Why no love for this GE roundie ?

[tvcollector]

It was a sucsees:

Cut it real nice with my saw



Drilled through the plate just right behind each terminal for positive leads and solder them where terminal comes out of bottom.. Then drilled near a tab I broke off for ground..


Powered the set on, and no BANGS!!


I found that my heat gun worked really well.. Heated it up a few times and stuffed it with an old sock and took a screw driver and did a circular motion a few times.. I didn't get all of it, but the majority is gone.. I did test the old cap and all were still within range with no leakage, though the 80uf was around 69uf.. It was a Son of a bitch to unmount, and mounting wasn't easy either.. I went over to Harbor Freight and bought a cheap 180watt soldering gun and then to Radio Shack to buy a solder sucker, and it even was still hard to remove the solder from the tabs... I'm so not looking forward to unmounting the second one tomorrow night..

[Electronic M]

Not all guns have enough tip mass to make chassis soldering easy. I keep an OLD 85W soldering iron around for the occasional chassis ground joint. The heating element on mine is bigger around then the handle on most irons, and the tip is fatter than my pinky....That thing will melt ANY solder joint, but you have to hold it there for a while to get everything in some cases.

If you are having problems doing the positive lugs then there is something wrong with your equipment or technique.

[tvcollector]

The positive lugs were easier than I thought.. I didn't realize at first the wires wrap around the terminals, I heated them up with my regular soldering iron and pull them off with my needle nose..

[tvcollector]

I don't know what technique people use to get these cans off.. Last one I got off with only breaking one mounting tab off, this one not so lucky.. They are all broke off.. Now I don't know how I would mount this can back on.. Epoxy or super glue? The solder was very stubborn, no matter how long I put my 180watt soldering gun to them.. These tabs just didn't want to nudge though the holes..

[Electronic M]

I use needle nose to flatten out the tabs so they fit through. Get the solder off, then flatten them out.

[tvcollector]

I did the same thing to the last can, but this one It was hard to flatten them seeing how the solder was just not wanting to move out of the way at least... You mean get the solder off of the broken tabs and resolder them onto the can?

[Electronic M]

No, when the mounting tabs get that damaged (short of trying to solder them to the chassis) the only good way to deal with it is to get another dead can and restuff it....
Alternatively you could just leave the can out, install a solder type terminal strip from radio shack and mount the replacements under the chassis. I've done it before, and while it can make things more cramped there is nothing wrong with it.

[tvcollector]

Not sure what happened but I remounted, powered on, and now get real bad hum from the speaker, and the little glass crystal on the video/color board started glowing or at least I've never noticed it glowing... I give up.. I guess Dave is going to have to fix this..

[Electronic M]

Check your last work. If you mounted a cap backwards, mixed up caps, or have a short or base wiring mix up all of that could cause what you describe. I've burned open power resistors on a can restuff, and all I did wrong was confuse which terminals were which (causing a polarity reversal).

If all you did since it last worked was that can, then it should be easy to fix if you pause, and look at it with fresh eyes.

Learning to find your own mistakes is an important part of your growth as a restorer...When you see your own mistakes you will subsequently make less of them.

[tvcollector]

I removed the can and went over my work on the restuffing job and everything is wired correctly, even got out my tester and tested each lead to make sure each value is right.. I then hooked each cap to their proper leads directly then I ran each ground wire and connected all of them with alligator clippers to the chassis ground.. Looks like a complete mess, but it's only temporary.. Powered set up again and still the problem is there.. I removed the HV output tube when I powered up again and the crystal doesn't glow..

The can was really loose when I powered up the set after restuff job, so possibly may not have been making proper ground connection, or I could have done something to the other exposed caps when I flipped the chassis over to remove/install the second can.. I most likely burned something else out.. There is a small .001 cap that was connect to one of the terminals of the can to ground, I ended up burning it with the soldering iron.. I did check it afterwords and still tested within spec..

If anyone else has an extra can lying around I would probably take it.. I'm most likely going to Radio Shack tomorrow and buy a ground terminal strip and mount them on the bottom, at least with the one can.. May have to drill hole in chassis to install the terminal at a good place under the cans.. If anything I'll just leave the one can empty for looks..

[DaveWM]

a few things on cap replacement.

Can caps of that era are often fine, no reason to automatically replace unless diagnosis indicates a problem. As you have found out its not easy to remove without damage to cap. the same goes for the film type caps, most will be fine.
Diagnosis is the key.

If a can type needs to be replaced the best approach IMHO is to cut the can off at the shoulder (like you did) BUT do it in place, do not remove the can.
I use a dremel bone saw (my words) to do the cutting. Most caps can be reached with this reciprocating saw. These are often used for cutting door trim when installing flooring.

cutting the can off leaves the base and all the wiring (which often is extensive and may have parts like resistors and small caps attached to the pins) untouched. Leaving the lead dress alone makes it much easier for the next guy if nothing else.

Buy the new skinny caps from mouser, they fit much better the foot print of the base.

using a micro drill bit simply drill holes from the bottom of the base close to the remaining terminals and grounds, then install from the top the skinny caps, no need for extention wires/tape/hot glue or any thing else, the fit right in the foot print.

If you feel the need to replace the outer can, just use some alum duct tap about 3/8 wide to reattach the can.


with this method I can do a 4 section can from start to finish in about 20min.

[Zenith26kc20]

It sounds like a wiring error. Are you sure the capacitor is hooked as original?
Can you show a picture of the glowing crystal? It doesn't have to be glowing but I've never seen a detector crystal glow. They just flash and open. I've only seen that once due to a shorted IF transformer.
Does this capacitor supply the audio output transformer it's B+?

[tvcollector]

I went to radio shack and bought a solder terminal as Tom said... I bought solid wires And I'm using these for leads, for extenders... I drilled a hole on the side of the chassis on the upper side next to where the cans are and that's where I'm going to mount this terminal.. I'm going to use the old reference photos follow the color code wires to each shape from the original terminal than read the value of the old can to determine which lead goes to which cap.. Radio Shack had a ceramic .001 cap, So I'm replacing the little red cap that was originally mounted on the old terminals from the can.. I've got the mounted with the 22uf cap as it originally connected..

Old photo:


My new terminal mount:




I was going to Riveter it into the chassis, but I think that will be a bit hard to do without messing the job up.. I'll run over to Home Depot and buy a screw and nut and do it that way, at least for now.. I'll take pic of the crystal in a few.. Btw it glows similar to tube filament glow, but looks a bit brighter..

[Electronic M]

I'd add a ground wire and run it to a chassis solder terminal just to be sure of a good ground, but then again I tend to over do some things...

[old_coot88]

The 'glowing crystal' may be an NE-2 neon bulb if that chassis's the one using an NE-2 in the burst gate circuit.