My 11 year old son's Admiral 30A1 restoration project
 

As a few of you might have caught in another thread, my 11 year old son Nick (for some ungodly reason :D ) has decided that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his dad and take up television restoration as a hobby :)

After a complete recap of the chassis (which he did himself BTW, with my supervision and a little help on the filter cans), we powered it up for the first time tonight. We've been working on the set on odd days for about the last two weeks. I gotta say, the kid is FAST at recapping, and his board work is pretty darn good! I showed him how I install new caps, and he's quickly developing his own style. His work is very neat, and yes, he's been educated about all safety protocols in doing this sort of work :)

First power up with a variac tonight got us sound but no raster. Zero HV. But nothing blew up, shorted, squealed, or smoked. And that's not bad at all. Time to start checking resistors and replace the selenium rectifier (which yes, I should have done first).

Am I a proud dad? You betcha!!! And hey, we got to listen to some Jeopardy too! :D

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1409962278

I'm so glad to see the younger generation getting interested in these restorations. Hopefully the knowledge won't die with us old farts.

Awrite ! Go Tim ! Go Nick ! Wish I had a "Young 'Un" to pass along my copious knowledge to.. Aww, shit... Who am I kiddin' ?!? THAT would only take till about 1.30 tomorrow afternoon, at the most..

I bet you are one proud daddy!

Hey! That'a nice story. Glad the youngster is plugging along.

Best of Luck to you both.:smoke:

Could not agree MORE !!

I started recapping tube radios a year of two younger than that, and my folks somehow managed to keep me from discovering TVs for several years thereafter. It is a good age to learn things like this, and he is lucky to have you to help him with TVs. I had to teach myself to fix TVs over the course of ~three years with as many sets to putter around with, and almost no source of advice.

It's pretty neat to see someone young these days following in dads footsteps. And from what I've gathered he'll have a very well rounded skill set as a young adult. That's certainly something you deserve to be proud of. :thmbsp:

That thing uses a selenium rectifier ? no hv i'd check like you said the resistors , also beware of the doorknob cap if it uses one , they can knock out hv , and ofcourse tubes even if test goodcould be suspect.

Way to go Nick , my son has the same name but it is Nic since his is spelled Nicolas , he is 14 and never touched electronics but is good at all kinds of other stuff
mike

That's fantastic, well done.

I don't have kids, and I have wondered where my Predictas will end up when I'm gone. I'm guessing if Nick already has an interest, your sets will be in good hands for many years yet. Great news for a decaying hobby.

Way to go - When I was his age I was carting tv's home balanced on my bicycle seat
or on a lawn mower bottom if they were too big for the bike......

Good job to both of you !

.

There's a small selenium used create -6 volt DC for the AGC circuit.

That's really neat. Can't wait to see this set in operation, Nick and Dad.

Nick,

Great time for bonding w/your son. I see the set he is restoring is the exact Admiral model that was our families first TV back in 1949. I was very excited when my dad removed it from it's shipping box, powered it up and we had TV. I was younger than your son is now.

-Steve D.

Hey I think it's great that you son is interested in restoring that old TV, and he will probably do a lot more. It's a great way to learn about electronics, how to use test equipment etc. When I was about his age, my dad brought home an old Motorola table model, which got me really interested in TVs myself. I tested all the tubes, took out the chassis, looked for burned parts, etc, and it had great sound but only a wide horizontal bar across the screen folding in at both the right and left. I'd turn it on, listen to it, and always hoped that somehow if would start working. Well, it didn't, but I kept trying different things, adjusting controls, etc. I know now that it was a bad deflection yoke, but the set got junked, and then started working on others which I would most of the time get working. I bought a tube tester from Radio Shack, and someone gave me an old analog VOM, and next thing I know I was into fixing TVs, radios, etc, for friends, neighbors, and learning how they operate. After high school, I attended REI, an electronics school in Omaha, graduated, got my first class FCC licence, (which wasn't need for fixing TVs), and went into the business of fixing TVs, and everything else electronic. Gave it up as an income about 15 years ago, when everything went to cheap throw away junk, as there was no money in it any more. Only in the last couple of years, I got interested again, just as a hobby, getting a thrill out of seeing these old TVs working again. I also love to work on computers, upgrading them, etc. You sons interest could very well lead to a rewarding career when he gets older. (PS, yes I got bit a few times, but it taught me to respect electricity).

This place is quickly turning into a production shop, and I'm running out of parts!

On hold with the Admiral until the Sams arrives (I can't get the needed info out of the Riders because I can't follow them to save my life), so Nick is on to starting my RCA 730TV2, and my 14 year old son Joe and I picked up this RCA SHF-3 on Craigs.

I'm out of 6CG7s (need 2) and I'm totally wiped out of .047 caps. Placed an order with Capacitor World last week, so that ought to be in tomorrow or Tuesday.

Picture of Nick on the RCA chassis, and Joe on the tube tester. Where did all this COME from?!?!? It's not like they're alien to this kinda stuff, but they always thought it was "boring" until they decided to try it. They're back and forth through the parts bins and have things set up on benches and things are going at the speed of light. I'm answering questions and helping with searching out tubes and parts....thank God most everything is well organized.

EDIT: I found some 6CG7s. It's gonna be a busy morning once they wake up :)

Hey dont ask questions buddy!!!!

JUST BE HAPPY HE KNOWS WHAT GOOD IS!!!!!!!!!!


GOOD FOR HIM :)

What brand of electrolytics do they normally ship? I've been told Rubycon but also some people have said "not junk but not really great" brands too.

They have great prices on films though, and I don't care about brands as much on them. Plus if they ship from NJ that's probably "overnight" to me by USPS anyway here in Eastern PA.

I'm interested in giving them a try, but I want to hear your respected opinion first! :D

Turn them loose on your back-log of shelved projects. I'm kind of doing the same thing with my girlfriend. She enjoys soldering and desoldering very much, so I have to have plenty of things to do in that area to keep things enjoyable for her in between the advanced theory portions which aren't so enjoyable for her until things eventually click into place in her head and the light of understanding shines forth.


We can both hope that this isn't just a "fad" for our apprentices. Someone has to keep the thermionic lighthouse warm in the future!

Never had an issue with anything from Capacitor World, and I generally use the snot out of stuff that I restore. Dwight wrote up a review on them a while ago:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=260962

As I mentioned in the thread, I do my main stock of commons through them, but the specialty stuff I have to get from Mouser. Rumor has it that they'll be stocking 1 kV caps soon, which is a very good thing :)

And the project backlog is exactly why I wanted to get Nick going on the 730TV2. I'm paying him to do the work....if he can get tubes tested and base recaps done in the sets in the "on-deck circle", that'll save me a TON of time. He's a little wary of trying to do the filter cans by himself, which is fine (I'd rather be involved in that end of it anyway) but having him do the tedium of all the bypass caps gets my thumbs up :) . He's aware to look for voltages as well, as the 730TV2 has some 1 kV caps in it.

I havent seen capacitor world offered on ebay lately, How does one get in touch to place orders?
SR

Just go to www.capacitorworld.net

Myself and a few other collectors I've spoken to over the years often joke about where in the world this draw to vintage electronics started?! I was around Nics age when the passion began for these old radios and TV's. It's great to see young people finding an interest in this great hobby and keeping it alive. It's a pastime that doesn't get you into trouble - well, maybe financially! :)

With me part of it started with an appreciation for vintage music...Then an appreciation of the cabinet styling and amazement that some electronic equipment several times my age was still chugging right along. As I learned the principles of repair and operation I came to appreciate the simplicity and quality of the circuit designs.

Just fascinated w/'em all of my life. When I was a kid, I'd run & plaster my eye against the screen to see if I could see what was STILL going on in the little dot after they'd turned the TV off..As soon as I could read, I studied up on how TVs & radios worked, even tho I still feel a little to this day, THAT'S all BS, its REALLY Magic... (grin)

Same for me too! I used look into the back of TV's/radio's as a kid and wonder what was going on. I was fascinated. Suprisingly I never got into actually working on electronics, but drawn to research and collect these early sets. Although I've learned how it all works, it still is "magic" to me also!

From what I see in the CapacitorWorld catalog pages, they do not provide any lead pitch/spacing or dimensions of the caps; that could be a problem when getting the right size for PCB replacements with real estate considerations; not so much concern when doing replacements on vintage point-to-point wired chassis's. Also, are all the electrolytics truly 105 deg C rated, or is it just a "stock" description they use? I also think these guys deal with mfg's surplus and/or old date code items. Looking at Dwight's review/thread, there is no way to make a quality judgement statement about a cap saying it "passed" a 48hr or even 2 week burn in time (IMHO). Most inferior/aged caps fail in the hundreds to a few thousand hours due to age, high temperatures, poor quality electrolyte and/or dry-out, or running too close to rated voltage.

My 2 cents worth,

Tom (PK)

One can usually make caps that are not the exact same size/lead spacing work in tube era PCB based sets...It just looks less 'factory' than the right sized non-period correct caps do. :tongue:

I just ordered some caps from capacitor world, and yes they are still on eBay. I just searched for the values I needed and found them for sale through Capacitor World. Apparently the company also sells automotive paint as well. Hope they stay in business selling capacitors, as parts keep getting harder to find. I just did in a search on eBay like .47uf 400volt capacitor and found several of them including those from Capacitor World. I have had really good luck with their caps. Only problem is that I wish the leads were longer, as when you replace the old wax capacitors that were quite longer, I have to add extra lead length to them to stretch them out so they can fit where the old wax caps were. That's not much of a problem though.

This is a great thread. I bet the boys will have tube numbers, and substitutes memorized before long.

Starting right out on early post-war TV is quite an immersion. I only started with radios and worked up to the "easy TVs" of teh mid-late 1950s. What a start!

Well, he started out just messing around a couple years ago with some old caps and a breadboard, just "making things". Then, it was on to a couple easy soldering kits, and then, well, now!

That is so cool, Tim. My daughter built a crystal radio a few years ago when she was 18, but working on TVs is a whole 'nother world. I hope your son continues to enjoy the hobby.

SUCCESS!!! :D

Found a blown fuse in the HV cage, and we got full bright screen and a picture!!! The horizontal time base was screwed up (there were 4 images) and as I was adjusting the range control, the vertical sweep eventually gave out. Time to search out the vertical problem, but hey, it's holding HV like a champ with a SUPER bright raster!!!

Odd thing is that we couldn't get sound once we had the HV fuse replaced. Back to the drawing board tomorrow :)

Captain be aware early admirals can be known for ert osc and output transformers going bad , i'd check the resistance on them and if ok it is somewhere else
mike

Something he can be PROUD of from now on... Wish MY old man had tried to have done something like that with/for me..

That was my first thought. The picture started "winking" out, until it finally collapsed.

So here's where we're at.....something peculiar.

Vertical output transformer ohmed out fine as it turns out, I could have sworn that would have been the issue.

Now....

HV is great, but no vertical sweep, and hotizontal sweep is ONLY evident on channels that have a signal. If there's no signal, the screen goes dark. We checked and replaced a couple resistors in the vertical oscillator circuit that had drifted high, but nothing that was either shorted or open.

:headscrat :dunno:

By the way, the cabinet is back from refinishing. Looks pretty darn good! :)

Of course you've tried wiggling and swapping the vertical oscillator and output tubes, and cleaned sockets. You can check pin voltages against Sams, or if it were mine I'd have my nosy scope probe in there to see what's really going on. :D

That cabinet has some very cool grain patterns going on.

If voltages appear to be correct, I would be checking in the area of the sync amp/separator/inverter/network... possibly a component has failed that kills the vertical oscillation as well as making the horizontal oscillation "conditional" :scratch2:

jr

Regarding you're missing audio - don't forget you do need the audio cable plugged in between the main and power supply/audio amp chassis.