My 11 year old son's Admiral 30A1 restoration project

[Kamakiri]

This place is quickly turning into a production shop, and I'm running out of parts!

On hold with the Admiral until the Sams arrives (I can't get the needed info out of the Riders because I can't follow them to save my life), so Nick is on to starting my RCA 730TV2, and my 14 year old son Joe and I picked up this RCA SHF-3 on Craigs.

I'm out of 6CG7s (need 2) and I'm totally wiped out of .047 caps. Placed an order with Capacitor World last week, so that ought to be in tomorrow or Tuesday.

Picture of Nick on the RCA chassis, and Joe on the tube tester. Where did all this COME from?!?!? It's not like they're alien to this kinda stuff, but they always thought it was "boring" until they decided to try it. They're back and forth through the parts bins and have things set up on benches and things are going at the speed of light. I'm answering questions and helping with searching out tubes and parts....thank God most everything is well organized.

EDIT: I found some 6CG7s. It's gonna be a busy morning once they wake up

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

As a few of you might have caught in another thread, my 11 year old son Nick (for some ungodly reason ) has decided that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his dad and take up television restoration as a hobby

Hey dont ask questions buddy!!!!

JUST BE HAPPY HE KNOWS WHAT GOOD IS!!!!!!!!!!


GOOD FOR HIM

[NoPegs]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Placed an order with Capacitor World last week, so that ought to be in tomorrow or Tuesday.

What brand of electrolytics do they normally ship? I've been told Rubycon but also some people have said "not junk but not really great" brands too.

They have great prices on films though, and I don't care about brands as much on them. Plus if they ship from NJ that's probably "overnight" to me by USPS anyway here in Eastern PA.

I'm interested in giving them a try, but I want to hear your respected opinion first!

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Picture of Nick on the RCA chassis, and Joe on the tube tester. Where did all this COME from?!?!? It's not like they're alien to this kinda stuff, but they always thought it was "boring" until they decided to try it. They're back and forth through the parts bins and have things set up on benches and things are going at the speed of light. I'm answering questions and helping with searching out tubes and parts....thank God most everything is well organized.

EDIT: I found some 6CG7s. It's gonna be a busy morning once they wake up

Turn them loose on your back-log of shelved projects. I'm kind of doing the same thing with my girlfriend. She enjoys soldering and desoldering very much, so I have to have plenty of things to do in that area to keep things enjoyable for her in between the advanced theory portions which aren't so enjoyable for her until things eventually click into place in her head and the light of understanding shines forth.


We can both hope that this isn't just a "fad" for our apprentices. Someone has to keep the thermionic lighthouse warm in the future!

[Kamakiri]

Originally Posted by NoPegs

What brand of electrolytics do they normally ship? I've been told Rubycon but also some people have said "not junk but not really great" brands too.

They have great prices on films though, and I don't care about brands as much on them. Plus if they ship from NJ that's probably "overnight" to me by USPS anyway here in Eastern PA.

I'm interested in giving them a try, but I want to hear your respected opinion first!



Turn them loose on your back-log of shelved projects. I'm kind of doing the same thing with my girlfriend. She enjoys soldering and desoldering very much, so I have to have plenty of things to do in that area to keep things enjoyable for her in between the advanced theory portions which aren't so enjoyable for her until things eventually click into place in her head and the light of understanding shines forth.


We can both hope that this isn't just a "fad" for our apprentices. Someone has to keep the thermionic lighthouse warm in the future!

Never had an issue with anything from Capacitor World, and I generally use the snot out of stuff that I restore. Dwight wrote up a review on them a while ago:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=260962

As I mentioned in the thread, I do my main stock of commons through them, but the specialty stuff I have to get from Mouser. Rumor has it that they'll be stocking 1 kV caps soon, which is a very good thing

And the project backlog is exactly why I wanted to get Nick going on the 730TV2. I'm paying him to do the work....if he can get tubes tested and base recaps done in the sets in the "on-deck circle", that'll save me a TON of time. He's a little wary of trying to do the filter cans by himself, which is fine (I'd rather be involved in that end of it anyway) but having him do the tedium of all the bypass caps gets my thumbs up . He's aware to look for voltages as well, as the 730TV2 has some 1 kV caps in it.

[Boobtubeman]

I havent seen capacitor world offered on ebay lately, How does one get in touch to place orders?
SR

[Kamakiri]

Just go to www.capacitorworld.net

[decojoe67]

Myself and a few other collectors I've spoken to over the years often joke about where in the world this draw to vintage electronics started?! I was around Nics age when the passion began for these old radios and TV's. It's great to see young people finding an interest in this great hobby and keeping it alive. It's a pastime that doesn't get you into trouble - well, maybe financially!

[Electronic M]

With me part of it started with an appreciation for vintage music...Then an appreciation of the cabinet styling and amazement that some electronic equipment several times my age was still chugging right along. As I learned the principles of repair and operation I came to appreciate the simplicity and quality of the circuit designs.

[Sandy G]

Just fascinated w/'em all of my life. When I was a kid, I'd run & plaster my eye against the screen to see if I could see what was STILL going on in the little dot after they'd turned the TV off..As soon as I could read, I studied up on how TVs & radios worked, even tho I still feel a little to this day, THAT'S all BS, its REALLY Magic... (grin)

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Just fascinated w/'em all of my life. When I was a kid, I'd run & plaster my eye against the screen to see if I could see what was STILL going on in the little dot after they'd turned the TV off..As soon as I could read, I studied up on how TVs & radios worked, even tho I still feel a little to this day, THAT'S all BS, its REALLY Magic... (grin)

Same for me too! I used look into the back of TV's/radio's as a kid and wonder what was going on. I was fascinated. Suprisingly I never got into actually working on electronics, but drawn to research and collect these early sets. Although I've learned how it all works, it still is "magic" to me also!

[powerking]

From what I see in the CapacitorWorld catalog pages, they do not provide any lead pitch/spacing or dimensions of the caps; that could be a problem when getting the right size for PCB replacements with real estate considerations; not so much concern when doing replacements on vintage point-to-point wired chassis's. Also, are all the electrolytics truly 105 deg C rated, or is it just a "stock" description they use? I also think these guys deal with mfg's surplus and/or old date code items. Looking at Dwight's review/thread, there is no way to make a quality judgement statement about a cap saying it "passed" a 48hr or even 2 week burn in time (IMHO). Most inferior/aged caps fail in the hundreds to a few thousand hours due to age, high temperatures, poor quality electrolyte and/or dry-out, or running too close to rated voltage.

My 2 cents worth,

Tom (PK)

[Electronic M]

One can usually make caps that are not the exact same size/lead spacing work in tube era PCB based sets...It just looks less 'factory' than the right sized non-period correct caps do.

[walterbeers]

I just ordered some caps from capacitor world, and yes they are still on eBay. I just searched for the values I needed and found them for sale through Capacitor World. Apparently the company also sells automotive paint as well. Hope they stay in business selling capacitors, as parts keep getting harder to find. I just did in a search on eBay like .47uf 400volt capacitor and found several of them including those from Capacitor World. I have had really good luck with their caps. Only problem is that I wish the leads were longer, as when you replace the old wax capacitors that were quite longer, I have to add extra lead length to them to stretch them out so they can fit where the old wax caps were. That's not much of a problem though.

[DavGoodlin]

This is a great thread. I bet the boys will have tube numbers, and substitutes memorized before long.

Starting right out on early post-war TV is quite an immersion. I only started with radios and worked up to the "easy TVs" of teh mid-late 1950s. What a start!

[Kamakiri]

Well, he started out just messing around a couple years ago with some old caps and a breadboard, just "making things". Then, it was on to a couple easy soldering kits, and then, well, now!