Hello,

on the last weekend, I got the third Sovjet color tv set. It is a very rare Рубин-401-1 (Rubin 401-1), made in 1970. The set has 21 tubes and fortunately a strong picture tube. The Rubin 401 was the first commercial color tv set in the former Sovjet Union. Here are some photos:

http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401front.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_01.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_02.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_03.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_04.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_05.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_06.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_07.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_08.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_09.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_10.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_11.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/cccp/img/Rubin401_12.jpg

I have not tested the set. First, I have to find the schematics for it. The set has the RCA-like shunt regulator in the horizontal output unit.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

Neat! I like to see the foreign sets, very interesting Eckhard.

A friend of mine, who hails from Algeria, was just telling me this morning
about the big capacitors found in Soviet made TV sets. I just saw what he
meant. Thanks for the pictures and good luck with this project.

Kewl ! Eckhard, is this thing made as well as Western TVs ? Seems like I remember reading/hearing about this in a Popular Science magazine when I was a kid.

The Rubin was estimated as being more reliable than the Raduga. But I can not made a statement until I have got this set working. One advantage might be the location of the tubes: they are on the back side of the PCBs. So, they could not damage the other parts by heating them. I have been in the Sovjet Union in 1984, in Moscow and Leningrad. The streets looked very terrible and dirty in these days. I have seen shops there without a floor and with only a few goods which you could carry away in one bag. People were very poor. The Aeroflot planes which we used had no oxygen masks. There was a lack of everything. So, for me, it is absolutely a miracle how the Sovjets were able to produce such difficult items like a color tv set.

Interesting electronics! Very different but in the same all the same. Clean inside too! Very nice and rare!

Here are some more informations, I found regarding the Sovjet color tv sets. Color television was introduced in the Sovjet Union on Oct. 1st, 1967, on the same day, when France started with color television.

Two factories produced color tv sets: the Leningrad Kozitsky Works produced the color tv sets of the brand "Raduga", starting with Raduga 4 and Raduga 5 in 1967. The Raduga 4 had the 70° picture tube 40LK2Z, the Raduga 5 had the 90° picture tube 59LK3Z, see

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga45ctw.html

The Moscow Radio-TV Works (MRTZ) produced the color tv sets of the brand "Rubin", starting with Rubin 401 in 1967, see

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/rubin/rubin401.html

- Eckhard

The Soviet sets are some of the most interesting to me, along with the Australians. Both really seem to come from a parallel universe, moreso than the European which really come across as different. With this Rubin it doesn't appear that they went out of their way to 'reinvent the wheel'.

I love seeing the old TV sets, as they had "one of everything" from the contemporary electronic technology. This set is especially interesting for the hand-tied wiring harness.

The thing that I like the most at Soviet tv's is that they had a transformer. The rest of the Europeanen tv's didn't had... so the risk of getting "fried" was bigger. The main reason for which the hadn't where 1) the transformer was to hard to built; 2) In some Western countryes, if the tv's where lighter (those transformers where heavy) you could carry more tv's into a container; they simply sacrificed the saftey! In Sweeden, the tv's didn't have a transformer, but if the phase (don't know if this is the term) of the electricity supply network was conected to the chassie, the tv didn't turn on!; the tv only turned on when the electronic network was conected to the phase of the supply network; so, if you touched the chassie, you didn't got "fried".

yagosaga: just curios, in the '70's and even the '80's did you still got D.C. on the electric supply network?

yagosaga: just curios, in the '70's and even the '80's did you still got D.C. on the electric supply network?

As far as I know, we had only A.C. power line in the '70s and '80s.

Today I have got the schematics for the Rubin, and with it, is was possible to get a raster on the screen tonight. There is still a lot of to do. The vertical signal is distorted (low frequency, strong linearity fault). Very weak luminance signal. And I am suspicious that the flyback transformer might be reliable. This is still the original Sovjet transformer, and I know that in two other cases of surviving sets, these transformer burned after a few minutes of operation.

Regards,
Eckhard

The thing that I like the most at Soviet tv's is that they had a transformer. The rest of the Europeanen tv's didn't had... so the risk of getting "fried" was bigger. The main reason for which the hadn't where 1) the transformer was to hard to built; 2) In some Western countryes, if the tv's where lighter (those transformers where heavy) you could carry more tv's into a container; they simply sacrificed the saftey! In Sweeden, the tv's didn't have a transformer, but if the phase (don't know if this is the term) of the electricity supply network was conected to the chassie, the tv didn't turn on!; the tv only turned on when the electronic network was conected to the phase of the supply network; so, if you touched the chassie, you didn't got "fried".

yagosaga: just curios, in the '70's and even the '80's did you still got D.C. on the electric supply network?

I think up until a year or two ago, there were still parts of New York City that had DC power that was supplied by the local utility company, Consolidated Edison.

Here in Italy we had DC power as well as 42, 50 and 60 Hz AC power (depending on the local powerhouse) @ 48, 110, 160 and 220 volts

As a result, older radios and TVs (and even washing machines and so on) are usually fitted with voltage selectors.

In the mid 60s a national power grid was finally built and 220v 50Hz was chosen as the nationwide standard.

Hi,

meanwhile I had some trouble with the E.H.T. coil of the flyback transformer.The coil became very warm after some minutes of operating time. Burned E.H.T. coils in Sovjet color tv sets are a very common problem. First I tried to replace the coil with another NOS E.H.T. coil from a West-German color tv set. But this doesn't work properly, the E.H.T. was much to high.

In another attempt I have cooked the E.H.T. coil in melted wax. The wax was heated up to 130° Celsius. The E.H.T. coil was put into the hot wax. The humidity inside the coil was boiling, and after half an hour, there was no boiling and sparkling anymore. The wax was cooled, and when the temperature was 70° Celsius, the E.H.T. coil was taken out of the wax. Now, I am curious how it works.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

Here in Italy we had DC power as well as 42, 50 and 60 Hz AC power (depending on the local powerhouse) @ 48, 110, 160 and 220 volts

As a result, older radios and TVs (and even washing machines and so on) are usually fitted with voltage selectors.

In the mid 60s a national power grid was finally built and 220v 50Hz was chosen as the nationwide standard.

I know here in the U.S., we run on 120 volts, 60 cycles although we have 240 volts or 208 volts, three phase at 60 cycles. I know when Hoover Dam first opened up in the mid 1930's to about 1950, the West Coast of the U.S. where it was the supplier to, they had 50 cycle power, so some of the U.S. ran on 50 cycles while most was 60. There were even areas that has 25 cycles as well and part of Ontario, Canada were 25 cycle until the late 1950's. My grandmother had an old Hoover vacuum that ran on 120 volts AC and you could feed it anywhere from 25 to 60 cycles.

I know some farms that were not tied to the grid also ran 32 volts DC and there were appliances made that could run off of it. Many times a windmill combined with a gasoline generator would charge a bank of batteries to run 32 volts DC from. There were washing machines, TV's, radios and even air conditioners that ran off of 32 volts DC. I think I learned on here that the government required so many appliances back in the day to be 32 volts DC to serve those customers and that even lasted into the 1980's where I heard there were even 32 volt versions of Zenith System 3's from 1978 to the mid 1980's.

I think there are some yachts that run off of 32 volts DC too.

The problem with a lot of vintage 32 volt equipment is that it had a normal AC plug. I've got a mid '30's Philco tombstone that is 32VDC and it is obvious that someone plugged it into 120VAC.

From what I've heard, there were still rural areas in this part of the US that didn't have electric lines as late as the early to mid '50's.

A short briefing of the current project. Here is a list of the registered faults in the Rubin color tv set:

- Line output tube, filaments did not light up (fixed)
- E.H.T. coil on L.O.P.T. was running hot (fixed)
- Vertical frequency too low (fixed)
- Strong vertical linearity faults (fixed)
- Missing sound
- Missing video (Y) signal (fixed)
- Faulty A.G.C.
- Faulty I.F. curve
- Some faults in the SECAM FM decoder and matrix unit
- Faulty tuner.

After a lot of work, the Rubin displays a first color picture, see test pattern in the attachment. The photo was taken from the mirror, so it is side reversed.

Schematics added.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

Thanks Eckhard, great to see how it progresses.