'57 Emerson 21" B&W console - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Adam · #1 01-16-2006, 12:05 AM

I fixed the 57 Emerson 21" B&W console I brought back from MI yesterday. This was one of the ones in that electronic parts store's attic. I took a look at some of the caps on this and they mostly looked bad, so I pulled the chassis and recapped the whole thing before I tried it at all.
This is another one of those power-transformer-less sets with the filaments in series. This one is unusual in that it uses no voltage increasing capacitor, an just one of those selenium rectifiers, followed up with two big 250 mfd filter caps. The low voltage only ranges from 135-120. I replaced the old rectifier with a diode, didn't even test it, those have almost always gone bad on me, even if they work at first.
The only tubes that were bad were the ones in the tuner, the RF amp was just weak, the mixer/osc was shorted on the mixer side. The CRT is good.
One tube socket, the horiz osc, was bad and someone had soldered another socket on top of the old one, rather than replacing it, it works, but it dosen't look that great. But this is one of those circuit board sets where the traces lift easily, so I think I could cause more problems trying to change it.
The vert. size control is bad, I got it to work by shaking it a bit, but I can only get it to work on a bit too much vert. size or way not enough, this I probably will change.
This set also needs allignment to get the buzzing out of the audio. Every set I've fixed so far made prior to '59 has this problem. I will eventually have to learn this, but for now I want to just get all my sets to work at all, I have too many not-working sets now.
I had alot of trouble not lifting the traces on the circuit board on this. But, eventually I came up with a way of removing the old capacitors cleanly. I cut the caps off first, then pushed the wires out the back. As pulling the wires out when they are a little bent, is what usually causes this problem for me, so having a nice straight, clean bit of wire to pull through the board helps.
The finish on the cabinet is bad, from sitting under a leaky roof for decades, but the wood itself is good, it only really got the clear coat, at least water didn't get inside, the chassis is clean and rust free.

jpdylon · #2 01-16-2006, 01:15 PM

Of course I have to say:

:

Another saved from extinction! nice work.

Chad Hauris · #3 01-16-2006, 09:03 PM

I have found using desoldering wick to remove the solder from both ends of the component to be replaced works well...it leaves nice clean holes to insert the new component.

Adam · #4 01-17-2006, 09:39 PM

I'll try some wick when I take out that vert. size control, I also have that '58 RCA B&W console that uses circuit boards that I have yet to fix.
I'll take some pictures when I work on my Westinghouse next weekend (and change that vert. size control, if I can find a replacement), that way I can get two sets in on one camera.

Adam · #5 01-23-2006, 04:50 AM

I used the wick to take out that vert. size control, it worked good. But I had to mount the replacement elsewhere on the chassis, as I couldn't find one that was at least 2meg and was the kind that mounted to the board.

Adam · #6 02-07-2006, 08:52 PM

Finally, I had time to take some pictures.

The random one is the back of the u-haul when I was loading it in MI, you can see the new in the box CRTs on the left, the Philco roundie on the right, that TV in the back is a 55 Westinghouse B&W, and there is a portacolor sitting face down on the roundie. The Emerson is there but way in the back.

jpdylon · #7 02-07-2006, 09:02 PM

Very cool! I'll have to come up and see that philco when you get it workin someday...

The emerson looks way cool. I've always liked that style of the 50s.

Adam · #8 02-08-2006, 06:06 AM

As soon as I get all my TVs that don't work at all going, I'm going to go back and try my first attempt sound IF allignment on this Emerson, its got that buzzing, it really needs it.

The Philco actually works pretty good, I got it from captainmoody who already took out the cataracts, the only problems I have noticed are that the red intermittently gets a little dimmer and than brighter again, and the color doesn't come up until about 30 sec. after the TV warms up. But I haven't even checked any of the likely tubes yet, so I'm not worried. I was playing some records on this the other day and the audio on this TV is really good, best of all my consoles with record players.