While tonight's game was playing, I decided to try a soft start of the Zenith. So far, I've done nothing to the chassis other than clean out the dirt and give it a visual inspection. Hooked up a couple of meters to monitor B+ and spent a couple of hours bringing up the juice. Kept feeling cans to see if any were getting warm, but they all stayed cool.
By the time I got up to 60 volts, I figured I'd start to hear a little crackling thru the speaker, but nothing. It seemed the audio output tube wasn't getting warm. By the time I got to 75 volts, I figured it had to be burned out. Popped in a new tube and then started getting audio from my Dish receiver!
Slowly kept raising it to full power with no problems or issues. The B+ voltages were all looking good. Let it run a little bit longer then shut it down.
Plugged in the horz output tubes, brought the juice back up, and got a picture! Actually, was a pretty good picture other than not being centered just right. Didn't really have to make any adjustments for a lock. After running it for a little while, the verticle did get a little sensitive during certain scenes.
The HV was a little low... paperwork is calling for 10KV and I was getting 7KV. Even so, the brightness was good. I will try a new rectifier and see how that does.
The photos I took aren't so great... this new camera I have does not do screen shots so well... I think it has to do with the automatic setting and my flourescent overhead lights. I miss my old camera. So, it really looks better in person than these photos show.
All in all, I was very pleased to find things in working order with no smoke, fire, or sudden surprises. Considering it's nearly 60 years old, filled with black beauties, and has the original cans, I'm surprised it plays as well as it does. I'm sure once I get the set recapped, it can only get better.
