1963 Zenith 29JC20 restoration

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by Zenith6S321

I powered the set through my variac and tried different line voltages and read the HO current. Here is what I got.

At 125V the HO current was 225 mA. At 115V it was 200 mA. At 110V it was 190 mA. The picture didn't change much. I decided to add some dropping resistors in series with the line input. I used four 8 ohm 20W resistors in parallel and mounted them to a terminal strip and the line fuse on the top of the chassis in an open spot. That dropped my 118V down to 111V which gave me 190 mA HO cathode current. The raster fills the screen and I have 25.5kV high voltage. I'll settle for that.

Dave

I am just curious as to how this aspect panned out for you. I am working on a similar vintage Zenith and your findings are almost identical to what I was finding in my set except I can't get 190mA. More like 200 or maybe 210 at 110V. My flyback seems hotter than I would like it to be after about 30 minutes of operation. I am waiting on a replacement socket for my HV rectifier which was burned up and the 1W resistor was open (blasted in two).

I had long been searching for the source of a very light HV hissing that was intermittent. It couldn't be seen down inside the insulating cup of course. I think that we should be able to achieve correct cathode current at full line potential. Like you, I used a variable source to control this, but I don't think it would be necessary to use that or alter the line voltage in a healthy set. Also, I found that just having the raster fill the screen is not guite all my set needs. The higher line voltages (above 110V) around 115V or up give a much crisper or clearly defined picture once video comes into play.