Todays Goodwill finds
 

Well I stopped by the local Goodwill store again today, and here is what I found. Not really sure what I will do with all these small tv sets. I have no idea what the Vidicraft unit is for, well I do know, but I don't know what I will do with it. The Sencore vc93 i really do not have a use for, yet, but I thought no one there even knew what it was. Either I will eventually get a va62, or someone else may need it. Who knows.

The Emerson looks like its color..

The Emerson is color and from 1998. The Magnavox is also color from 1987.

I think I used to have a red-case version of the magnavox. Does it have a green-led clock?

I have never been able to luck-up on finding a piece of Sencore equipment @ a thrift store. You sure were lucky on that one!

Back when I was in the biz, I only had one piece of Sencore equipment. It was a $500 isolation transformer/variac/leakage tester. Sencore's high prices were way out-of-line compared to their competition. They made some great test equipment, but you sure paid for them.

I had mostly B&K brand stuff on my bench.

I always thought Sencore equipment was grossly overpriced! I don't remember them, building a tube checker, that equaled the B&K. I guess the Mighty-Mite was OK for service calls.
I just picked up a VA48 analyzer. They're the ones, that aren't as desirable as the newer one. It seems like a newer generation B&K analyst. Like GE, it's good enough for now. :D

Regarding finding any real valuable find at a thrift shop, some so-called volunteers, looking over the donations, also have their noses buried in E-Bay, at the same time.
He was checking some tubes, that were donated, on a Mighty-Mite. There was several tubes, he couldn't check, such as 45's. :D
There was no way, those tubes were going to be sold at that store. :nono:

The magnavox does have a green led clock. The sencore piece cost a whopping $2.99. Now I will have to find a va62.

I have not seen a microfiche reader in over a decade.

I assume the PR57. I got a nice one for about $65 with shipping on Ebay maybe 7 years ago or so....and a CR-70 a GOOD One-- works VERY well--for maybe 75....And a VA-62 (NOT 48) for maybe $35, 10 or so years ago....


25 years ago--all of that would have cost OVER 5 THOUSAND dollars !!

I still have a microfiche reader. What I need is a way to scan all the fiche into pdf files.

microfiche was antiquated years ago.. brings back memories of the library in the early 90s.
That color Magnavox from '87 probably cost a lot of $ back then. My parents had a G.E. spacemaker color set with fm am radio from that same year, and it cost a lot for such a small set. Had a Matsushita crt in it.

Only piece of test equipment I can recall buying at a thrift shop was a 70's Heathkit test pattern generator some 3-5 years ago.

I like that set on the lower right.

The thrift store I used to work at, anything they saw as a valuable donation went into a monthly auction at the store. Fortunately they didn't know squat about the Sansui and Dual I picked up. I paid under 25 bucks for both combined.

The set on the lower right is a Sears tv. It was $6.99. I really do not intentionally collect these, but I just cant let them go in the trash.

I hear ya. Same thing with my '70 Sony B&W portable. Bought cheap and too good to toss. Right now I have my feet shifted to the left because of what little space it takes up under my desk.

Yes, it was a PR57. I bought it right when they introduced that model, and it sure seen a lot of use.

I remember Sencore tried to sell it by suggesting we charge the customer an extra fee ($2 or something along those lines) for a "Safety Leakage Check" on every TV we repaired. They even gave me a supply of stickers to put on the back of the set that said it had been "safety checked".

The only problem was by that time, there were very few points on the average TV set that the customer could come in contact with to get a shock even if there were a problem. The input jacks were about it.

Does anyone remember going to a Sencore sponsored troubleshooting class? They used to sponsor them occasionally, and they were pretty good (if you were careful to realize what they were really teaching was how to troubleshoot using their equipment). I went to one on servicing VCR servo systems, and another on switched mode power supplies. I think I've even got my completion certificates around somewhere.

That was 10 years ago! Now, some of that equipment prices went clear to the sky.
The guy I bought the VA48 from, also frequents E-Bay for selling prices.
It's a shame that there's absolutely no support of Sencore equipment available.
Their lifetime guarantee isn't worth the paper it's printed on. :scratch2:

I got 9 pieces of like new SENCORE test equipment that I drooled over when it was new, about a week ago.

Now, I can do total NTSC work again!!

The cute little 5" Magnavox color set was known for the audio output IC failure. Some of these failures took out a fusable resistor in the power supply, too. I saw a bunch of them, as we were doing warranty work on them.

For only $4.97 -the local GW had a 7" Quasar monochrome portable model XP1772SJ with a slide rule tuner.

Dated Aug 1980, it takes 9 D cells under a side-mount cover. I plugged it in and it made nice crisp and contrasty snow.

Now, if I could only find a DTV converter circuit board that would fit in and power off those batts.

Some of the newer issue RCA DTV convertors are rather small and operate from 9 VDC. The circuit board is about the same size as the outer case, which is rather small. :yes:

Nine batteries will cost about as much as the TV. Those little units were cool. I can remember getting one a long time ago and watching TV in my car during my lunch break.

Seems that B&K stuff has gone the same way. Just try to get a reasonably-priced HV-44 probe.

Uh, that "Sears" SR200 make me sad :tears: In a container at a Centru de Colectare Deşeuri Electronice şi Electrocasnice (Center for Collecting Electronical and [Electric] House Apliances Debries) * ** from my neiberghood where 2 old poratble tvs (I think one had radio too). They can't be resold... they must be send to be destroyed.

* I've seen good thing there...
** I don't remeber if I've stoves.

It doesn't look like a VC93 to me - it looks like a VC63.....:yes:

You are quite correct it is a VC-63. 6,9 whats 3 among friends? I still do not have a VA62 to use it with. :)

The VC63 is the only VA62 add-on I don't have. My VA62 was inherited from my Dad. Dad was given his VA62, along with an SC61! A retired/disabled TV technician had it in his closet, unused and like-new. Dad fixed his TV, and the guy paid for his repair, and then gave Dad the VA62/SC61 combo. Dad handed back the payment, offered the guy some money, and they settled on free TV repairs for life for the guy. He died a few years later, and dad was never called back for any repairs.

I use it mostly for ringing flybacks, and use the bias supply often. I learned at an early age not to mess with IF alignments, unless you replace something in the IFs that require alignment. If it ain't broke....

A VC93 would be worth quite a bit more than the VC63...