAL

I'm very interested! I hope it turns up.
Cliff

Yep, that's your 12KP4 making the image. It's pretty bright too.

It's possible, though time consuming and tedious, to make a color wheel spin very quietly. It has to be carefully assembled and all the mechanics in the best possible alignment. The most important thing is to 'static' balance the wheel to the greatest degree possible. I made a plywood 'knife edge' balancer so that the wheel can rotate freely while positioned on a shaft sitting on the two level knife edges, which are actually two large glue clamps.

The wheel will roll one way or the other due to gravity until the heavist part is at the bottom. You adjust the wheel position on the hub to re-center it until it doesn't roll any more. Then it is 'balanced'..That is the tedius part.

The Col-R-Tel wheel is mounted to the center hub with 7 screws. The screw holes in the wheel are slightly larger than the screws, so by loosening them, you can adjust and center-position the wheel on the hub for best balance.

After much tinkering and setting up the balancer, it took me an hour or so of fiddling using this method to get the balance "right". It makes a significant improvement in how the system works and how easily the wheel syncs up to the video.
The result is a quieter spinning wheel, less load on the motor and the
rubber drive belt.

Cliff

Yep, that's your 12KP4 making the image. It's pretty bright too.

It's possible, though time consuming and tedious, to make a color wheel spin very quietly. It has to be carefully assembled and all the mechanics in the best possible alignment. The most important thing is to 'static' balance the wheel to the greatest degree possible. I made a plywood 'knife edge' balancer so that the wheel can rotate freely while positioned on a shaft sitting on the two level knife edges, which are actually two large glue clamps.

The wheel will roll one way or the other due to gravity until the heavist part is at the bottom. You adjust the wheel position on the hub to re-center it until it doesn't roll any more. Then it is 'balanced'..That is the tedious part.

The Col-R-Tel wheel is mounted to the center hub with 7 screws. The screw holes in the wheel are slightly larger than the screws, so by loosening them, you can adjust and center-position the wheel on the hub for best balance.

After much tinkering and setting up the balancer, it took me an hour or so of fiddling using this method to get the balance "right". It makes a significant improvement in how the system works and how easily the wheel syncs up to the video.
The result is a quieter spinning wheel, less load on the motor and the
rubber drive belt.

Cliff

I thought all analog TVs were "digital convertor ready" #;^)