New find... 1950's Philco Console

[Charlie]

Thanks for pointing that remote out. I do not think this is the correct one for my set, though. From what I can tell looking at the chassis and schematic, the remote only operates the power on/off and power tuning. The one on ebay also does picture brightness and volume.

I was noticing that the cable for that remote sure looks thin considering there must be at least 8 wires in there!

I am a little surprised that Sams doesn't include a remote page in the TV schematic for this set. There's also no reference to finding it in another folder.

[Steve D.]

[QUOTE=Don Lindsly]True, Diamond D was a marketing differentiation. Philco had two new console lines in '57, Golden D and Diamond D. The Diamond D was the high tier line. Transitone was revived for first year portables.

Charlie,

Check out this 1956 Philco "Diamond D" ad:

http://cgi.ebay.com/56-Philco-Diamon...QQcmdZViewItem

-Steve D.

[Charlie]

Steve,

Yes, I saw that earlier today. I think that's the first time I've seen one of those ads. Usually, I see the Predicta "Miss America" ads. The set in the center bottom of the ad looks similar to the photo on the front of the photofact. Too bad my set isn't on there.

Currently, I'm changing the last of the lytics. Someone had already changed the caps on the deflection board. I just left those and changed the rest. There were a couple of BB's that were off spec quite a bit... and another that had a big crack. Had all radial lead BB's on printed circuit. Have to leave one of the BB's on the audio board... a .47 @ 200... don't have one here with me. I can always change that one later.

[Charlie]

So far, I've made good progress with the Diamond D. Things have improved dramatically, but still have a couple of buggers to look for.

One of the initial problems in the set was no vertical deflection... it just had the typical white line going across the screen. The vertical opens up now, but, not near enough. The raster is crunched up only covering maybe half the screen. Tried adjusting the height controls, which had an affect, but not enough affect to correct the problem. In the past, someone had changed about 4 or 5 capacitors on the verticle/horizontal board, so I left them in place. Not changing them was probably a dumb-ass thing to do, so I will start there. I'll also go back and double check my previous work, as it's always possible i could have made a mistake installing a cap with the wrong value.

Also, I seem to have a signal strength issue. The signal I am now getting is far better than before I started, but, I still felt it was just a little bit weak. If I let the set run for a while... say 30-45 minutes, all of a sudden the signal comes in 100% improving both sight and sound. It stays that was a few seconds, then goes back to the weaker state. It continues to do this but each stronger cycle last a little longer than the previous one. Tried tapping around on components and jiggling tubes back and forth, but didn't find anything that way. While the chassis was out, I tightened up the screws on the boards pretty good as Don pointed out they are ground connections. Perhaps I will also try dabbing a little solder on them as well. The problem obviously gets better as runs, so, something in there is changing with temperature. I did not change the 1000 ohm resistor in the tuner that was mentioned earlier since the resistance measurements at the tuner's tube sockets were within spec. I might go back and change that resistor anyway just for the hell of it.

That's about it. Once I get those two bugs worked out, this set should play very well. Even now as it is, it makes a really good picture (although crunched up). Has good brightness and contrast.

[Don Lindsly]

A couple of quick checks. Measure the tuner AGC. It should be about 2 volts negative. If it's much more, it's an AGC problem. There is 12 meg resistor from B+ to tuner AGC to bleed down the tuner AGC voltage. If it is an IRC it probably should be changed.

Also remove the 6AV6 audio amp tube. It is also the AGC clamper. If the weak signal recovers, the tube has heater-cathode leakage and is rectifying the 6 volts AC.

Also I would make sure the 1K RF plate resistor is good. It goes from plate circuit to B+. The B+ is a high resistance to ground and a defective load resistor may not show up in a resistance check to ground.

Don

[Charlie]

Things have come together on the Philco! Found the weak signal was caused by two 470K resistors in the tuner. One of them was open, and the other was reading nearly a meg. Signal is good and strong now.

Changed all the caps on the verticle/horz board. Previously, I had left those because they had already been changed before. Raster has now opened up covering the entire screen with a great picture.

Noticed that the vertical hold seems touchy. Gotta work with it to get a lock, and after the set runs for about an hour, it drifts and starts rolling. Great... just when I thought I was finished! I'm a little surprised it's having this issue being that so much has been changed in the sync and oscillator section. Swapping tubes with new ones had no affect. Oh well... I'll find it later.

I starting to think that perhaps Philco should have come up with another name for this series other than Diamond D. This set had many problems to be corrected. It also looks like it's had several service calls in the past considering the number of tubes that had been changed (all but one). It's had several caps changed in the past, and also the CRT. In addition, Don has pointed out a few failures to look for that was common for this series. With all this being said, maybe Philco should have considered naming it the Philco Cubic Zirconia D!

[Charlie]

The shots of the Mamas & Papas came off a DVD I recently found that talks about their history and shows great performances they did on shows like Ed Sullivan and Shindig. Watching on a color roundie is great! Lots of 60's colors on their clothes and the stage. I've loved their tunes since i was a kid. They were one of my mom's favorite groups, and the exposure I had to their music grew on me at a very young age.

After being aggrivated by vertical drift last night, I decided to monitor the B+ for a while. Specs call for it to be about 275 volts. I found it slowly go up and down... mainly down. At one point, it was riding around 235 volts. The highest it would go was 270. I've plugged in a new 5U4 and now the B+ seems more stable. A little low at 262 volts, but at least it's not drifting all over the place. I'll run it this way for a while and see how it works. I did have a little bit of drift on the vertical earlier, but it wasn't enough that I couldn't adjust to correct it. I'll tear it apart again later to see if there is somthing I've overlooked. It's possible I could also have a resistor that's drifting in value as the chassis heats up.

More pics...

[veg-o-matic]

Abner! Look what's going on at the Stevens's!

Nice job, Charles!

veg

[Charlie]

Last night, I changed out all the resistors surrounding the vertical osc and sync amp. The old ones I pulled out all checked within spec, but, apparently one or more of them was drifting in value as the set ran. Now, the drifting vertical roll has been corrected and getting a lock is easy! Yay! Watched it last night for about 3 hours without ever needing to touch the vertical control.

Interlace is a little bit out of whack, but not so much that the lines have completely merged. I was going to build a new vertical integrator, but am short a couple of capacitors. I'll build one later when I get home. I should have everything I need there.

In my last post, I mentioned having unstable B+ voltages. When I changed the 5U4, the B+ became stable at 262 volts. Apparently, the failing resistors in the vertical/sync sections were a strain on the B+ because now the B+ is stable at 278 volts (specs called for 275). Cool! Killed two birds with one stone!

There is one last issue that I've discovered... high voltage at the crt calls for 16KV. I am getting nearly 21KV. How can I tune this down??? There is no HV adjustment.

The picture this set makes is quite impressive. I've been using the DVD player on it. Late last night, I tried tuning in stations only using the set's internal antenna. Picking up stations up here in the woods is usually difficult, but I was able to get a few. Surprisingly, the station that tuned in the best was channel 11 out of Houston.

[Don Lindsly]

Charlie:

I would reduce the width to about 1/2 to 3/4 inch overscan on the sides. Make sure the 6500 ohm, 7 watt 6DQ6 screen resistor is not shorted. Other than that I would not attempt to reduce the high voltage.

Measuring high voltage did not come into fashion until it was mandatory for color TV so service personnel rarely knew what it was or were concerned with it.

Anything creative you do to lower the high voltage will either reduce width or load the flyback. Both should be avoided.

Don

[Charlie]

Don,

The width did the trick. Thanks. I had adjusted the width a couple of days ago. I guess once I got the B+ up to 278 volts last night, it increased the width beyond where it was supposed to be and I didnt think to go back and check it again last night. HV is now running at 16.5 KV.