I dont know anything about old tv's but it caught my eye because it was better looking than the normal console tv's at thrifts ect... It was a Philco special 90. It had a knob or two missing and was not working. The guy working there said he plugged it up and it starting smoking. The walnut sides were nice but the speaker fabric underneath was ratty of course. Is this thing worth picking up and doing anything with? It's vcr price cheap.

Need a little more information like model number or more details to be sure. If it is the '56 D line with the single piece chassis, it is a good product. The split chassis are earlier and more plentiful.

Does it have the four small center controls with larger channel and volume controls on the ends?

Not sure what you mean by single chassis? It is mostly square with walnut? sides and top, screen is trimmed with silver colored something kinda rounding
the screen. The knobs are on the front right, I remember a larger one for changing channels with two smaller ones angling upwards with one missing under the larger one. Sitting on 4 legs with speaker fabric under screen at bottom. Looks are quite nice.

Ok, I just called down there and its a model # M9502 chassis # 14N30
Philco special 90

The 14N30 is a 1964 chassis. It is not bad, but not exciting either. By 1964 the industry was focused on color. Black and white consoles were at the end of their product life cycle so emphasis was on cost control as contrasted to features and quality. The basic chassis design was introduced in 1959 and carried over for several years.

I went back and bought it Saturday after work and took it back to the office.
Not sure what to do with it now, is it black and white? can parts be had for it
or could I pirate a later model color tv into it? The screen measures 22" diag.
It would be a looker with the legs refinished and new speaker fabric. The trim
around the screen appears to be silver painted plastic. If it could only talk:scratch2:
previous owners probably watched the Beatles, Elvis, Vietnam war reports,
moon landing and lots of Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle ect,ect....
Paid 15 bucks for her. I can picture it in my living room with a tube amp on
top and some 60's speakers on each side. My wife would be so proud:mad:

Retrofitting modern color electronics into vintage b&w white cabinets (aka Posterizing when done well; hacking up when done any less well) is viewed dimly around here. We're oriented toward preservation of the entire set, electronics as well as cosmetics.

The big question, though, is what smoked? There are lots of other questions after that, some perhaps bigger questions such as whether the CRT has life left in it.

I applaud you for the save even though it's a later set than I'm generally interested in. If electronic restoration isn't feasible...well...it's your set to do with as you wish. My preference would be to simply make it a static display as opposed to gutting it.

There are a lot of ideas for repurposing an old set but the vast majority (almost every one that I've seen) came out looking a lot worse than just leaving well enough alone. A color set can be retrofitted but few have the skill/patience to do it seamlessly.

That shouldn't be too complicated a chassis. This would be a good one to tinker/learn on.

Well, her she is, all 15 bucks of her.
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02463.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02464.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02465.jpg
I'm not into butchering antique american iron or electronics and would
love to see it preserved in its original glory. Even if I could rebuild all the
innards which I cant, I dont have any tv reception being located between
Atlanta and Birmingham in a low area. If I left it at the Salvation Army, some
antique dealer would have probably picked it up and it would most likely
be parked in some store with crystal mugs on top with a 400 dollar price
tag from now on with no worthwhile use. If It would be possible to retrofit
something usable into it, I might consider it but only if its not a desirable
unit. I am into classic stereo receivers/audio ect.. and would never consider
modding a Marantz, Sansui or the like from original. So is this set too
valuable to mod into something useful? I just have no idea, what should I do
with it?

Not that hard to work on, looks like it may have a hot chassis with those compactrons.

Just dont plug it in unless you have a 100watt light in series with it, jic there filter caps are shorted.

if it has a hot chassis then any tube filament can be open and no filaments will light.

Prob just needs the filter caps and maybe a tube or two (easy and cheap).


oh and IMHO its never worth butching up a TV set for a modern tv inside. It can be fixed, prob for cheap, and then used with a DVD and watch old B&W flicks on it.

This might fix it.

One of the tubes has lost vacuum, this will cause the heater to burn out and being a series string set none of them will light.

Look at the tube I've drawn a red square around, the getter looks white, that means the tube has gone to air.

If you can tell us the number someone will probably have one they could send you.

Thanks Eric, I will investigate a little closer tommorow " its at the office" the
pic actually makes the inside look better than it actually is. The wires seem brittleand there are some resistors/componets? that have white rust/corrosion on them not to mention all the dust and cobwebs. Excuse my ignorance, this is the first look for me on the inside of a tv. The large picture tube? in the center has the end glass nipple? broken off also I think. Should I consider even looking for a donor unit or well if I could locate one, its probably just as foul as this one. Looks like a fire hazzard to me at the moment, scared to plug it in after the guy told me it was smoking.

The chassis is pretty dirty as they go, but the dirt doesn't hurt anything. I see some black plastic capacitors in there that should be replaced. An experienced hand could probably have this fixed up and running good within a few hours.

I have a 64 Truetone that I washed the chassis in the shower, sets of that era use mostly plastic parts on the chassis and water won't do much harm if applied judiciously and dried thoroughly.

I wouldn't do that to this set until I had gotten it running first though.

Thanks Eric, I will investigate a little closer tommorow " its at the office" the
pic actually makes the inside look better than it actually is. The wires seem brittleand there are some resistors/componets? that have white rust/corrosion on them not to mention all the dust and cobwebs. Excuse my ignorance, this is the first look for me on the inside of a tv. The large picture tube? in the center has the end glass nipple? broken off also I think. Should I consider even looking for a donor unit or well if I could locate one, its probably just as foul as this one. Looks like a fire hazzard to me at the moment, scared to plug it in after the guy told me it was smoking.

If the glass nipple on the CRT was broken off you'd expect to see the phosphor on the screen blown away. If it is broken, perhaps it was only some excess glass on the nipple.

John

From your picture the CRT looks intact, psooibly just the plastic base has deteriorated somewhat.

The base has an index tab, if it was removed and put back on incorrectly the heaters wont light, or worse, they'd blow from having B+ on them!
The socket seems to be in a natural position so I doubt that's the case here.

The plastic yoke cover also looks pretty deteriorated, that's also common but doesn't mean it's bad.

I wiped off the tubes and snapped some better pics this am. I just cant spot
anything that looks like it got hot and smoked up. My uneducated guess is
that one tube went bad probably 30 years ago and maybe it was
parked in some old lady's house with a fabric over it used as a server or ?
When the guys plugged it up at the S.A., it heated up and was maybe trying
to burn the dust off the tubes and thats what they smelled, I dont know?
Maybe the ? in that enclosed metal box looks a little sootey.

http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02466.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02467.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02468.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02469.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02473.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02475.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02476.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Brotherwig/DSC02477.jpg

That tube that's up to air with the white getter could short and smoke some components. They don't always short, but it happened to me. At least replace the tube before trying it again.

John

Looks pretty good overall, the Flyback looks excellent!
The peeling Dag on the tube, the bad plastic on the yoke and the orange plastic on the base of the CRT are nothing to be concerned about, the nipple on the CRT looks fine.

That tube with the white top is bad though, very possible it might fire up if it were replaced.

Ok, I will see if I can find one locally. One of my customers used to repair
VCR's , Stereos and Tv's back in the day for all the local pawnshops and he
is going to swing by and take a look at it. He said he met an old TV repair
guy a month or so back that might have some tubes. So blow it out with an
air hose, replace the tube, plug it in and see what happens?

dont blow it out, you will endup getting dag everywhere (the flaking stuff on the crt) and run the risk of blowing a fine wire loose. just replace the tube. If you have a variac and a DMM you could monitor the AC line current.

If no variac then a 100 watt light bulb in series with the ac line would be a good idea.


It may just work, but the filter caps may short, in which case the fuseistor will prob go (pic 5 I think).

a softer start up on a variac will give it a better chance, and at least you could monitor the current.