Setchell Carlson Roundie save!
 

Part of me hoped another collector would have saved this set, and after a week, I caved in and rescued it! Meet the new addition to the heard, one 1964-65 Setchell Carlson “Early American” designed cabinet, crafted from hard Maple. I’m not 100% sure of the manufacture date, my best guess is ’64-65, the Sams Photofact is dated 1965.

Setchell Carlson (SC), was a standalone company unrelated to Stromberg Carlson. For me, SC is a unique company for several reasons. One, I live in Minneapolis, and the set was made in a neighboring suburb of Minneapolis, New Brighton. They also had offices in St. Paul, I’m not sure of the corporate history. Bart Setchell started his first company in 1928 which was called Karadio. He invented the vibrator supply for car radios making heavy battery supplies un-necessary. In 1930 he formed Setchell Carlson with his business partner, Don Carlson from the Karadio Company. The second point of interest to me is in ’49 SC invented the use of modular construction for their line of Black & White sets, which followed into the Color TV production. Setchell was a creative soul and held over 100 patents. To the best of my knowledge, SC ceased TV production in the early 70’s.

Take a look at the attached pictures, nothing has been done to clean the set, it’s as I found it. Take note of the modules which are held in by screws and a joining connector of some sort. Clever, and you can effectively remove each module to service the various functions of the set; IF, Sound, Video, Horizontal, Vertical, Power Supply, and Chroma. Interestingly enough, the sales brochure boasts the TV will still function with the Chroma module removed, you just view a Black & White picture. Very clever indeed!

I also like the audio circuit design using push/pull outputs (6GK6, similar to a 6BQ5) feeding a two speaker design. Note the speaker array; one with a C16L (6” woofer), and C16H (6” tweeter). I never knew tweeters were supposed to be of a 6” design! Time will tell what it sounds like, but I’ve heard good things from other collectors. The rebuild should be easy with each module being built with point to point wiring, no circuit boards to get baked by hot tubes or failed resistors. In reading other threads on SC color sets; I’ve learned that the circuit was basically an RCA clone, using some of SC’s tweaks. It’s said that the SC sets produced some of the best picture quality in the industry, good enough that RCA sent engineers to visit SC to see what they did to make such a good picture. That is what I read on the internet, believe what you want.

It’ll be a fun restoration; I’ve already located a set of replacement knobs from a fellow VK’er. I’ll keep a picture story board of its progress and I’ll continue its story once work begins.

That's a neat set. I love the modular construction.
I have a 50's Setchell Carlson 17" B&W and it's a great performer as well.
Good luck with the roundy!
Rob

That's a nice looking set. Indeed a very intersting chassis design.

No UHF! 1963 or early 1964.
I wonder if they owned the firm that made the speakers?
Originally Wright-Decoster, later Wright-Zimmerman. I only saw their speakers in S-C products. :scratch2:

Here is the dealer sheet showing what I thought was your set. However, there are only two knobs on the bottom and not three like your set.

Steve

Very interesting, intelligent design! How does the speaker board lock in place, or does it just swing down with a gentle tug?

jr

Great save.
Might be interesting to match up Steve K's dealer sheet model #'s with the model # on your set.

-Steve D.

The CRT looks like it has a very severe cataract. Remove the safety glass, however, and the tube should be fine, if the emissions of all three guns are within normal range. The TV itself looks very good for being 52 years old, although it will need the usual overhaul before it can be used on any kind of regular basis. No telling how many defective capacitors are in there. I wouldn't power it up until at least the filter caps in the power supply have been replaced, although for optimum performance every wax capacitor in the set should be changed.

I wonder why no one else jumped on it? I'd love to have a set like this, mainly because I don't have to lug an entire chassis around to recap it! Good save Bill!

Thanks for posting the pictures of your new SC set. I think you may have a 3C64-E Early American Consolette as pictured on page 2 of this brochure. They list the models at the lower right. Basically it's in the same cabinet as the picture Steve posted.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/S...n-brochure.pdf

[edit] I just noticed the cabinet dimensions are likely different and they mention only one speaker for the Consolette? But the front panel looks like a match. Normally Setchell Carlson has the model number stamped on the back cover.

Setchell Carlson (or was it Stronberg Carlson) made video monitors back in the late 70's. I once worked, back in 1979, for a dive of a small company that used such monitors in machines that took photos on Xray film of video from CAT scanners in hospitals. It's how I got involved in the video and TV electronics industry. But it was just a standard issue job at a typical company that made a boring product.

Notice that some models in Kevin's brochure except the consolette and the OP's set have 2 knobs, as Steve K. pointed out. And some have 3 knobs below the main control panel. Perhaps earlier & later production models or even different production years?

-Steve D.

Had I known that was for sale I'd have bought it. If the CRT is good I'd trade you for a working wood grain metal cabinet tabletop CTC-20 roundy, a working '67 color remote admiral console, and or a half a dozen other sets. PM me if you are interested.

there is a 3c65EA model in my 1965 brochure, that is similar but not identical to yours, yours is probably a year earlier. S-C usually had the model year in the model number.
they had 3 series of color models, contemporary, French Provincial, and Early American, and in each one of those categories there were 2 models one slimmer one with just a little speaker below the controls, and one with a wider speaker panel for a bigger speaker, and a deluxe version with large speaker grilles on either side of the picture tube. Looks like yours has the slimmer cabinet, but the speaker is below the screen. Great find! I'd love to have an S-C color set, but I'd have to beat Tom to it. I have a 1955 21" top tuner set, and 2 late 60's School 23" B&W sets.

I like where they put the convergence controls, these sets are truly a serviceman's dream.

What a fascinating set. Instead of doing a straight copy-cat clone, they gave some real thought into improving the design.

The detail page at in the brochure at http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/S...n-brochure.pdf states that there are two contrast controls (Contrast 1 and Contrast 2). Anybody know why?

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

Me likey! I love that it is an unusual set. The chassis design is fascinating. Great save!

I don't see anything on the service info that indicates there are two contrast controls. There is a Detail(sharpness) control, so maybe that's what they intended to say?

I noticed the same thing, Kevin. Both the Sams and the SC service data calls one control contrast and the other control detail. The contrast control is in the second video amp stage and the detail control is in the final video output stage. Since the video output stage control has a capacitor in the circuit, the gain will be vary according to the frequency; hence, giving the higher frequency signal more gain and better fine detail. I also noted that SC uses a 1N60 diode in the video output stage for DC restoration. That may be another reason that SC produced a better picture than the RCA.

More likely they did that to make convergence easier and quicker in the factory.

Very interesting tv indeed ! I can't wait to see what you discover with the contrast
controls... I'm also thinking one is a "sharpness" control.....
And on the speakers. They appear to be wired in parallel, So I would have to
say they are both full range speakers, not one 6" whoofffer, and one 6" tweeeeter...
Parallel would account for the better amp design you noted, a little more
power to drive the parallel speakers.... Good luck, looks
like a keeper to me !

.

I'm guessing that the one that is designated as a tweeter has a small "whizzer cone" in the center and the other does not... just a wag, however.

jr

Very cool set!
Setchell-Carlson, which later had the names Audiotronics and Dotronix, made very good B&W and, later, color monitors (and may still be making some, in fact):

http://www.dotronix.com/

I installed a bunch of Dotronix and Sony color monitors for an airport baggage-claim display system in 1999. While the Sonys were dropping like flies within five years (bad capacitors, then bad CRTs), almost all of the Dotronix ones just ran and ran for 10+ years, 24 hours per day, most needing only a few adjustments over that period. Their 1979-to-late-1980s B&W monitors made with the modular chassis designs (in 9" and 23" sizes) also often ran for 10-20 years with relatively few repairs (other than CRTs, which did need replacing more often).

Would I have jumped on that ad, and driven for hours to buy that S-C color set? You bet I would! :yes: (The face is green with envy.)

These are fun! Keep us posted. I can't wait to start restoring mine.

You found a winner! Those sets are better in my opinion than many of the RCA sets. The unitized construction eliminated the need to lug the entire set to the shop if you had spare modules. I was a SC dealer at one time, and had many satisfied customers.

The child in your picture looks rather displeased. She's like "Are you guys done yet? I wanna go outside and play!"

In fact I'm kinda surprised they used that facial expression. Wouldn't you want a picture of somebody smiling in your ad?

It might've been the owner's daughter. :D

Very well thought-out and made. I'd love to give one of those a home.

So I decided I wasn't pleased with the ad for that TV and decided to put something else on the TV's screen.

http://s15.postimg.org/shj5o7mgn/Tvad1.jpg]


Then I thought maybe the TV should show off how good a picture it has...

http://s10.postimg.org/kyevoisit/Tvad2.jpg
http://s29.postimg.org/uz45gfewz/Tvad3.jpg]

:lmao:

Hey guys I found the budget model:

http://s8.postimg.org/g6png4yxt/Tvad4.jpg

The budget 15GP22 equipped version....Probably worth more than the expensive 21" models if it was real....The mask looks like a Westinghouse 15" set ripof.

Check the ad it's a 11 inch :P

I can hardly wait for those to get spread all over the internet. Good thing Bart's not still around. :D

That reminds me of an ancient article in The Onion. Touted a 3" screen, weighed 400 pounds, came a variety of colors and only cost $4999.99.

I thought this was an older thread but no, its another one! Congratulations on another of the most interesting roundie IMHO

I have a horizontal sweep module w/flyback for an S-C color but maybe not this one, just saying...

If it looks like this one it's likely for a roundie.

http://i452.photobucket.com/albums/q...pspgagop4r.jpg

If it's for a roundie would you sell it? I've needed a sweep section for a while now, I'd use it to troubleshoot other sets. I had it in my head that I would build one from scratch, but a prebuilt one would be ideal.

Once I get a picture of it, Ill send a pm Nick.

Once I get a picture of it, Ill send a pm Nick.