My Brand New CTC-7!
 

Hello all!

I just recently acquired my first console set! It is a 1958 RCA CTC-7 in the "Pensbury" cabinet. I acquired this set for free from Tvcollector here at VK. The drive took two and a half hours but it was well worth it for such a nice set for the price of free. The 21CYP22 tests great on all guns but the base is in rough shape and I am honestly too afraid to try and put a new base on. The base still functions but it is pretty loose... The cabinet is in VERY rough shape... Will probably have to strip it and stain it and refinish it. As for the electronics most of the caps are still kind of ok and some minor repairs have been done but the set does power up and I get a raster but the horizontal and vertical are all wrong so I will recap those boards first. I did accidentally break the horiz hold knob while trying to remove the chassis so I will have to fabricate a new plastic shaft for the knob to fit on. Only two tubes tested bad in the set and I will replace them... The flyback looks to be in great condition. I think I will have a lot of fun restoring this set and it will be a learning experience for me. I will take my time with this and do it step by step. I will post updates when needed. Here is the link for the images I have taken of the set http://imgur.com/a/oTaRJ

Link says:

"SwizzyMan's images are not publicly available."

Phil Nelson

Fixed it thanks for letting me know

yikes! that CRT tube socket. Hope you don't have to remove the yoke anytime soon.

yup... I am terrified to even put my tester socket on it much less the actual socket from the TV.

I wonder if epoxy could hold that socket together better then the hobby glue I'm seeing?

I do have some and might try doing that

my recommendation is do nothing to the crt socket, except maybe some electrical tape to stabilize if for now. Get the set working, worry about the CRT later.

My sentiments exactly. I don't know what type CRT is in your set, but if it's a rare one, I'd tape the socket so it won't move, as DaveWM suggested, and forget it for the time being, as long as you are restoring the TV. I had a bad experience with a CRT in a Philco "Microgrid 390" TV I rescued from a curb years ago. The socket came completely off the neck of the CRT, so I just soldered the leads from the TV chassis to the wires protruding from the neck. It worked for a short time, but eventually one of the wires broke off, shorted to another lead, there was a good sized spark, and ...

I wound up junking the set soon after that, as I was in no position at the time to look around for a used tube. Too bad, since the Microgrid series was one of Philco's best b&w TVs of the 1950s, with a cascode tuner and an excellent sound system. I was surprised the set didn't have a phonograph pickup input on the rear of the chassis--that's how good the sound was. I had a Zenith K-2739 1963 b&w 23" TV with a good audio system as well, but that set did not have a phono input either; why, I'll never know, since the set had a 6BN6 gated-beam audio stage, 6BQ5 output and a 6x9 oval speaker in the base of the cabinet, below the CRT. That TV easily had the best mono sound system of any set I owned before or since then, although today it is possible to connect a flat-panel TV to a stereo system and have better sound than even the best mono TV audio systems produced 50-60 years ago.

if it is the original tube...it should be a 21CYP22 and those are NOT real common !! I agree...wrap several layers of tape around it and get it secured. Get the set working good and THEN...maybe worry about the base. I had a CTC-5 with a tube with a similar base ...and it ALSO had like--new readings on ALL tests--life, emissions, cutoff AND gun balance. I was just VERY careful with it....it was fine..

UNLIKE..the last 21AXP22 set I came across. that base was PERFECT...but the tube was STILL full of AIR... shame--since it HAD shown good supposdely--the last time the set ran...about 40 years ago or so !! I guess all of that "idle time in a basement"....took its toll on the seals.

I ALSO have a number of thsoe Zenith sets...with 6BQ5 audio amp and a couple of them have a 10" speaker and an electrostatic tweeter I believe !! I expect the size of the OPT and B+ on the tube means it could give about 5 watts of power or so...not sure it is really enough to push that big speaker to its full potential though. ONE of them is a 23" set with a weak tube and it WILL produce a raster ...b ut there are bad caps and something is smoking near the cap by the 6BQ5. The other one is a 24" set with a decent tube accd. to my 70. It preduces a pretty good raster....with some foldover--and a big cap by the tranny is geting warm...so I know it TOO needs caps. Both are 1958 sets I beleive..one is an SC400.

I have a couple of others wiht the 6X9 speaker and 6BQ5 amp. I KNOW they have very good sound !!

The CRT is a 21CYP22 not too common these days.

This is the same set that's in this thread.. I only had it since November of last year... I must have plugged the CRT tester into the CRT about a 100 times.. I used two jewelry screw drivers to pry off each time, seeing how some of the CRT cap is missing..

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=263008

Go to Harbor Freight and pick up their cheap 2 part epoxy in squeeze tubes. Works wonders on CRT sockets. I just pieced back together one on a 21YP4 and it holds like iron.

Nice score! My CTC7 is one of my favorite sets. Looking forward to seeing your restoration.

the general conscience is there is no conscience.

Some like epoxy, some like silicone (wire safe), some like super glue (I used the flex zap in the past), some like white glue... it goes on and on and on.

Hence my recommendation to simply wrap some electrical tape around it to stablize, get the set working, then you can spend time researching what you think is the best approach. The issue I see you have is the sloppy work already done may make removal a iffy thing. And you don't want to follow up that sloppy work with more perm glue that will just make it harder to do right at some point in the future.

often times LESS is MORE in tv work. this is why untouched sets are prized over "restorations" unless the restoration is done by someone that really is good at it.
Clearly this was not the case with your CRT socket. This is why I tend to advise against excessive cleaning as well. there are delicate parts that are aged and easy to destroy with a blast of compressed air (like the peaking coils in GE sets), or parts get cracked from over zealous cleaning attempts. Rarely does cleaning fix a non working set or make a set work better. there are exceptions but rare, it would need to be a conductive goo in the exact wrong place to cause an issue.

Clean enough to read the parts and make a decent visual inspection IF there is a problem, you are not going to be eating off the tv chassis. If you want a museum quality restoration that is different. There are guys around that do fantastic work and make sets look like new, but for a 1st time color tv chassis I would recommend handling it as little as possible.

As for the CRT at some point you may have to address it (like if you had to replace the yoke), right now its a non issue to get it working, just don't do more damage to it than already done.

Yeah I'll just electrical tape it for now. Heh, maybe you could stop by and help out.

Consensus?

.

I never was a good speller. but yes Consensus is what I was going for.

Looking forward to seeing it running, whatever you do. Keep us posted.

after recapping check to see if the raster is filling out the screen. You have to be careful with all the whack formats that are out there now. You need to make sure you have a good 4:3 format. If the raster is filling out the screen, and then you get bars on the blanking bars on the top and bottom or sides, then its prob the video format. Post of some pics or better video of your progress.

Went ahead and recorded a video addressing my current issue with the set. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkjb6RyOfs

Looks like it's losing horz sync.. I would check to see what the current is at that cathode of the horz output tube.. Should be around 200ma range... Something I should have done before smoking the fly in my Magnavox set..

Checked everything. All readings normal and I am pretty sure I fixed it. Now the question is how do I get the colors right? And the purity and convergence the best I can WITHOUT a pattern generator.

Purity you can do without a pattern generator.. Lower both green and blue drives on a station that is not coming in (Just Fuzz), and then once you have the yoke adjusted, you'll have to switch to a TV program to level all three drives.. If you can find a station that is letter box, you can go by the color of the bars on the top/bottom to level the grey scale.. I think there is a place to where you can download a DVD of the patterns... Convergence you'll need the patterns and using the cross hatch pattern is the best for that, or at least for me it is..

So dont I do it until the screen is completely red?

To perform purity on a set, you'll need to start with red and also degauss the tube before you start... Pull the yoke back and adjust the purity rings until you get the red blotch in the middle of the screen then push the yoke forward again and see if red fills the screen without any fading...

Shango has videos that are helpful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNtsTKVPO7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AWG61TAIHg

Ugh, I dont have a degaussing coil.

Then buy or make one. http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=264048

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNtsTKVPO7I

at about 7:00 it talks about setting up purity.

Before doing anything else I recommend you look on ebay for an RCA color service manual by carl babcoke.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/RCA-COLOR-TV-...3D311360906136

oh and start looking for a degaussing coil.

there are height and lin adjustments as well as a vert centering adj. All of those are used in setting up the correct sweep.

The book I mentioned covers this. There is a correct process in setting up a set, needs to be done in order. a quick summary goes like this

set height and lin using test pattern.

degauss crt

purity setup

center converge with dots from test pattern

dynamic converge with grid from test pattern

oh one more thing, that RCA service manual does NOT cover the CTC-7 chassis, think it starts with CTC-12, as far as schematics are concerned.

BUT it has great info on CRT setup as well as explanation on how various circuits in the set work. The CTC-7 is very similar in operation as the CTC-12 so the info is still valid.

I just picked up the book. Is there any way I could make my own degaussing coil or use one from a modern day tv?

Also just picked up a leader lcg-400 so hopefully it works when it gets here and I can finally do the convergence and color adjustments correctly. :D

Yes. This thread popped up recently:

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=264048

You only need to degauss an old color TV the first time you do the color setup, or possibly when you move it later on. Changing its position in Earth's magnetic field can result in purity problems. My favorite example was my first CTC-11. I had spent hours doing the color setup and thought the picture looked decent:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/RCACTC-11InCabinet.jpg

Then I moved it to a new place in the house, rotated about 90 degrees from the position in which I did the setup. Dorothy's face turned green! And the yellow brick road turned orange and purple around the edges.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/RCACTC-11PurityRedux2.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/RCACTC-11PurityRedux3.jpg

Degaussing fixed the problem in about 60 seconds.

Newer color TVs have automatic degaussers that operate briefly when you turn the set on, but that's a convenience feature. Unless you constantly haul your roundies around the house, degaussing should be a once-in-a-blue-moon procedure.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAk9lKv03zA

1:30 covers standard fine tuning. at about 3:45 you can see how the pic can be B&W if not fine tuned right.

Fine tuning did nothing... I am really confused as to what exactly is wrong.

make sure you are on the correct channel.

channel 3 correct?

3 or 4 are often the ouputs.

check the fuses for blown power supply after sparking the HV

Both fuses are blown hopefully that is all that went wrong...