Blankety blank, *#&$%&^# RCA
 

Ever have one of those projects you just feel like chucking in the garbage can?

I've been working on this RCA 8" portable for a few weeks off and on, fully recapped except for the filter can but it seems OK, biggest problems have been getting the vertical to work right, particularly getting a good lock on the vert hold.

I got it good enough to call it a day and started putting it back together, put the shield back over the neck of the CRT and put the chassis back together and turned it on, no vertical deflection, a quick check showed no B+ to the plate, seems I managed to nick a hair fine wire on the Vert out transformer with the metal CRT shield, the stupid wire was supposed to have some insulation protecting it but didn't for whatever reason so it broke right off.

Pulled a transformer off a spare chassis I have and slapped it in, good raster so I went ahead and put the chassis back together again, adjusted the Ion trap, good raster, good snow so i turned on the signal and... It's upside down and backwards!

Guess the transformer is a little different, possibly it's from a chassis with the 6CG7 instead of the 6CM7, anyway I'm hoping I can fix it by reversing the more easily accessible wires.

Those 8-inch RCAs were probably not designed to be serviceable. Certainly not like the 21-24" sets of the same year. Lucky you had a spare.
Little wires are big problems when on transformers, yokes and other coils. You wonder how they make the stuff???

I often did give up on stuff and figured the set either never worked right as designed or I was going to spend days and weeks when other slam-dunk projects were waiting...and I would need a parts chassis.

Well I reversed the black and green wires and all is well again, except the set is still touchy on the vertical hold. Sync tube is new, resistors checked, paper caps all replaced, possibly I will need to restuff the four section can.

It's not backwards, the f-r-i-e-n-d-s still runs in the right direction. Just reverse the two vertical secondary wires.

OOPs. You already did it.:o

Did that and it's fine now.

Um, yes, I feel that way quite often. At least you're encountering more success than I am with my Admiral 7" :)

There was a pretty detailed website several years back on somebody's trials & tribulations w/restoring one of these l'il beasties.. My feeble mind is tellin' me it was Phil Nelson's, but I can't remember exactly... The picture was kinda "Cockeyed" a bit, & fooling w/the yoke MOSTLY straightened it out, but after several attempts, the guy just decided it was as good as it was gonna get, & called it "Soup".. These l'il fellers seem to be fairly common, or at least WERE a few yrs back. I have 3, & they MOSTLY work... The nicest cosmetically one I have, a sort of tan-greyish version, is naturally the one w/the feeblest CRT...

Is this the link you are referring to?

http://www.antiqueradio.org/rca16.htm

I have about 5 of these and have not started any restorations. I look forward to the challenge. But it will be tough no doubt!

Dat be Teh Won ! (grin) And for once, my feeble, puny mind was RIGHT... It IS Phil's site..
The boarding school I went to in the Seventies in Chattanooga, the Dean of Students had one of these in his office... It was just an old TV then, but I was taken w/its irresistible "Cuteness"...Since I have 3 of the Damthings, I guess I still am...

I had one of those when in college. It had a bad flyback, which were not
hard to find back then. Then it just worked. I sold it in grad school
after buying a Heathkit GR-180 color set. In college when I had
it my suitemate had ... a 1958-1959 vintage RCA color roundie blondie
he picked up where he worked in a repair shop. Great picture, poor
convergence.