Who's CT100 is this?
 

Just spotted on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rca-Ct-100-1...ypes=og.shares

If the URL above does not work search ebay for item number 281658020830

Shortened URL here: http://tinyurl.com/kzwrqh2

I know it's a CT100 but the asking price seems a bit on the high side?

Good 15GPs are very scarce to put it mildly. Unrestored CT-100s were fetching 10K a few years back. I could see it fetching that price or close to it.

Whoa, still under vacuum.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

It's only an hour away from me, if anyone's interested in buying it and needs someone to see it in person......

The owner of this CT-100 named Pat contacted me thru my website. He told of the problems he was experiencing w/his CT-100. I replied that I am more of a color tv historian than a technician and referred him to Videokarma's early color page. I also mentioned my CT-100 is on the disabled list. Nice bright raster but having focus problems. I wish he had posted a photo of the complete set. And the previous photo when the set was working.

-Steve D.

I am the seller. I had posted 12 pictures and all but 2 disappeared. I am out of the country so I ended the auction and will resist with all pictures when I get home so stay tuned. This issue made me see that it needs to be with someone who can maintain issues as they come up. Does anyone have any idea what the fix could be? I need to turn the brightness all the way up and can only get a blue screen.

Probably bad peaking coils (the dreaded white crusty ones), mine was full of them and so was my 21-CT-55. The matrix output section alone has 6 of them, if not replaced they all eventually go bad. There's others though: in the luma path there's 2, the color sync section has one, demod, IF and nearly every other circuit they are present. If those were already changed out, it could still be bad caps. I redid a CTC-7 a while back with all new caps, and a few have gone bad since then. TV's are brutal on caps, especially the power supply and horizontal output circuits.

I think what you need to do is have someone stop by with knowledge of these sets, instead of selling it. It's likely to be something easy to fix, after all the CRT works and that in my book means it's totally worth bringing back to life. If it were full of air, I'd tell you to sell it.

Hi Pat, wondering if you got my questions on ebay. I asked if the cabinet number is 827, and if the tech's initials are KS.
Thanks, Kevin, stromberg67

The schematic is here.
http://oldtubes.net/library/free_man...assis_CTC2.pdf
And further service info and alternate versions of the schematic can be found here.
http://www.earlytelevision.org/tv_sc...color.html#rca

Get or borrow an oscilloscope and trace the signal forward tube by tube from the DVD player's input (to the set) to the base of the CRT. The point in the chain where you loose the signal will be just past the fault. So once you loose the signal back track part by part until you find the exact place the signal is lost. Then test and or replace all parts in the area of the failure. Signal tracing like this is probably the most simple and direct approach there is to this....Voltage and resistance checks on all the video stage tubes and CRT versus the schematic may also help move you towards a solution.

The cabinet number is 26. The tech is KS

I would love to keep it but I see now how difficult and costly to keep them working. Probably needs to be owned by someone who knows how to fix when it goes down

Why do these things always have to be half way across that galaxy. Would love to have it. :yes:

I would love to have it also, but can't afford big money. I could do the trip however. Post full shots when you have the time. I do have access to a retired RCA technician who worked on your set back in the day.

Its unlikely a single peaking coil could cause that, it would have to be more than one in the DC restorer circuits.

My CT-100 that I restored last summer had the same problem at
first light, and it was a bad resistor in the CRT screen/brightness
divider chain. However, my set still produced a (color) picture of
sorts with the master brightness all the way up and the color
gains up. I don't think that any single peaking coil can destroy the picture,
just remove R, G, B, or luma.

Also ... my set was frequently displaying the same symptom as the OP's
last fall. The set was perfect! The cause was a bad cable connecting
video to the input of the RF modulator; changing to a station
with no signal restored perfectly normal video noise.

Thanks Pat.
Kevin

If you know CT-100's, you'll know that it's ALWAYS more than one bad peaking coil. :smoke:

Yes, mine had numerous bad peaking coils. But its not likely that a restored
set that worked a long time after restoration would lose
more than one more at a time. This particular failure is more likely something else.

I had 12 pictures on EBay and all but 2 disappeared so I ended the auction and will resist when I get home from Japan on Tuesday. stay tuned.

Yes let's all stay tuned...:no:

:lurk:

Why does something as historically significant as the CT100 have to be restored to working by replacing factory original parts? I have no problem restoring other less rare and or otherwise abundant examples. I was just looking at Phil's CT100 page, all loaded up with imported modern parts. Originality is gone.

Many of the older original parts were subject to decaying because of materials
used, drying in the case of capacitors, heat damage and drifting values in
the case of resistors, and insulator break down for coils, dielectric material
that did not stand up to the voltages used.... In a lot of cases also once
a minor part went bad, it could cause over current conditions to burn out
transformers, that are not available to replace at any price....

Replacing a lot of those parts is just buying insurance. Insurance that the
older part might be ready to go- and that the new part chosen may be
of at least good enough quality that for the immediate future, the chance
of failure, and taking out a more expensive, and hard to find part may
not happen..... Like a flyback, yoke, etc....

There is also the argument to be made that the set will work better if
all the parts are brought back to their designed values. Tolerances of
some non critical parts were often specified to be 20%, quite a bit off
designed value..... And over time they drifted even more..... Doing so
for every part means you have to re-align all the circuits to achieve
the goal of a better working set... There are a few people here that have
done all the work required, and have been rewarded with a set that can
be run for hours at a time, and years of use without having to fiddle
with all the knobs with each use, and rolling picture after a few hours,
and constant retuning over the hours of use.... But really good parts
have to be used..... Any you have to be careful, or you end up with
more trouble than if you just fixed the original problem and used it on the
old parts.....



.

oops! double post, see below.

jr

There are likely more examples of original or "nearly original" sets around than those that have been rebuilt with modern parts. Most sets that can be found have dead CRTs... once the CRT is gone there is little to no motivation to rebuild the electronics. However, It is also good to have a few very good working examples for comparison to modern technology.

jr

Good reply! However, would you like to buy one someone else has already restored or would you prefer to do that yourself?

I don't have a clear answer to that... too many variables, quality of the work, overall quality of the operation of the set, price, location. Each set offered has its own merits to consider.

jr

We shall see what the Reitan CT-100 with working CRT sells for. The
reserve is a great deal ... but it won't sell for that.

When I restored mine, the aim was a perfectly working set. I did not
restuff parts. But I DID save all the originals. If someone in
the future wants the original look, they can do the restuffing.

The white peaking coils would have to be replaced with modern
ones inside a fake shell, not hard to do.

Someone may want to reinstall the original parts without restuffing. At some point it will not be important whether it works or not. What may eventually become important is the original parts with mfgr. names and date codes are present.

:boring:

That's a minority viewpoint among collectors, even of the rarest of rare sets--which frankly the CT-100 is not. Extremely desirable, but not extremely rare. TV sets in their truest original sense are appliances that must function to be of any value whatsoever. So it is a trade-off no matter which side you come down on. And I come down on the side that maintains originality as much as is practically possible in restoring the sets to work. And from a practical standpoint, a CT-100 is a far more impressive thing to demonstrate than to merely display.

Yep.

In your opinion. :boring:

I rarely will buy anything restored by someone else and especially when I see a boatload of yellow Chinese caps which look more at home in a transistor radio. The quality of the workmanship is a huge variable and entirely dependant upon the credentials and skill of the restorer. Phil has the credentials but I would not be a buyer for his CT100 when it eventually does come up for sale and I would like to find a nice one. I can watch Wizard of Oz on something else.

He's right you know.......
The choice of parts used is important. And it does matter as to the skills
of the restorer a lot. I would rather have an untouched set, than one
restored by someone.....

.

Is the set listed one of Ed's? If so, I saw it at his house years ago, but he didn't turn it on. I did get to see the CBS color wheel set in operation, and an early RCA B&W projection set. Both had fantastic pictures. Ed's house isn't far from mine, and I've wondered what's going to become of his sets. He was a really nice person, and I was glad to have met him.

See lots 510 & 511: http://www.earlytelevision.org/reitan_auction.html

Those yellow chinese caps are great parts IMO I've been using them for close to 15 years and none of my early radio projects (which I've been into longer) have had a single problem related to those caps. As long as your not enough of a clod to melt the plastic with your iron, or subject them to more than their ratings they are light years ahead of the wax papers in something like a CT-100.
I personally like restored sets. Most work, especially by those who do TVs, is as neat as factory. Also on large projects I tend to hit burnout. If I had to restore a CT-100 I'd probably get burned out bad enough getting it to work watchably well, and sit on it that way until repair became necessary or I got back motivation. Something that has been pre-restored I can focus on that energy getting absolutely perfect. Also sets that complex require regular maintenance so you'll inevitably get 'under the hood' at some point.

I like to restuff caps on sets that I feel are worth the effort, and personally I see no reason why anyone would care about the wax/foil roll still being inside. If someone wants to learn about what made wax caps tick I'm sure they will be able to find those caps loose many decades from now.....Hell I've got about a shopping bags worth that I've saved from sets I've worked on.

I finally got my order through Capacitor World and I really like the caps, they are selling. The film type are the Brown drop type and the electros are the radial lead type, ideal for can-restuffing. I'm going to restuff the can electrolytics on my 621TS, as it makes for a lot neater job.
I, like Tom C never had any trouble with the yellow caps, but I feel, the appearence of my restoration on the old RCA, will look better with the browndrops. I'm not going to restuff the papers. That's a little radical. :boring:

I just had one of those brown drops give me a whole bunch of grief on a Philco Predicta I was working on. It was in the vertical circuit and was marked .0033uf and measured .044uf. That is the first modern cap I have ever had a problem with and I have installed thousands. I mostly use the yellow plastics but got a few of these from a fellow collector.

Gregb

I honestly have never re-capped ANYTHING, I don't know HOW, have HUGE, arthritic hands & I doubt I'll ever learn, at this rather late stage in my life. That being said, I've read of lots of stories here, over at AK, & elsewhere, about what an onerous, tedious task it is. NOBODY apparently likes doing it, so therefore, it would seem to me that if you absolutely HAVE to undertake such a thankless task, that one would install the FINEST caps that are available, so that one would hopefully NOT have to undertake such nonsense again. Also, because CT-100s ARE so rare & valuable, it would behoove a restorer to install the finest replacement parts available-Just in case.

It ain't so bad and hard unless you have something with a high cap count. Just match or approximate the values (and get the polarity of lytics right) of original and replacement, and it becomes a soldering job from there.

I've said a few times that "I could teach a literate monkey how to recap".