My $10 JVC Pyramid set (from Goodwill)
 

I picked this up on the Goodwill Auction site last week for $9.99, the shipping was another $40 because it was clear across the country in Pennsylvania, but I think I still did okay. :yes:

The pictures I've seen of these sets don't really give a good indication of size, this thing is much bigger than I imagined they were, roughly 11 inches square at the base and 12 inches tall.

This one's in good shape, a little yellowing and somewhat dirty but nothing missing or broken. It's totally dead but hopefully it's just a bad fuse or something simple.

Pretty cool! always wanted one of those.

That is awesome

Took it apart tonight to have a look around and found a bad fuse, not blown just failed open from old age.
I didn't have an exact replacement and I didn't want to just put a jumper on it but I found a small pigtail fuse and managed to wedge the tails under the ends of the fuse holder well enough for a test run.

The set fired right up with sound but no light appeared on the screen, I fiddled around a bit and when I moved the antenna connector block around (it hangs loose with the cabinet removed) it suddenly popped on, I guess it was shorting on a heat sink nearby.
Fired up the B_T modulator and was able to tune in a picture though it was a little out of focus. I lucked out and had an adapter for the CRT in my B&K and tested the tube, it's pretty tired, high end of the bad scale but I suspect that's why the focus isn't so great even though it has good brightness.

Other than that I just cleaned up the parts of the cabinet I had removed, and the knobs, the owner was a smoker and it was covered in heavy brown crud inside.
I still need to remove the chassis from the bottom of the cabinet so I can clean that properly.
The grille cloth comes out and I washed and bleached it back to white, it was really nasty brown from the cig goo.

Here's a few pics of the innards, the HV and sweep chassis is located inside the top cone part behind the CRT, the radio/TV chassis is in the bottom.

Thats a nice find, never seen one in person. Worth the price,
bet it would easily go over $100 on e-bay.
Look around for a focus control many small B&W had one.
If not its the CRT. If you need any basic info post the
model # & I will see if I got the book on it.

73 Zeno:smoke:

maybe a frequency response issue on the focus. Would be nice to feed it a video signal from a BK anaylst (or scope a test pattern at the CRT and work back).
Maybe a ESR check on the coupling caps in the signal path.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JVC-PYRAMID-...item35d899a099

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-VINTAGE...item4d1ecd7906

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970s-SPACE-...item2c858cd51d

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mid-Century-...item25915eefbd

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JVC-3100R-PY...item1e8cf0c541

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970s-JVC-PY...item3ce7dfa59e

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JVC-Pyramid-...5#ht_25wt_1106


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hmm the predicta of the 1970's it would seem.

There are other 70s portables which command a premium price on ebay.. the JVC videosphere, the panasonic orbital, the Sinclair 2" set, etc
I mean..they're cool and all especially since I have an in house broadcasting setup, but..I can't see paying 150-200 bucks for a little b/w portable! And then having it shipped!
To each his own. I like these sets for what the are though. I myself have a nice collection of early SS Sony black and whites as well as panasonic. The pop-up ones are my favorites.

Set does have a focus control. Its on the CRT brd.
Comes from 190 V boost C416 only lytic there. Its a 1 mfd.
Its on the HV board near a connector.
Focus should vary 0-190V at pin 7 of CRT
If interested in Sams PM me.

Nice to see the price of them & good for you !

73 Zeno:smoke:

Cool, I'll see if it helps. I probably should recap the sweep board, tough call though, good quality 70's Japanese caps might still outlast modern day crap shoot caps.

Sweet !!!!!

Well, it seems that they deleted the focus pot at some point.
The board is marked for one, R143, and the other side clearly has the slotted holes for the pot but none is installed nor ever was.

I noticed the set has Instant On, the CRT heater stays lit when the power is turned off.
If I unplug it for a bit then turn it back on the CRT looks really crummy for a bit until it warms up a little, details like subtitles are very blurry like the tube is old and gassy, also the brightness has to be backed way down so it doesn't looked washed out and have retrace lines.

The picture here isn't the best but it gives a pretty good idea of what text looks like on the screen.

A soft tube if ive ever seen one. Dont think I would even risk a rejuve
on it considering its value. Sams calls for a 190FB4, did
they change that too? CRT alway at full fil. voltage ( 11VDC) not a good idea:thumbsdn:

73 Zeno:smoke:

I got a new CRT for this set from Video Display Corp, $45 plus shipping, it arrived earlier this week and I installed it and recapped the chassis'.
I only replaced the electrolytics since the rest are Mylar or other long lived caps.

It has an excellent picture now but I have a couple minor vertical issues. One is the hold control is touchy, I think it has a lug that's not attached to the carbon properly, it can be used but it will roll if you push downward on the control.
The other issues is a thin horizontal line across the center of the screen where some of the scan lines are brighter than the others, it's barely noticeable with a picture on screen but can be seen easily with just snow.

You can just see it to the right of Goofy but it's plainly visible across the entire screen in the snowy raster.
It follows the tilt of the yoke so it's not in the CRT.