1976 Quasar console
 

About two years ago, I went on a little road trip (approx 500km round trip) to pick up this 76 Quasar console. Got it from an elderly couple that bought it new in early 77 for 861$ (they still had the receipt for it!). They told me that the TV had been in their basement since about 1991, and that they rarely used it since then. They where happy to see it go to a good home.

The reason, I bring this up now, is that I kept the TV in storage at my stepmother house since, but in a few weeks I bring it home with me, and I wanted to know more about it.

Obviously it's not as collectible as a real Motorola works in a drawer, but it's still early enough to be intersting (to me anyway :yes:).

Please feel free to share your thought about this one!

Thanks!

My grandparents had the same set. My granpas brother was the local quasar dealer (marsden TV in Edgerton, WI) sadly its now a Subway...set was still going strong when i saw it 2 years ago.

I don't know much about Quasar...Mais tu as fait une bonne affaire ...If this set's working fine, it's a plus .

Quasar WID sets, Moto or Jap, are all showpieces in my opinion. :smoke:

Um, rare in these parts! :yes:Your set is a "Super Module Chassis" set - 75% of the set's circuitry is on the SF-panel super module. The two Super Module chassis produced by Matsushita/Quasar were the TS-958 and TS-959.

I have the Technical Training data for your set - description, receiver functions, circuit descriptions, troubleshooting, and adjustments. Last two pages are the schematics for the 958 and 959 chassis. I may also have the Service manual for your set - I know I've got a lot of TS-95x-97x manuals.:scratch2:

Interesting chassis - 7 safety caps from the HOT collector to ground!

Cheers,

Cheers,

Sounds like a fail safe design that would likely trip the breaker before the HV climbed high enough to do significant damage.

Hey , thanks buddy :thmbsp: I really quite like it. It may not be a CC flat chassis, but it's the nicest console I have for sure.

I'd be really interested to know what its strengh and weakenesses are. Zeno? :D

Nice, This one needs a convergence adjustment, I suppose the procedure would be available in your litterature?

As for it being somewhat rare, I suppose that when Motorola sold to Matsushita, a lot of people in the US lost interest in the brand maybe?

7 safety cap? Hey that's 3 more than the CC, that's somehting! :D

Does this set use a delta gun CRT? I'd be interested in knowing who made the tube (the EIA number on the tube label should tell us).

Of course it does! V25VCZP22

This is an interesting set. I can appreciate the Matsushita attempt at the "works in a drawer" design. Seeing that you're in Canada, I'd be curious to know if this set was built at the Motorola/Quasar TV plant that was in Markham, Ontario. That plant opened in 1971 and they only built TV's for the Canadian market there. I don't know if Matsushita took over that plant right away or not when they completed the purchase of the consumer division in May of '74. Do you have the exact model and serial number from the back tag on this set?

Where I worked there were not many Motorola / Quasar sets. I
only remember putting a few hoz outputs in them. As a rule
anything Panasinic made was of good quality. Usually very easy
to fix & good runners.
Later in the '80's we did start selling Quasars as a lower priced set.
They were good except bad flybacks.

73 Zeno:smoke:

Nope - but there is a 2-page description of the convergence circuitry for both the delta and in-line CRTs. Understand that Quasar technical training covers unique circuitry that an experienced technician would need. They don't cover mundane, standard or non-unique adjustments such as convergence.

Your set has adjustments for all aspects - and the board is labeled as to what each pot/coil does. If the red/green or blue is out of convergence in an area of the CRT, just adjust that coil or pot. Out all over? Start with a static alignment with the neck magnets, and then perform a dynamic adustment using the pots/coils on the convergence board. The pots/coils are marked with their function, e.g. TOP BLU HORIZ or RIGHT R/G VERT.

Hope this helps - it would help to know if you've ever converged a TV.

Cheers,

The Quasar CRT's of that era were Sylvania. They seemed to be very long lived. :thmbsp:

Dreamsbeard, check your private message ;)

The Motorola dealers and distributors still kept handling them.
The part of the chassis, you don't see is the power supply. It has the voltage regulating transformer like Zenith and a few others used.
They referred to those as "redundant" capacitors.
Zenith should have stayed with the multiple safety caps, like used in the "E" line, instead of the single one in the "F" line. Cost savings, NOT!!!! :thumbsdn:

Seems rather risky to me to run a single-safety cap Zenith even if the cap is an orange drop. I doubt that they are immune to the kind of failure the white ones are prone to.

Not saying that it can't happen; but, I've never seen an open orange drop in a Zenith and I have not heard anything about one opening. On rare occasions, they have been known to short; but, all that generally does is trip the circuit breaker.

Only the earliest orange drops I've seen (early to mid 60's) in high heat areas of tube sets have showed signs (eye not fully opening in capacitance measuring mode on my heath C-3) of starting to go open.

Yep, it was built in Markham, Ont.

there are a lot of numbers at the back of the set...let's see :

- HY644914
- 68P72601A21
-47H31YWU9314NK

It would be logical that the canadian branch was included in the deal, so I assume that by may 74, Quasar was panasonic in canada also.

Ok, yes it's certainly a Canadian made set because of the "Y" in the model number. It's interesting to note that even though Matsushita purchased the Quasar division from Motorola in May of '74, it wasn't until May of 1976 when they had total control and ownership of ALL of the plants outside of the Chicago area that built consumer products. I was never quite sure what ended up happening with the Ontario plant after everything was finalized.

I never converged a delta gun before, I heard it can be quite a challenge even for the most skilled service man!

Deltas are easy: get purity right, throw up a crosshatch pattern, get static (center) convergence right with three convergence clover magnets + blue lateral on neck, then go after the dynamic (area surrounding the center) convergence controls (on the board with all the pots and adjustable coils on it). Be aware that the dynamic controls rarely are capable of perfection over the whole screen. So once you get it right inward of 1-3" from the edge of the screen, and can't get it better, call it 'done right', and be happy.

+1 - and concise!!

Important words above - "Be aware that the dynamic controls rarely are capable of perfection over the whole screen" - how true!

I bought some Zenith orange drop double caps at a swap-meet. They were NOS, loose in a large box. A beautiful, sun shiney day. They turned a darker orange color, by being out in the sun. I bought a few, for a buck each. :scratch2:

Now I almost have enough knowledge to do this. A couple of questions though: where is the purity control, and how would I know when it's been adjusted properly?

Purity procedure: with blank red raster slide *deflection yoke towards back of set until tye-dye picture obtained, use tabbed purity rings (located between convergence clover and blue lateral magnet on neck) to center the red spot on screen, slide yoke forward until uniform red screen is obtained, and leave yoke there, check work with green and blue screens.

The red field can be acheived in two ways: turn down green and blue screen controls (or in some sets [especially Zeniths] the CRT wires for a color can be unplugged which do the job without disturbing gray scale adjustment), or if you don't wish to adjust those controls and your color stages are rock solid you can send a primary-red test field to the set using a sig generator or DVD.

*May want/need to use external degaussing coil to degauss CRT face at this point.

Looks to me like your TV is Motorola's first Works in a Drawer, a.k.a. WID, set. Until I saw this one I didn't know the WID models were even available in the '70s; I always thought they first appeared in the early eighties. The later WID sets, further, had slide controls for volume and color intensity/hue, with some models having five push buttons on the front panel which could be set for the user's favorite UHF channels, like early car radios, so these sets must have had electronic varactor tuning. This is the first WID set I've ever seen with standard rotary VHF and UHF tuners, so it could conceivably be considered a "first generation" Works in a Drawer set.

WID came out in the late 60's (1967 IIRC). The 80's models were the last ones.
Aside from the first chassis or two there were usually low tube (less than 5) count hybrids available (some to be cheap, some because certain SS parts were not ready to reliably replace tubes) till the mid 70's.

Also, by that point, it wasn't motorola anymore that made those set, but Matsushita (Panasonic).

I think the switch was in 1974, and parts were getting unobtanium for "real" Quasar sets by 1980. I remember a hybrid set on our service route. that had a flyback go out (and a flyback failure in those sets were rare).

I remember how pissed the customer was because it took over a month for us to get that fly.

Beware the part numbers ! There are at least 3 different values
during the CC2 upright chassis era. One common one that comes
in a kit 800-860 ( on pkg but not part ). Another for the 13" and
one more for the EFL gun sets. I never noticed on later Sys3 sets.
I never seen them in bulk so be a little careful.
BTW what are the markings on them ??
Also they are single caps. One pair of wires completes the
collector circuit, other pair the emitter ( ground) path. They are
designed to open & kill the HV if the cap itself opens. You will
get good snd but zero HV. They can also short, then you get
loud hum followed by breaker trip. America Radionics ( white ones)
were not opening when the cap itself opened so the troubles.
Process for CRT necking is this.
S cap opens & HV goes up tward 50KV.
Vert module fails putting DC on the vert yoke winding.
Yoke overheats & cuts CRT glass.
Arcing damages much more usually.

This brings us to one more tip. Symptom is good snd, good HV
no raster OR a slight foggy dim haze. When you turn off
a line (no vert sweep) pops down from the top or up from bottom.
Its vert out fail that puts DC on the yoke & pulls the line off the
screen. Some electrons bounce around & make it causing the haze.
Since this can cause a necking dont run it long. Common in
Zenith, Maggy & others.

73 Zeno:smoke:

I bought the 800-860 kits and still have one or two. I don't remember using any of the bulk ones, I bought. That was when I quit doing any TV repair, on a regular basis.

Would you believe it, but I finally got around to adjust this Quasar, and I got to admit...its got quite a nice picture!

The only thing left that is bugging me is the constant brightness shift due to macrovision. I tough solid state from the mid 70's where not suseptible to that. JonA has got an Electrohome from the same vintage as the Quasar and he does not have the problem...so how do you guys enjoy your TV with all that macrovision Cr**p?

Wow! That is a great picture!

Yes the pictures is very good, and with a good convergence and focus, its almost as good as any 80s set I have, and color is better than my 86 Hitachi. The tv is only let down by not having comb filter and of course that macrovision...

I reckon the Sylvania CRT is part of the reason the picture is so good. My '79 Superset had one of the best pictures I've seen on an old set until the tripler went... and the focus control fell apart while I was trying to hook up the new tripler. Very hard to find an insulated-mount pot with such high resistance.

There isn't much or anything you can do about Macrovision, as it is a copy-protection scheme to prevent illegal copying of DVDs. If there is any kind of system capable of filtering out Macrovision, I am not aware of it; I doubt if such a filter is available, as it would be itself illegal. Hollywood and the TV production companies have been awake nights trying to foil these systems, as (of course) they do not want their programming being stolen. However, if the brightness of your TV picture varies on standard TV programming as well as with DVDs, the problem is almost certainly in the set itself, probably a CRT bias problem.

There are macrovision strippers all over Ebay and there have been many threads on it here....Some of which I think you've read and ought to remember.

It doesn't happen if he's playing a game on it.

Anyway, if this problem is due to Macrovision, I'm guessing certain RF modulators may be able to compensate for it. I've been using a RadioShack model 15-1214 this entire time. I got it and a generic (?) equivalent in silver at the Sally Ann. I'm using the S-video input but it was fine on composite as well.