About to start on something rather unique and interesting...

[ctc17]

Very impressive. I dont see how he could ever make enough to cover the time it would take to make that.
I would love to see some pictures of the underside of the chassis.

[Glenz75]

Thanks Yes hopefully luck is on my side with getting this one working again..

Originally Posted by bandersen

Wow! That really is amazing. The tube lineup reminds me a little of the early GE 80X sets with all their octal tubes.

Good luck getting it running

[Glenz75]

I think Alan cared more about making the set than making any profit on it! That was just the way he was Post number 3 shows pictures of the underside...
Cheers

Originally Posted by ctc17

Very impressive. I dont see how he could ever make enough to cover the time it would take to make that.
I would love to see some pictures of the underside of the chassis.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Glenz75

Post number 3 shows pictures of the underside...
Cheers

I had not looked at that picture before. Just as with the octal tubes, this 1960 TV is full of late-1940's-style Solar paper capacitors! What an interesting set, and it must be very nice to be able to restore and own this TV having known its designer and builder personally.

[Glenz75]

Yeah those 40's Solar caps sure give it away for being odd considering when he builit it!So far I have removed four of those Solar caps and replaced with new ones in the flyback section. I checked those old Solars on my bridge and they're all leaky so it will be good to replace them all eventually...
Having known Alan, I kind of wish I had picked his brains more about the design of his TV, but not knowing that he actually had this set buried in the house, at the time it didn't seem that important.

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

I had not looked at that picture before. Just as with the octal tubes, this 1960 TV is full of late-1940's-style Solar paper capacitors! What an interesting set, and it must be very nice to be able to restore and own this TV having known its designer and builder personally.

[Glenz75]

Its late here and I should gone have to bed ages ago but just had to post an update... I traced the no video fault one of those horrible solar filter can 10+10uf caps, one side has gone shorted that supplies HT to the video amp tube. Temporarily put in a new 10uf 400v cap in place and now we have a picture!

It was quite an historical moment to finally see a picture on it after 24 years!

The horizontal hold/sync is very touchy so there's still more work ahead but hey good progress already. I'm quite chuffed to be honest.
This will spur me on to continue the revamp of the electronics. Can't wait to get rid of all those Solar caps.

Earlier today I had a window of spare time while our son had his afternoon nap and went down and started testing all the tubes and I found that every 6SA7 tested bad.... I confirmed this again with my AVO Mk4 VCM and all of them had very low anode current and very low ma/v indicating they were past it.

Luckily I have a stash of NOS Kenrad 6SA7's, these also came from Alan's estate so I installed a total of seven new 6SA7's in the set. I made a point of checking the new tubes and they were spot on as to be expected.
But just so weird how all of them were low?The weak tubes are all Tung-Sol.

I've included a couple of photos of the cap replacement so far, I have a bunch of NOS Japanese .1uf 630 volt polyesters which I'm using, they are perfect for the job and don't look too out of place either.

So that's pretty much it for now, I guess the work has only really started...now the fun begins!

Enjoy the photos

Cheers
Glen

[Glenz75]

The temporary filter cap in place and some of the new .1's in situ and those dead 6SA7's....

[Phil Nelson]

Wahoo! It's always fun to watch the TV perform better and better by stages, as you replace more and more of the bad old caps. I should use your photos as evidence, the next time someone persists in trying to diagnose a specific problem before bothering to replace any caps.

Funny how all of those 6SA7s were bad. They look identical. Perhaps the Tung-Sol quality control person had a hangover that day.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[VintagePC]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

Funny how all of those 6SA7s were bad. They look identical. Perhaps the Tung-Sol quality control person had a hangover that day.

If they're all bad in the same way, I'd be tempted to wonder if the original builder got a hold of some factory rejects for cheap - tubes that still perform but don't meet the full specs. Since this is a custom built set (and knowing a few people that like to hack together their own stuff), it might well be that the set will operate properly with those "bad" tubes that are out of official spec... but still in-spec enough for that design. I wouldn't bin them just yet

[Glenz75]

This method I actually prefer rather than blanket replacing, I'd be more confident in doing a complete recap if I had a circuit but in this case I will do a small area then power the set on and check to see that its working still.
By all mean use my photos if you wish Yeah rather odd about those 6SA7's, they could have been duds??

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

Wahoo! It's always fun to watch the TV perform better and better by stages, as you replace more and more of the bad old caps. I should use your photos as evidence, the next time someone persists in trying to diagnose a specific problem before bothering to replace any caps.

Funny how all of those 6SA7s were bad. They look identical. Perhaps the Tung-Sol quality control person had a hangover that day.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[Glenz75]

Yeah I've wondered this too, and I will probably put all those weak 6SA7's back in after its all fixed and see what happens. I checked all the tubes before fault finding so wanted to rule them out first and finding all those weaks ones I just had to change them

Originally Posted by VintagePC

If they're all bad in the same way, I'd be tempted to wonder if the original builder got a hold of some factory rejects for cheap - tubes that still perform but don't meet the full specs. Since this is a custom built set (and knowing a few people that like to hack together their own stuff), it might well be that the set will operate properly with those "bad" tubes that are out of official spec... but still in-spec enough for that design. I wouldn't bin them just yet

[Pielock373]

Congrats on the progress you have made with the picture on this set

Steve

[Glenz75]

Thanks Steve Its still a long way off from being done, but yeah the progress so far has been positive. By the way your RCA Projection TV is just awesome!

Cheers
Glen.

Originally Posted by Pielock373

Congrats on the progress you have made with the picture on this set

Steve

[Glenz75]

Progress Update - One section has been totally recapped and most of the resistors have been replaced. Some checked fine, others were way off.
The area I did was in the horizontal drive/osc/sync section. The horizontal sync is now stable and the picture locks in perfectly.
I have to admit that some of those old components were a little tricky to get out, some of the caps were buried underneath others, thankfully I took upclose photos and drew some rough diagrams so to resolder all the new parts in the right place.
I also checked those mica caps just to be 'sure to be sure'...They all checked fine.

Have now started on the vertical section....And that's where I'm at

Photos are of the repaired area and the dead bits including a slighty better picture showing a test pattern this time.

Cheers
Glen

[ChrisW6ATV]

Nice progress, Glen.

I wonder if those Solar capacitors are among the few that ever traveled to NZ and are still there?