RCA Roundie Test Jig Resto
 

Finally got one of these things, only took 3 years of searching!
I'm going to restore it, this thread will document the process.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...3&d=1421362294

i love this!cant wait for your resto posts

Local, or eBay find?

This should be one of the easiest restos you ever do, Nick. Just clean it up, and provided the paint is good, and none of the few parts that are in it are bad you should be home free.

No CTC-2 IF headaches, no prototype chassis that has no documentation and loose hanging leads, no problem...:thmbsp:

You'd think it to be easy, but honestly it needs a lot of work. The cabinet has bad paint and some rust issues, so blasting and repainting/powdercoating is likely on the table. That and the CRT may be bad, I'm not sure what to make of the test results yet. The emission needle creeps lower and lower like there's leakage between elements or something, and the cutoff adjustment doesn't exactly work like it should either. Might be gassey I'm not sure, only way to know for certain is to put HV on it and see what happens.

Great score Nick!:D Hope you have all extension cables, too, but I know cables can be made. I have a CTC-11 metal cabinet with a so-so FB that will be converted to a jig (no chassis came with it), but will wait for warmer weather here in the northeast to do the work in my garage.
Kevin

Very nice find. I see that the HV meter has the newer-style RCA logo, so it must have been replaced once.

Nothing could be better as a roundie chassis test jig than another real roundie!

Saw that too, I think it was either replaced or installed later if it didn't originally have one.

I have that same jig, but not meter installed, my guess is it was added.

It's a test jig can't be much to restore.

there could be a lot more to these things than you'd think:
-HV monitoring
-convergence/geometry boards
-tuner?

Curious, why would the CRT be weak? Unless they used seconds for test tubes...

Back in the day a jig could of ran many hours a week in a busy shop.

Nice find Nick. Doubt the jig had even an original meter on the front covering up the lettering. Hope you re-paint in the original color and try to duplicate the RCA logo & color test jig decals on the front. Reinstall the meter above the RCA logo. I'll follow the progress w/interest.

-Steve D.

Man, that is just too cool. Looking forward to seeing the restoration progress.

I parted out one of those jigs a few years back; I still have the crt with 'test tube' etched in the glass. It's possible that I still have the meter.

Found this on the internet. No meter indicated. Notice the multi-color logo found on consumer sets below the screen on this version.

-Steve D.

Steve,


That's interesting that the mask on that one looks like a production CTC-11 one, whereas mine is blank. The one I have doesn't say 'color' beneath the CRT.

The meter was an accessory to the rectangular jig. RCA also made a portable jig with an hv meter installed. Both the later rectangular jig and the portable came along in 1970, and had a cable set for the CTC40. Additional cables and accessories were needed for CTC2X and CTC3X chassis, and both matured until the ColorTrak chassis. We had both, and used only the rectangular jig. The lil' blue portable was sold to a kid right out of tech school, sometime after 1980.

...and i have a 13A100 HV exension cable, NIB if you need it. All my other adapters are for the rectangular jig.

Probably do need it, most of the wiring in this thing is electrical taped... :smoke:

I used to have one of those, but it didn't have a meter on the front. Like a dumb a**, I threw it out in the early 90's. I remember thinking, "Whoever in the world would want a round tube test jig?" Now, they're a pretty rare piece.

Got the cabinet stripped apart, gonna see a guy about blasting it bare tomorrow. Hopefully there's a local place that will do hammer tone powder coating in the original blue, meantime I have to see if I can weld the front panel back together. The HV meter on the front was a later addition, so I'm gonna see if I can put it back the way it was. If not, a new piece will have to be fabricated.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...4&d=1422849897

Nick,

Need a convergence or yoke extension cable? I've got a 24-30" long one for the rectangular service jig with the molex plugs. I also have the bare octal plug and socket so you can make one from the parts, just transfer wires right over. Interested?

I think I can salvage what I have here for the yoke wiring, if not I'll get in touch.

I have been in contact with a local powder coating place in Virginia Beach, and finally took the cabinet over there to have them look at it. Doing the whole cabinet comes to $150 out the door, but there's a catch. The blank off panel where the knobs of the chassis would normally be had a hole in it for a non-original HV meter, and it needs to be patched before proceeding. The welding shop I went to said its not possible to patch, due to metal warpage- you'd always know it was repaired. So they are making me a whole new one for like $50, when done it will get dropped off at the powder coating place. I should have the whole cabinet done next wee, the color will be satin (semi-gloss) black.

Nick,

Anyway you can have the original graphics reproduced? Did you photograph or scan them when the panel was removed?

-Steve D.

Me, I'd leave the meter in - it was a mod kit from RCA, and many shops had them. Our roundie jig was an old metal cabinet set, and we just hung a HV probe in the back, but the RCA meter would have been much cooler. Yes, the mounting location is right by what RCA published.

The kit was part number 10J110, and was a retrofit for all RCA jigs made before 1968, and had instructions for the Tele-matic jig as well. The RCA portable jig(s) already had the meter.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/...#search=%22rca jig%22

If I were you I'd leave the meter, if anything for the coolness factor.

I think It'd be pretty awesome to have a TV with a working meter on it, and if something starts to go wrong with the HV, that meter would certainly inform you.

It's not a TV, but rather a test jig. All it there is to it is a cabinet CRT, and the deflection yokes. It has no chassis, but is used to plug console chassis that are being repaired into to allow easier servicing of consoles.

Problem with the meter is it's a later production one with the wrong RCA logo. If it had the old meatball on it I'd have moved it elsewhere, because I want the stencil on the front to remain intact. I can always put it on a bracket on the back, but HV isn't diagnostically important to most service jobs unless the job is specifically a lack of HV. I typically verify correct HV once when I do the horizontal circuit setup, after that if there were a problem you'd know.

Steve,

The stencil on the front is probably gonna have to be done by an artist, maybe I can have someone who does pinstriping or air brushing take care of it. Suppose if I had to I could always have the guy at the mall who does T-shirts make me some stickers, and that way I could paint it in myself.

Made in 1970, the meter/kit HAD to have the new RCA logo, which debuted in 1968. You will not find a meter with the old meatball logo. The original, and only HV meter for your jig had the new RCA logo, as do all others.

Wish I could get a HV meter with the early meatball, but I guess it's not meant to be.

Here's the finished cabinet, just came back from powder coating today. They did a satin black on the whole thing inside and out, came out pretty good. Next step is cleaning up the original parts, installing them back into the cabinet, and finding a good 21FBP22. Oh, and I need a set of sturdy nylon feet. I don't think the jigs came with legs like the regular sets did.

http://miniman82.4t.com/images/test%20jig/IMG_0117.jpg

Can you get the bezel/lens off the old one? Get a meatball image, add it to the meter scale software, and print a new one on an Avery label - attach it to the meter, replace the bezel/lens, and mount.

http://www.tonnesoftware.com/index.html

Their meter software allows adding a graphic - we used a similar Win 3.1 version to customize generic meters in the cal lab back in the early 90s.

Nah, if I want to know what HV is I have a probe/DMM. I'd rather have the graphics on the front, it's gonna look killer.

Put the jug back in the refinished cabinet today, because Bruce sent me his CTC-16X chassis for some work. Worked like a champ, and I found out why RCA relegated this tube to the job of test mule- it's got a triad of dots missing in one small spot about the size of the tip of a pencil. Almost doesn't matter when viewing it at a distance, but was apparently bad enough that it was rejected. Still needs degaussed, but I'll leave that for another time since it's not in its permanent place.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...6&d=1439673520

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...7&d=1439673520

Chassis was sent in because the tint control had to be at one extreme to see normal flesh tone, a tweak to one of the chroma board slugs fixed that up. Also checked out the HV production since the 6BK4 broke in shipment, it needed a tweak to get it in spec. Now rock solid at 24kv before blooming, makes a really bright picture. Horizontal cathode current looked good, so I let it be. Ready for more service!

Looks awesome. Thanks Nick!

So why exactly did you settle on black?

It now looks extremely out of place, if not half-a**ed. From what photos you showed us before painting it looked totally fine.

I'd of just taken a 2x2" square piece of sheet metal and JB welded it to the backside of the panel, then bondo'd and sanded the front down before paint. You wouldn't of needed a new panel and after paint you'd again never notice it.

They said they can't do hammertone powdercoating, so I had to pick a solid color. They didn't have a blue in stock to match the original color so it would have been some waiting to order the correct stuff and it only comes in 5lb bags, so they wouldn't have used it all anyway which would have been wasted money for me. I ended up with satin black because it was in stock, it looks nice, the red stenciling on the panel will really pop against it, and RCA themselves did metal cabinets in black so it seemed logical.

Not sure what you mean by half assed, it was a professional place that did the work. The reason it had to be done was the top of the cabinet was pitted with rust, they had to do some sanding to get it back to good metal. That and like I said, I didn't want the HV meter in there.



I thought about it, but in the end powdercoating is a tougher finish that lasts longer. This will likely end up getting kicked around my garages, so I needed something that would stand up to a little neglect. Bondo doesn't play well with the heat of powdercoating, so that idea was a bust.

Plan is to have a sort of repair shop set up, so I can service chassis people send me. I want to be able to put it on a shelf and forget about maintaining it, plus powdercoating just turns out so nice.

I have to say that those colors are stunning! Only a few of us here would appreciate all of the trouble you went to. I am one of them!

I think it looks VERY NICE in black Nick! And if someday you want to make it look original, the powder coat will serve as a very good base to paint it with Hammerite Enamel. I used the Hammerite gray on my U-Test-M drug store tube tester cabinet. It was easy to use if you have a compressor and spray gun.

I don't see any point in making a fuss about having original paint color on a bench test jig. It's not like you painted a CT100 fire engine red :jawdrop: