Most complicated 50s Philco B&W

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by cbenham

Has anybody here had trouble with intermittent inter chassis connectors?
The service men at the TV shop where I apprenticed in the late1950s HATED the Philco 2 chassis sets because the connectors were always a problem.

Occasionally some, but not nearly as much trouble as the tube sockets, especially on the high temperature tubes.

I do remember problems of corroded connectors on the ground connections used between the chassis, and chassis to tuner grounds, but can not remember if those were Philcos or not. We were in a deep fringe area and these quickly degraded the signal.

If the set had been running in the typical not air conditioning home of the era for a couple of years, accidentally touching either a tube or connection could start a problem. While you were in the home, you were careful not to disturb any connectors. The absolute worst offenders were the tube sockets and line voltage compensating switches mounted on top of the power transformers, but most of those were found on sets other than Philco.

Since you mentioned "apprenticed" . . . . . .

Both shops where I worked, it was the apprentice who had the job of removing the chassis, cleaning it and testing the tubes, and providing a detailed list of which tubes that checked substandard for the service tech.

Part of the apprentice's cleaning included *brushing on contact cleaner on all connecting plugs and power handling tube pins inserting and removing them two or three times and then leaving them apart for 15 minutes to dry, before replacing them.

Cliff, maybe that is why you remembered this :-)

*"Brushing" because the much more expensive spray cleaner was only used on house calls.

James

[Zenith26kc20]

The biggest problem we ever saw with the early split chassis was "flag waving" at the top of the picture. Changing all capacitors in the horizontal oscillator/drive stage usually helped. I liked the upright metal console 17 inch with the inside cabinet lined with an asbestos sheet. Heavy well made set.

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

BTW, the 55-56 models were better sets. A full power transformer and one piece chassis.

I back this 100%. I have posted through the years about my $10 Goodwill purchase of a 1956 Philco 21" table model. Although nothing really special like some early DuMont or something, the set is pretty much indestructible, or at least has been for me since the early 80s when I bought it. I have replaced one paper capacitor and a few tubes through the years, and it has been through one CRT since new unless someone replaced the original CRT with a factory Philco unit before I got it.

The chassis is simple, light weight and easily removed. The only battle I am fighting now is since analog transmitting ended I have not been able to get the sound in sync with the best picture when using a digital converter. Wish I knew what to do about that.

[Tubejunke]

We were talking about sets made for training. I was thinking that Hallicrafters or maybe Heathkit might have made those, but I am not sure. I took one year of electronics before college and my H.S. had sets donated by locals.