Ge 21c3461

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by mpatoray

...GE was always good with "Doing More With Less"..

I thought that wuz Muntz.

[wa2ise]

Looks like they inserted a portable/ tabletop set into a console. It would make sense if they wanted to make a console that wasn't a deep box.

[mpatoray]

No Mad Man Muntz did less with less....

[bandersen]

I have a very interested part in this set so I pulled it in to check it out. First though, I wanted to get the caster wheels off it.

They sure appear to be original or at least very old. Strange thing is though that the front wheels do not swivel and are lock at 90 degrees to the front.
So you can really only move it front to back - not sideways! Not surprisingly, there are flat spots worn on those wheels.



I knew the former owner had been using it shortly before I got it so wasn't really concerned about powering it up.

So, does the remote work ? Sort of. First I had to enabled it via a switch near the antenna terminals and let the tubes warm up.
I was able to get it to turn on and off a few times by holding the remote vey near the receiver. I could hear the receiver buzzing when I tried channel and volume but no action.



After a little horizontal hold twiddling, I was able to get a stable picture with good sound

The power tuning feature is very cool but a little flaky. The idea is you depress a tab for the desired station and a motor will rotate to the channel.
It rotates alright, but often overshoots the station or continues to go round and round all the channels.

[bandersen]

It appears to have a tag dated 12-57 which seems a little too early to me. The Sams I have for this GE "M5" chassis is dated 11-59.



Here's a look inside


I quickly noticed the CRT is a replacement. A 21FAP4 to be specific. The original was a 21ESP4. The 21FAP4 is pretty much electrically compatible, but has a 1" shorter neck - just like a Predicta. Now that got me thinking...

It just so happens I have another GE coaxial set which had a dead CRT into which I installed a NOS 21ESP4. The set should have a 21CEP4.

I also recently took on a Predicta Pedestal restoration job. It has a nearly dead original Phico 21EAP4 CRT.

Now here's where things get interesting because I also have a NOS 21CEP4.

So what I propose is this. Remove the 21ESP4 from my other set and install the correct 21CEP4. Install that 21ESP4 into this set and put the 21FAP4 into the Predicta.

That way, both GE coaxial sets have the correct and very strong CRT types and the Predicta gets a new lease on life. Sure is going to be a lot of work though

[dieseljeep]

The date on the tag, was the last time it was revised. They probably used it for years.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Originally Posted by bandersen

Sure is going to be a lot of work though

You'll have that all done in about a half an hour.

[bandersen]

Closer to a couple days



21FAP4 about to come out.


I think the short necked 21FAP4 (back) will be more at home in a Predicta


Transplanted 21ESP4 working very well


Now to get to work on the dusty chassis.

[bandersen]

I've finally got the chassis up on the workbench. I cleaned and lubed up the complicated tuner mechanism and it's working better now.


I also pulled out the sweep board and recapped it. I find these boards much more difficult to remove and install than those in Predictas. The wires are heavier gauge and many are soldered on.


There are parts lurking under here too!

[bandersen]

Working even better now so it's onto the IF board.




What a colossal pain in the butt to get out!


Once that's done, I'll dig into the remote control receiver box.

[bandersen]

Here's what I found inside that remote receiver.






Here's the schematic for the curious. The heart of it is a reed relay assembly that trips one of four relays depending on the receiver frequency.

[bandersen]

They used this same M4/M5 chassis in a lot of models including some portable 17" sets. The remote option seems like an after thought as the receiver cable is wedged under the back where they left some screws off

[bandersen]

I was able to get the remote control partially working by tweaking the slugs in the remote control. A recap of the receiver got all the functions working I'm so glad the volume motor is still good!




One bad thing though is the latching power relay is flaky. I tried tweaking the contacts a little and made it even worse so now I'm looking for a replacement.



Unfortunately, it seems to be an oddball relay. They call it a latching relay with overload protection. More specifically, I think it's a ratchet or impulse relay. Each time the coil is pulsed, the relay toggles it's contacts and stays that way until another pulse is applied. The coil runs on 120 VAC.

I believe this Omron G4Q-212S AC100/(110) could work but it's a little pricey.
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/307/g4q_ds_csm44-598708.pdf

$105 from Allied Electrons or about $75 on Amazon.

Any suggestions ?

[Kevin Kuehn]

Maybe something like this?



It's way down at the bottom of this page.

http://a1parts.com/relays/index.html

Alternately you could build a flip flop circuit to run a normal relay.

[Jeffhs]

Those GE Coaxial sets were excellent when they were new. I had relatives in Georgia who owned one (theirs had power tuning as does this one), and theirs pulled in signals (three stations at that time) from Chattanooga, 50-some miles away (my relatives lived in Dalton), using, if I remember correctly after all these years (I was just a kid, no more than perhaps eight or nine years old, when they had this TV), a large Rembrandt all-channel rabbit-ears antenna. The pictures were great and the sound was unlike anything I had ever heard before in a TV set, probably, even likely, owing to that huge oval speaker in the base of the cabinet and perhaps a powerful audio stage, with a couple of push-pull 6V6 tubes.

As I always say about Zeniths and will say now about the GE Coaxial TVs, they don't make them like that anymore. The Coaxial is one of the first TVs I've ever seen with a speaker that big; another was my grandmother's 16" GE console, with an equally large speaker in the base of the cabinet, directly below the CRT, and yet another was my Zenith K-2739 console which had a large 6x9 oval speaker in the same location.

GE should have put a switch in the audio stages so the amplifier and that huge speaker could be used with an external phonograph turntable, or with a changer like the RCA 45-EY-3 45 RPM one; no sense using all that fidelity just for TV sound, IMHO. My folks had an RCA Victor changer like that which they used with their 21-inch RCA Victor TV. That phono jack was a standard feature, or so it seemed at the time, of RCA's 1950s-era televisions; several other manufacturers may have taken them up on the idea before the end of the decade, as many other makes of TVs and radios had the phonograph input on the rear apron of the chassis, with a switch to select radio or phonograph either near that jack or on the front panel, as part of the volume or tone control or as a separate slide switch. Today's flat screens have RCA jacks to permit connecting them to an external stereo system, but even then the sound cannot possibly hold a candle to the excellent sound quality of the old '50s console TVs. Once again, they don't make them like that anymore.