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Old 08-28-2016, 10:59 PM
cluelessgame cluelessgame is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Knoxville, TN
Posts: 66
Majestic 70 Leatherette restoration

A while back I rescued a 17" Majestic model 70 set from the gruesome fate of being turned into an aquarium. The chassis is a little rusty, the damper tube went to air, and there was a (thankfully empty) bee's nest hanging below the HV cage, but the picture tube tests pretty good and for $100 it was mine.

It appeared to have been to the shop early in its life - a few replacement caps here and there all those early plastic type - but no major red flags...yet

Being a set that I may sell at some point, I decided to shotgun the set and do a full recap. currently, I have replaced all of the paper/wax caps, both original and the early replacements, but have yet to do the electrolytics. I slowly powered it up and am getting a wide, bright line 1/4-way down from the top of the screen that flickers like the vertical is trying to start but can't.

The brightness control makes this line go from bright to completely dark, contrast control has no effect. focus control has negligible effect, so do all the vertical controls. horizontal controls change the pitch of the HV whine and there is no sound whatsoever. I've yet to check/replace resistors, but I know there are some that are bad (some have turned completely white from heat). and the B+ is a little low.

My main issue at the moment is that there appears to be things present (and looking original from the factory) that are not in the SAMS. It also appears that a bit of modification has occurred around the on-off/volume/contrast control stack. I already know the on-off switch doesn't work and had to jump the terminals for the power up. one end of the volume pot is, instead of tied to ground as the SAMS shows, jumped to the wiper pin of the contrast pot. from there, there is a piece of old component lead that goes to nowhere (hanging).

As for the other two pins of the contrast pot, one is attached to a green wire that goes up and is spliced with electrical tape to a smaller brown wire to a terminal strip lug and from there another green wire snakes up to another terminal strip lug where a 100 ohm resistor (not in SAMS but looks original) bridges over to pin 8 of the video amp tube. The other pin has another green wire that goes to a terminal strip lug, and from there, a tan(probably white) wire goes up to pin 5 on the video detector tube, while a resistor (another one that looks original but not in the SAMS) bridges over to a TS lug that two power resistors coming off the focus control are tied to. Both wires connected to the contrast control are obviously not original as they are hacked and melted all to hell.

Does anyone have a copy/scan of the Rider or factory service info in this set? or any info on the company "Majectic" in general? It seems like they weren't around for very long. This set does appear to be equipped for some sort of color conversion device, probably CBS's color wheel prototype. There's a switch on the back next to a 3-pin plug.
Attached Images
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File Type: jpg 6-19-2016 252.jpg (101.6 KB, 54 views)
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