bought possibly the only tube color Capeheart in private hands

[Electronic M]

ETF lists one Capehart 31T216, 36C216M-5 in private hands and one in a museum. The ETF picture in their early color gallery is from the sale posting, so I think I bought the one known privately owned example. CRT is nice and strong and I got a CTC16 too while I was there.
No pictures of of my own yet since I'm getting food and driving home, but till then have a gander at the listing I bought it from.


https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/i...3188564849635/

[nasadowsk]

Was the design their own, or RCA’s “simplified” one?

[SpaceAge]

Interesting how the serial number is 752548. Seems kind of arbitrary considering probably only a handful of these were built.

[zeno]

Back about 1968 me & my brother stopped at a barn sale in
Stow, Mass. They had a Capehart - Farnswourth roundy color
& we got it for $10. My bro did get a color pix on it but not
very stable. The owner said it was one of the first color
sets in the area.
Later we traded it to the local slum lord for a 1961 Olds Fiesta
station wagon. I needed to learn to drive so it went to a friends
apple orchard. Was the fastest car we had, a 394 cid 4bbl. I had
more fun with that car than any old TV !

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[WISCOJIM]

Congrats, Tom. You're putting together quite a collection.

.

[Phil Nelson]

Zounds! Talk about a rare one. I look forward to seeing more photos, and hearing about the restoration.

Regards,

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

[Steve D.]

From the ETF: We acquired this rare 19 inch Capehart model CXC 12 color prototype from Steve Dichter. This is the only surviving example. It uses the CBS 19VP22 round tube, and was made in 1954.

[Electronic M]

I'm lucky to have got this set. I found it the late Saturday before a 2 week summer vacation that had a local radio swapmeet the next weekend so I gave a down payment and asked the seller to wait close to a month. Thursday night despite being fully vaccinated I got a 101 degree fever after feeling monsterously tired many hours before bedtime...That along with muscle aches and other things led ma to conclude I caught covid, despite the vaccines, and give me some horse ivermectin she'd bought last year incase we caught the dreadded beer virus. Friday I was normal except I had the runs all day and ma was badgering me hard to cancel. Early Friday I informed the seller what I was dealing with and asked him if he wanted to reschedule and he did not. I just stayed the course of treating my symptoms in hopes I'd be well Saturday... Despite some mild stomach discomfort by the grace of god I've been fine since I woke up Saturday. When I bought the set the owner told me of other early color collectors trying to buy it and then backing out by BSing him about medical issues and him telling them he was going to part it out....If I hadn't convinced myself I'd be well enough in time to make the trip and done everything I could to make that wellness come to pass I'd have lost my chance.

I unloaded it yesterday it's the 21" model. The set needs a complete refinish with the amount of flaked off toner lacquer and the fade from mahogany to greenish yellow in various places.




The design is interesting, It's schematically it's similar to a CTC-4 but with different tubes, no PCBs, and its own chassis layout. The chassis and CRT are mounted to a common baseboard that bolts into the cabinet...So if you remove the baseboard assembly from the cabinet it becomes its own test jig.
Capeheart CXC-13 http://earlytelevision.org/pdf/capeh...sams_327-3.pdf
RCA CTC-4 http://earlytelevision.org/pdf/rca_ctc4_sams_314-9.pdf

The white CTC-4 style CRT mask, older than CTC-4 looking brass handle face edge purity magnets, and the cardboard delay line (RCA CTC-4 used a flexible molded plastic delay line) make me wonder if this was built when the CTC-4 was still in development.

The previous owner has done a partial recap changing most of the paper caps, but leaving the lyrics original. Some of the caps look like they were scrounged out of used BPC sets so I'm probably going to partially redo some of the work to bring it up to my standards.
Since it has been powered up within my lifetime I decided to variac it. It came up and produced a raster and 16KV of HV so I have a good starting point for restoring the electronics to opperation.

[old_tv_nut]

Just out of curiosity, do you know if the CRT is new or rebuilt?

[etype2]

Congratulations! I also look to follow the restoration.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Just out of curiosity, do you know if the CRT is new or rebuilt?

I'm guessing rebuilt, or a new replacement since it's RCA badged and I've seen EIA274 (RCA made) 21AXP22s with other names like Philco on them.

The 6T8 is original Capeheart (can't see many more original tubes though) so if it has a date code I can check the CRT against it...Once I get to that.

I'm hoping to make a bench space for the chassis/CRT module tonight and start poking around in earnest in the next day or two.

The other set I got there has been eating up some time the last 2 days....the CTC16 I got as a CRT donor had a burnt fly show it's self on a variac power up, and I started trying to get the cabinet and chassis out of my hair yesterday and I cataracted the CRT from it for my Zenith Chancellor today.

[old_tv_nut]

Thanks. Looking forward to the progress.

If a rebuilt CRT, you may be able to spot some irregulaties where the neck was extended. The 21AXP22 in my CTC-5 is a rebuilt that shows that if you examine it closely.

[Electronic M]

I started messing with the chassis last night. Got full vertical by resoldering a cracked joint on a 500uF 10V vertical lytic that some tech had snipped a lead then badly tacked it back together.

I couldn't get it to pass VHF 13 from my agile modulator, but did get audio either from it or FM. I was able to get it to pass IF from my B&K analyst and discover monochrome video passes, I have sync on both axes, and color demodulation seems like it's atleast somewhat working.

The high B+ rails are only 30V low one of the lower ones is a bit worse though.

The 16KV HV (focus is about half what it should be too) is a bit confusing. H Out screen was about 10V low and control grid was at -28V instead of the Sam's -50. There's a terminal that a note on the chassis says to ground if the H drive is insufficient doing that got me -44V at the grid and the screen 10-20V higher than Sam's. This didn't change HV. Unplugging the CRT and HV reg aren't increasing the HV and neither is disconnecting the ground of the HV doorknob. Strangely the boost is only 30V low.
I need to go through the recap the previous owner did with a fine tooth comb now though. There's mistakes. Sam's shows 2 different .22uF 1KV caps connecting flyback lugs to centering pot terminals...one was replaced with a pair of parallel .1 400V caps (that they aren't shorted is a miracle) and the other one looks like a .1 at 1.5KV out of a late 60s Philco.
I'm hoping the HV issue is just some wiring or part error but if it isn't finding it is going to be fun.

[Tom9589]

Out of curiosity, where in the circuit is the point to ground to get more H drive?

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

Out of curiosity, where in the circuit is the point to ground to get more H drive?

It appears to go to the wiper of the drive pot. However on my set the series order of R133 and R19B in my set is the reverse of Sam's...So grounding the wiper shorts out R133 but the drive pot R19B still works as an adjustment.