Preidcta Holiday CRT testing

[madlabs]

Hi All,

First time poster and a new Predicta Holiday owner. Before I get into questions, a little background on me. I'm a lifelong electronics tinkerer but have no formal education on the subject. I have a 'scope, variac, isolation transformer, signal gen and know how to use them. I have good soldering/remove/replace/repair skills. However, I have only a smattering of tube experience and no television experience at all. I am aware that the Predicta is a particularly difficult beast to work on. I'm not as worried about removing the PCB as I am figuring out why it isn't playing correctly.

The Predicta I got is in pretty good cosmetic condition. The plastic screen cover has scratches but nothing that can't be buffed out. Looking at the chassis, I see three replacement caps, done from the top and that's it. The power cord is broken and the power switch is broken, so hopefully it broke a long time ago and has been just sitting. The filament series resistor is un-bridged so I'm guessing that it has the 2V CRT tube. The CRT filament has continuity, less than an ohm. I can't see a number on the CRT, I'd have to take it out of the shroud. The flyback looks and smells ok.

Strategy-wise, the first thing to do seems to be to test the CRT, as if I need one of those I might as well wait to dig into this set as it appears it could take a long time to locate one. I don't have a CRT tester. I located a fellow Predicta owner who has one but his can only test 6.3V filament tubes. Can a separate 2VAC supply be used, such as a variac into a 6V filament transformer? Are there common CRT testers that have both 2 and 6v filament settings? Does anyone have one for sale?

Another way for a "proof of life" test might be to replace the caps in the power system, so as to not risk the flyback and CRT and then turn it on. Is this simply insane?

I have a ton of other questions, but for now I just need to test the CRT.

Thanks!

Jonathan