Philco Seventeener II
 

Guys,
I just acquired a Philco Seventeener II TV. It is in very nice shape. No dents and pretty well taken care of.

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Here is a shot of the insides. It is very clean but a little dusty. Looks like everything is in nice shape. A few tubes have been replaced other than that all the rest look like Philco originals.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/...psw7kqjvgo.jpg

Here's how the CRT checked on my BK 467:

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/...ps96gkx0sn.jpg

Wahoo! It should give a very nice picture. The life tested very good with the needle going down just a little less than 1 to just over 1.4.

This just might be my next restoration. It'll be a nice change of pace.

That appears to be a very early Seventeener! I remember the ones using a form of Predicta chassis. Very nice set indeed!

Philco used those perma-circuit boards seen in Predictas in many model from around 57-61 including this Seventeener.

Neat set. It is the first portable TV I've seen with a 90's McDonald's color scheme.

Just looking at it makes me wanna eat a Big Mac! :D

Just like a Predicta but easier to move around!

A McSeventeener if ya will...... Hold the pickles... :D

SR

While the "paint dries" on my 621TS I thought I'd restore this TV. It'll be a nice change of pace.

Over all it is in nice shape. The chassis is dirty put "clean". No rust. The yoke cover is deteriorated along with the plastic holder for the focus rings. Everything else looks very good.

I replaced the sand resistor with a 50 ohm 50 watt chassis mount resistor for now. I powered it up using my Variac and Iso transformer. No go. I did a little troubleshooting and found that the fusistor was open. I inserted a 5 ohm 15W resistor and powered it up again. I got a raster and a picture. The picture was unstable. I also got some hash noise but no audio.

I'll put together an order and get started with the recapping etc.

Any words of wisdom and helpful hints would be appreciated.

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I'm working on one also... likely had not been turned on since my parents moved out of the farm house in the mid 60s. Fuse resistor was open, so I stuck an 8 ohm resistor in there (was the orig 7.5 or 5.6?).... got a 5 inch high pix, somewhat unstable.

On the bench, I "j hooked" all the caps on the main board, cleaned all the tube pins and got a decent pix about 90% of full height. Watched it for a while, until the heaters went out. Heaters ohmed ok... hmmm there must be a series resistor somewhere.... spotted it and more caps on the back side of the chassis.

How did you get your chassis out? Did you pull with the CRT frame/CRT attached, or leave the CRT in the cabinet?

Mine is the common alligator skin style cabinet... fun set anyway.

jr

This was a 1958 model and the original Seventeener probably had a 70 degree CRT, making for a deeper cabinet. I have two of these and a Seventeener III from 1960, with a 110 degree deflection CRT.

I have two of these now: one with the white alligator skin and another that is off-white. Both need some caps and as always, some troubleshooting afterward to fix what originally was wrong.

I found a Kodak yellow model at a local antique store for $25 and in as fine shape as your salmon colored one. I recapped it and it made a nice bright picture but I could not get the horizontal sync stable. I sold it at a swap meet for $40.

Here is one that was a popular model but without the rabbit ears handle https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/clt/6109362732.html

The 17BWP4 CRT used in the Seventeener II is a 110 degree jug... I think Philco shortened the gun (almost 2 inches) to make the 17DAP4 for the later shallower models ( and Predicta?).

jr

The fusister is 5.6 ohms. I think I remember seeing where you can use a resistor and a fuse. Can anybody shed some light on this?
Thanks.

I have some OEM 4.7 ohm fusistors, if that gets you close.

That set looks like very low hours, nice.

I'm looking over the parts and I see it has 2 diodes for rectifiers M1 & M2. Can I use some 1N4007 or 1N5408 diodes instead?

Also M3 is listed as a selenium rectifier and it has 3 legs and is encapsulated. Should I replace that too?

I pulled the CRT with the chassis as 1 piece out of the cabinet. Then separated it from the chassis.

Power seleniums can be replaced by modern silicone diodes, just check the current rating of the original (usually listed in sam's) against the new one (replace with the same or higher) and make sure the PIV is a good bit higher than what it appears the circuit can produce.

I suspect M3 is the Horiz AFC (I don't have the schematic) those are usually good, but I've encountered a dud or two....The symptom of a bad H AFC diode is soild Vert sync, and horizontal can be made to almost sync, but will at best roll slowly either direction without locking. The AFC diode is three leg because they put 2 diodes in the same case and tied two legs together internally.

If the H AFC diodes are on the board and the board is a royal pain to change parts on (like many claim the predicta boards are) then it may be wise to replace the H AFC diode pack as preventative maintenance.

You can use 1N4007s for H AFC. Some claim you need fast shottkey diodes, but in my experience the 4007s work fine in the sets I've needed to do AFC diode swaps on.

I believe that these are "top hat" style germanium diodes mounted on a pair of heat sinks in a clever assembly, pn 34-8047-1. I decided to leave mine alone and address failure if/when it occurs.

This little potted horiz AFC diode assembly has been replaced on my set... horizontal is stable, so I am leaving that alone, as well.

Removed chassis and tube together as you suggested, needed to get the angle just right to clear antenna mount (removed speaker first). Replaced under chassis caps, and used a 48 ohm 20 watt WW resistor in the heater string.

Pix looks good, audio is somewhat buzzy depending on screen content... my Zenith DTV converter produces less buzz. Will watch for a couple of hours tonight before putting it back in the cabinet.

Likely I will mount a fuseholder in the area above the rectifier assembly this afternoon, before extended viewing (still have orig electrolytics).

Thanks for your help,
jr

.

OK, back on this TV after a trip, company, and honey-dos.

I'm recapping the "backside" of the chassis and there is 1 couplate. In the process of recapping, I puled the couplate and measured the pins. I measured between 2 and 3 and get 1.13M and pins 1 and 2 and get 5798pf. The cap should be 5000pf. Only a difference of @16%. But the resistor should read 1M. A 13% difference. Looks like it is already out of tolerance. I'm assuming 10% like most of the resistors used.

I'm including a picture of the schematis of where it fits into the circuit along with a close-up of the internal schematic of the couplate. My question is what kind of caps are used in these things? I just might try and build a replacement.

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I had a Philco "Briefcase 19" portable TV from 1961 back in the '70s. I believe it was a successor to the Seventeener. My set worked quite well, and in fact was a temporary replacement for my Sears Silvertone roundie color set (RCA CTC12 clone, IIRC) when that set developed serious problems (the video output tube socket broke out of the video PC panel with a sickening crunch when I tried to replace the tube). :no:

I just left mine alone, as it just couples a pulse for vertical retrace blanking to the CRT, I suspect that that it does not contain close tolerance parts. My blanking is fine. I'm guessing that ceramic caps and 10-20% resistors would be appropriate.

jr

+1 - if that copulate were in the vertical or horizontal stages, it would improve sync-etc but as a blanking pulse network, you would see some definite symptoms if it were to drift too far out of tolerance.

+2 - Also I've cracked open some Philco couplates and they are ceramic caps. Nothing special. They used them to cut assembly time not because they were precision parts.

+3. Those values were not that far off from the original. I would concentrate on other issues. Couplates are often one of the last things to go.

OK guys, I'll just clean it up and re-install it. Thanks.

I'm pretty much done with the backside. I re-stuffed the E-caps, replaced all the resistors, and film capacitors. I cleaned and redressed the HV leads and used some heat shrink on the 1B3GT socket. I replaced the 40 ohm 20 watt sand resistor with a 60 ohm 25 watt resistor because of the higher line voltage.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/...psax9whmlc.jpg

I then replaced the rectifier diodes with 2 1N5408 3A diodes. I used s 3 prong terminal strip. Worked out great. I also replaced the .1uf bumble bee cap with a .1uf safety cap.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/...psrjqirofz.jpg

I then pulled the IF board to do the recapping. A lot of the wires were soldered onto the stakes. It did come off fine though. A bit tedious. Once per TV will be enough thank you.

The board had a coating on the foil side. When I removed the resistors, it just ignored the coating. Once the part was removed, I cleaned the area up with my solder wick, then used a Q-tip and acetone to clean away any "varnish". Once the parts were soldered back in and the flux cleaned off I did a real good inspection and the used some clear corona dope to recoat the board. The last picture was before the re-coating.

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BTW, I'm getting ready to do the main board. I have the film caps, resistors, and the 2 micas will be replaced. Is there anything else that I need to be on the lookout for? These boards look very similar to the Predicta boards. I'm concerned about the networks. Should I just shot gun them and be done with them? Which ones are usually bad if any? As with most, I only want to pull this board once.

BTW, I'm leaving all the ceramic discs alone. Right?

While recapping the main board I ran across this:

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This is K2 and it has a 500pf cap added to pins 5 & 6. Here is the schematic of K2 and I penciled in the added cap.

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Here is the part of the schematic that K2 is used in. It is in the audio section just after the volume pot. Again I penciled in the added cap.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/...psp7j7pway.jpg

Any idea why this was done?

If you look closely you'll see K2 is missing some coating on the face and on the top in several areas. I'm going to build a new one. Any idea what I should use for caps?

Thanks.

That's a popular color from the mid-50's, Coral!
I have a Zenith 4 tube portable radio with the color case. I saw a set just like mine go on the the E-place for $100+. That's Quite a while ago. :thmbsp:

Looks like an attempt to "improve" the audio, by increasing the low frequency response. Mine did not have the added cap... perhaps it was added later by a serviceman. Nothing critical there, I would just use ceramic caps to replicate the circuit.

jr

The only effect of adding that cap would be a slight increase in bass response.

On the other hand, the 1 meg resistor and the 820 k resistor on the board should 5% tolerances or better, because they set the grid bias on the audio output tube.

jr

OK, I have decided that I probably will make all new couplates or networks. Not sure of the right name.

My biggest question is what voltage should the ceramic caps be. I've checked with Mouser and it looks like some caps I can only get like 100 volts while most I can get 630 volt or more.

I believe that these are very similar to what the Predicta uses.

Here is a link to a 24x36 schematic which shows all the couplates.

Thank you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2ww1hzzva...24x36.pdf?dl=0

Check out this predicta thread, starting about here:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...=255328&page=3

jr

That's a good question. The 100V would probably be smaller and so easier to fit, but some places would definitely require something higher. The grid of the horizontal output is one place I'd use a higher voltage rating because of the large AC signal.

OK guys I'm at wits end. I'm trying to pick out the caps that I need for the couplets. I know for K5 the 1500pf cap needs to be 1KV for sure. But the rest of the caps I'm trying to pick out I can get some at 630v and some only at 100 volts. Maybe I'm over thinking this but this is gotten to be ridiculous for me. I've spent the better part of today going through lists of caps that Mouser has. I'm drowning in datasheets. This shouldn't be this difficult.

Can somebody let me know what they used when they did their couplets? It would be appreciated.

What value caps can you only get in 100 volt rating? Perhaps a slightly different value cap with a higher voltage rating can be substituted, or perhaps we can figure out if a higher voltage rating is actually need where the caps are used.

jr

Is the difficulty because you are trying to stick to ceramic? I think that if you have to that film would be OK. Also the values used in the networks seem to be non-standard values in many places, I wouldn't be too concerned about an exact match.

Perhaps a kit of 2kv caps like this offering from 'zon will get you close enough. I find that a little sorting with a decent meter will often find "in between" values.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DDJQAAO?psc=1

How would one substitute the distributed cap in k-4... multiple caps and resistors? Perhaps 3 27k or 33k in series with 4 1000 uuf caps to ground.
:scratch2:

not affiliated,
jr

Guys,
I appreciate your comments. After a good night's rest and a clear head I have selected all 630V TDK caps with 2 exceptions. 1 is the 1KV 1500pf cap used in K5 the Vertical Feedback couplet, and the 82pf cap used in K6 the Horizontal AFC couplet. The 82pf cap that I could find was a TDK 100V or a Kemet at 200V. I know I could always use a mica cap. BTW, all the caps are ceramic MLCC's and COG/NPO type.

Here's a link of the typical TDK cap that I'll be using:
https://www.digikey.com/product-deta...0-1-ND/5812015