RCA 630TS restoration

[Phil Nelson]

I just bought a 630TS (with stand), so I am reading this thread with keen interest. The user's manual is a real treat!

The service manual sounds like a must-have. Any chance I could get a copy? I'd be happy to pay for photocopying, or good scans.

Thanks!

[Dave S]

Meant to put this up before. Here's a PDF copy of my RCA 630 Service Manual. (Right-click to download.)

Be warned: it's a big file and gonna be a killer if you're on dialup.

Hope this helps with some restorations!

--Dave

[Phil Nelson]

Awesome! Put me down on your owes-a-big-favor list.

I'll check back in after the 630TS arrives. Still negotiating with the seller over how many boxes it will ship in. The more the better, in my view, but if you're dealing with a non-electronics person on the other end, there's a limit to how much uninformed disassembly you want to risk.

Glancing at the user/installation manual, it appears that you remove the CRT from the front, after removing the safety glass and loosening things on the neck, etc. I'm not about to fly 1500 miles to do the packing myself, so I'll just have to find out how much this codger is willing to attempt.

Keep your fingers crossed!

[Phil Nelson]

I'm getting scared about the idea of shipping this heavy TV without pulling the CRT and chassis from the cabinet. The installation instructions indicate that it's more than simply removing a handful of few screws and sliding the chassis out the back.

I can mail those manual pages to my seller, but I'm not sure whether he's up for that sort of disassembly, or whether I could trust him to do it correctly.

Ideas? The TV is in St. Louis and I'm near Seattle, so picking it up myself is not an attractive option. If there are any TV friends in the St. Louis area, I'd be willing to pay someone to do the disassembly . . . .

[Eric H]

Phil

Craters & Freighters does a good job shipping TV's.
They won't take it apart but they pack well and can ship it properly.
they shipped a set for me Air Freight, strapped to a pallet and upright all the way. Cost was about $250 though.

[Phil Nelson]

Maybe that's the way to go. Even if everything were to be double-boxed, I have visions of heavy fragile stuff in cardboard boxes tumbling off the end of a conveyor.

[blue_lateral]

I would carefully box the tube, chassis, and cabinet in 3 separate boxes and send the whole mess on Greyhound. Best of luck however you do it.

John

[Jonathan]

Since I am laid off from work for the time being, I want to start on my 630TS again. I never found the short yet. I did purchase an 80uF 450V to replace two 40uF 450V in parallel and a 120uF 450V to replace a 40uF 450V and a 80uF 450 electrolytic so I can have less parts and hopefully it'll be easier to find the incorrect wiring.

Phil,
So you were the one who got that. The stand is quite a bonus. Mine was shipped in a big box. with sponge and styrofoam packing and is shipped with the CRT installed. It did make it to me ok. The CRT cap was loose and I never got a raster in a good chassis. The yolk and focus coil bracket were bent.

Jonathan

[jshorva65]

Originally Posted by blue_lateral

I would carefully box the tube, chassis, and cabinet in 3 separate boxes and send the whole mess on Greyhound. Best of luck however you do it.

John

From personal experience of having been on the receiving end of a three-box-shipped 630TS arriving severely damaged (damage to Unobtainium tuner and speaker), I must say that a 630TS chassis must NEVER be shipped without the protection of its cabinet surrounding it. The ONLY exception to this rule is if the cabinet itself is not structurally sound. In such a case, a wooden crate must be built to surround and be bolted to the chassis to protect the very delicate structures which are mounted on the chassis.

With a structurally sound cabinet, packing the set exactly as shown in the Installation Manual is the ONLY safe way of shipping it. Never place loose packing material inside the cabinet, either, since fragments of packing material can become dislodged in transit and end up wrecking the speaker cone. Place small and fragile parts (knobs, etc.) in a well padded bag which is then tightly secured with rubber bands to the cabinet interior as shown in the Manual.

Regarding the rebuilding of electrolytics, here is a photo of how a restuffed C2 (C221 per RCA manual) should look.

Here is the latest photo of my Fada 799 after Sound IF, Video IF, and Oscillator alignment. Note here to always do a response check of each section before attempting alignment. If it's "way off" to start with, there is likely some other cause and realignment isn't likely to fix anything until that underlying trouble is corrected. One local channel's off-air picture, although reasonably good, is not as sharp as other local channels or as sharp as other 630-type sets have reproduced on that channel, so my next step is to look very closely at the RF and Converter response. My just-released "Angel Head Test Pattern" DVD produces an excellent picture on Ch 4, not quite excellent but adequate on Ch 3. The 5AXP4 test CRT is a real timesaver and worry-eliminator. I have a nice, strong 10BP4 safely stored in a custom-fitted carton for later use.

Regarding the B+ short in Jonathan's 630TS, have you ruled out pinched leads? I had one pesky 630-clone that kept blowing the B+ fuse I add during initial testing. It turned out that the last time it went to a repair shop (to be pronounced "dead due to CRT failure") the tech slapped it together sloppily and pinched the yellow lead from the speaker field coil between chassis and shielding. Of course, the B+ was a dead short to the chassis. In the third photo, note my use of a heatshrinked 5A fast-acting pigtail fuse (black tubing, lower left) and replacement of the old terminal strip with one having an "extra" lug. Also note the 1A fast-acting heatshrinked pigtail fuse (blue tubing, at 5U4 socket) and the 250mA PicoFuse (about the siz of a 1/4W resistor, under 5V4 socket). Probe with an ohmmeter and compare readings with the charts found in the service literature when tracking a short where applying power could endanger Unobtainium parts.

[jshorva65]

A recent UPS "incident" involving a Fada 930 which was dropped while en route to be restored has yielded a favorable outcome. After much paperwork on my part and correspondence between me, my client, and UPS, the damage claim has been paid and the recovered funds adequate to obtain used parts and cover extra labor required to repair the shipping damage so I can proceed with the restoration which was originally requested. In all, the resolution took nearly three months but was adequate to produce a viable restoration candidate after what had been an apparent tragic loss of a relatively rare 12" version of the 630 design.

[M3-SRT8]

Well! I have the Set plugged in, and I have Audio, and a Picture. Picture is having some Width and Synch issues, so I dropped it off at the Service Tech who gave me the set, and he will align it, etc. I'm very encouraged, and so is he.

I figure he'll have it back to me in a week or so, then, I'll throw a Party, like they did in the early days of Television.

I'll probably run some Honeymooners via a DVD Player, and maybe some Buster Keaton shorts.

Can't wait!

LJB

[tvdude1]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

The inductor I broke is the 93uH peaking coil on the video detector. Sams says it's DC resistance is 4 ohms. Can I substitute a 100uH inductor here?

Thanks.

I have good 10bp4 crts. Let me know if you need one.