Some of you might remember the Porta-Color that radotvguy had on the old tv swap thread from his attic. Well, I inquired about it a few months ago and decided not to get it. I thought of it when I purchased the Porta-Potty off eBay recently because I need a lot of parts for it. The plan has changed, as soon as I opened the very well packaged box I could see the potential. there was no way I could part this poor thing out. So I powered it up, saw the bad but bright picture and started planing the operation about to commence. The picture was badly bowed in the center and all squished up at the sides, I thought the HOT was going bad so I put one on order, looks like I'll have a spare 'cause this one turned out to be ok. It is a 12JF5, A rare thing happened with this tube, my trusty Sylvania tester failed to have the # in the chart {this almost never happens unless I'm working on something older than '49}. Under the years of dirt and the tape was removed from the front it already looked better. When I took the back off I was perplexed by the way the .1@1000VDC cap in the horiz. sect. blew up, the pic shows the foil coned out all the way up to the power supply board, looked pretty damn crazy to say the least. I found two other white "time bomb" caps in there, one in the power supply and one more in the horiz. section related to the focus. the two in the horiz. are the aforementioned one and a .047@400VDC and one in the power supply, a .039@ 150VAC { I used a .039@ 600VDC and it works fine}. I set the basic center position for the master screen controls and put the back on the set, powered it up and it worked perfectly, including the greyscale! I believe that all the tubes are original including the HOT! all have those code #s you find on original tubes! I didn't even test the tubes, just cleaned them up along with the rest of the chassis { had a bunch of cap gue all over by the HOT}. The set has performed for over 12 hours now without a single hiccup. It's funny that I planned on parting this set out for the one I already had seeing as I stole the black channel knobs from it to fix this one! This set uses the 10 HE chassis and has the stripe phosphor CRT, my other one has the dot phosphor with small dot pitch. This one still has very good resolution in my opinion. The pic shows it next to a '98 Panasonic, the picture looks better in real life, my camera sucks at taking pictures of tvs. I am going to change those same caps in my other one too as it displays a similar picture to this one before the repairs, those three caps made a world of difference. This was a very fun project, Thanks Mike and long live the Porta-Pottys!!!!:thmbsp:

And this one was an "El Cheapo" Porta-Potty to boot, right ? These little guys, if given half a chance, would run FOREVER, I think...They have a GREAT sense of honor..."We're cheap, we DON'T have good pictures, we were NOT sposed to live this long, we are ancient technology, people laugh at us now, the hell w/'em all ! We'll show 'em ! We'll just keep on goin'...And goin'...An' goin'...(grin)

Yeah portacolors aren't high performance but they do last...


Picture looks good. I can't recall the exact location, but some portacolors have a focus terminal with selectable (pin 1-3) focus voltage you can solder. I'm not sure where it would be on yours, couldn't find it on mine either.

And this one was an "El Cheapo" Porta-Potty to boot, right ? These little guys, if given half a chance, would run FOREVER, I think...They have a GREAT sense of honor..."We're cheap, we DON'T have good pictures, we were NOT sposed to live this long, we are ancient technology, people laugh at us now, the hell w/'em all ! We'll show 'em ! We'll just keep on goin'...And goin'...An' goin'...(grin)

Ya' got that right!:thmbsp: These things will more than likely out-live us!! I thought "El Cheapo" when I saw no handle, Then after I cleaned 'er up, I thought wow, that looks good in black {sort of} and beige with no handle to gaud up the top of it, looks kinda sleek. Too many old sets are "woodgrain" it's nice to see something different.:yes:

Hey Zenithfan, do you have a pic of the white time bomb cap before they have blown up. I'm not familiar with this cap, and would like to know what to look out for. Thanks Logan

Yeah portacolors aren't high performance but they do last...


Picture looks good. I can't recall the exact location, but some portacolors have a focus terminal with selectable (pin 1-3) focus voltage you can solder. I'm not sure where it would be on yours, couldn't find it on mine either.

That was for the ones with the low focus voltage CRT. I can see the focus splitter on the one in the pictures, so it just has a normal focus control.

Thanks for the tip Andy. Even better to have a focus control, makes it that much easier. Set looks clean, too

Nice job! That cap blew up like a chinese yo-yo! ive had it happen to me only once and it was on a silvertone b/w portable. Great picture too!

Hey Zenithfan, do you have a pic of the white time bomb cap before they have blown up. I'm not familiar with this cap, and would like to know what to look out for. Thanks Logan

Yes, I do PM me your email and I'll send them, or I could post them here if you want. You want to look for swelling of the ends, leaking oil and blackening ends. My rule of thumb is to remove these caps before they can do any damage. They don't call 'em "time bombs" for no reason! LOL!

Hey Zenithfan
Glad it made it there ok and glad to see it got a good home .

Mike

Hey Zenithfan
Glad it made it there ok and glad to see it got a good home .

Mike

Yep..... This one is going to be a permanent staple in my collection. I love this little set! Thanks!
Mark

I had a 'time bomb' go off one night while I was watching one of my portacolors. The picture started going dark just before it blew. It smelled a little just after the explosion, but at the same time the picture lightened back up but with "snivets" in the raster. I was surprised the guts didn't short something out in there. Replacing the cap returned things to normal. I have seen several of these where the ends had pulled out, though not so dramatically. They are usually El-Men-Co brand and look like an old style paper cap except the tube is made of ceramic.

Wow, that "time bomb" cap was much like the experience I had with a Portacolor II (the short-lived solid state JA-chassis model) that I found some years ago. It was one of those ceramic-bodied ELMENCO caps too.

Nice looking set, BTW-- I don't think I've ever encountered a Portacolor that didn't have a handle though..! (Shouldn't a "Porta-" product *require* a carrying handle??)