Hey, I'm new to the site, and I really don't know anything about vintage TVs but they interest me so that's why I'm here. I recently bought an RCA Accu Color Solid State. The model number is GX 726W. Any information on how it works would be nice. Like.. how to turn it on. I plugged it in and pushed some buttons but had no luck.

Thanks!
Camille

should have a long,horizontal switch at the top.push down on it.those are decent sets.depends on crt.one model had a low level picture tube and while a good performer,the picture was dim with soft focus.others had a really fine crt and made a great image to watch.does it have a pull out drawer?no slides but pots for controls?

You should not have just plugged it in, turned it on and started pushing buttons without having checked a few things first. It has been said many times here in VK's forums that any type of vintage or antique electronics, be it TV, radio or anything else, should not be plugged in and powered on without first checking all capacitors and replacing all defective ones, especially those in the power supply. Failure to do this may damage the power transformer and/or other parts of the set. Your TV may have blown a fuse when you first turned it on, especially if the power supply filter capacitors are defective. If you do not know what I am talking about, have the TV looked at by a technician.

Worst thing that could have happened is plugged it in, television has a dead short, breaker not trip causing a house fire. They got lucky.

C'mon guys, it's a Solid State RCA, House fires, damaging the set?
A little less drama and more welcoming attitude goes a long way.

It's not like it's 70 years old, worst that's likely to happen is the breaker on the set trips, or nothing at all, can't soft start a SS set anyhow without blowing output transformers so might as well fire it up and see what happens.

Camille, one piece of advice is true, if you are not familiar with electronics then it will probably take someone who is to get it running, however if you are interested in learning about these then this is a great place to start.

+1; you can do more damage to an SS set by powering it at lowered line voltage...This practice is far more beneficial with tube sets.

That set is from around '72 and uses the CTC46 series chassis. I believe that is the first upright modular color chassis for RCA and they were fine performers when working right. The power switch is most likely a bar that pushes down and it's located above the VHF channel knob. If the set does not come on, look for a red "reset button" on the back of the set, close to where the AC cord enters into the TV. Turn the set off, press this button in all the way and release it. Then, turn the set back on. If the button pops out again, you have a short somewhere on the chassis and you'll need to have it checked by a qualified TV technician.

These sets are much better built than anything currently being made and I think you'll be happy with the results.

cp016.... if you need any modules, lemme know. I'm awash in them. I was looking for an early XL100 when my CTC40 came my way. Now no room, so all the modules I picked up and stashed are excess to me.

Welcome to VK! Hope we can help, and in a big way!

Cheers,

I think the above statement speaks volumes for Findm-Keepm's character...by far one of the greatest VK members IMO. I recall you supplied me with the needed manuals for my early 80s GE set once...I referred to them last week in fact. Thanks again!!

Overall, cp016, welcome to VK if I haven't said it already. We basically just want the old, high-quality TVs to be saved first&foremost. Yours is a nice one! Good luck

hey camille

throw up a pix please

welcome to vk

The year 1972 is almost 40 years ago, which is why I said what I said about defective capacitors causing problems in any piece of vintage electronics built in that era. I did not intend to be dramatic; I was just stating a fact -- that anything four decades old is not likely to work well if simply plugged in and switched on, without at least the filter caps being replaced. Capacitors were built better in 1972 than today's are, but they can and do still go bad. This is exactly why I suggested a full recap of, at very least, the power supply before the set is turned on from a cold start -- especially if the TV has been sitting unused for any extended length of time.

BTW, I think the phrase "qualified technician" is an oxymoron. Anyone working in a TV repair shop as a technician should have at least a college degree in electronics; others, as the expression goes, need not apply.

People with little or no knowledge of electronics have no business working in a TV shop, pure and simple. The kind of person who used to be referred to as a "tube switcher" decades ago, when many people repaired their own TVs by simply replacing tubes (and testing same in a tube tester at the corner drugstore), has absolutely no business whatsoever even thinking about removing the back from any kind of television set, tube or SS. Of course, the latter are designed not to be user-serviceable anyway, but the tube sets all had a warning on the back cover stating the following: "Do not remove this back under any circumstances . . ." Solid state TVs all bear this warning as well, with the addition of the phrase "no user-serviceable parts inside"; this should be as strong a warning against even attempted servicing of a solid-state TV, radio or stereo by unqualified people as anyone with any sense upstairs should need.

Jeff, I agree with a lot of what you are saying but realistically most people are going to just plug a set of this vintage in, I know I would.
Odds of frying anything before the breaker or fuse lets go are fairly slim.

You know the old saying, if it breaks it needed replacing anyway.

As for burning the house down ( I know you didn't say that) fairly far fetched (for the same reasons, fuses and breakers) unless they plug it in standing in the middle of a Gasoline puddle, or plug it in and leave, or the cord itself has a direct short and the House breakers are inoperable.

Camille said she (assuming Female?) knew little about these old sets, many folks here didn't know much either when they came here (or to A.R.F.) yet here they are fixing TV's!

i don't find anything wrong in pluging a SS device in to see if it works. I don't want to waste the money on new caps if the originals are still good, and if it don't work and I power it back down reasonably quick and nothing smokes I say to my self that any dammage I find was there before power up or might as well have been (given that many folks at the places I get my stuff from have probably pluged it in already and done any dammage that will happen).

Of course I'd pine over ruining far fewer SS devices than several of my fellow members would as most of my favorite types of devices use vacuum tubes.

that is my 0.02$.

Welcome to VK!

Tom C.

I am a bit confused. If little if any harm can be done plugging in and powering on a 40-year-old solid-state TV, why the warning against doing the same with a tube-type set of the same vintage? :scratch2: The only thing I can come up with is that there are lower voltages in SS televisions, so the capacitors would not have nearly as much potential across them as would the caps in a tube TV. However, there is still the same value of HV on the second anode of a SS TV's CRT -- around 25kV -- as in a tube set, so I would think the capacitors in the HV supply in SS sets would fail within five years or so, even if every other cap in the set was OK after that time. Also, I don't think modern HV capacitors are made nearly as well as were the old ones. Small, cheap portable b&w TVs using underrated caps and everything else were popular in the 1970s-80s as well; these sets likely also had well underrated HV capacitors that would fail after only a few years. Case in point: I bought a "Kenco" (a house brand of the now-defunct Kennedy and Cohen retail store chain of the '70s) 12" b&w portable TV in 1975, right after I graduated high school that year. The set lasted all of three years, then something shorted out and the set began to smoke. I did not bother having it repaired. My best guess as to the component that shorted was a power supply capacitor -- or it could have been any one of 1001 other things. :scratch2:

One reason I can think of is that tube sets almost always the death cap across the ac line....another reason is that, in tube gear, if you lose a transformer it mightbe the end of your journey....another is that the caps are usually wax and paper.

Much lower chance of something with this set going bad vice a tube set. Wax caps, line safety cap, dry 'lytics... All those things can be a hazard with tube gear, but I wouldn't worry about this set. It probably works just fine.

or the cord itself has a direct short and the House breakers are inoperable.



Only a worry if your house uses Federal Pacific Electric Stab-lok breakers. :no:
Electricians call them "No-Trip" breakers.
http://www.inspectapedia.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm

Usually, it's the electroltic caps that may fail, as the solid state era started after wax paper caps were no longer made.

Don't forget the four-lead HV capacitor in 1970s-era color sets. These caps often went bad, causing the CRT's high voltage to skyrocket -- leading to serious trouble. White 4-lead HV caps were the worst offenders; several manufacturers sent out bulletins to TV repair shops, advising technicians to replace the white capacitor with the newer (and safer) orange one, even if the white cap was still good.

...

I don't recall any safety cap issues with RCA. Zenith was the main culprit with their 4-lead safety cap that was used in the early "E" and "F" line chromacolor II sets. This cap would open, causing the HV to skyrocket; thus, blowing off the neck of the CRT and damaging other parts. It wasn't long before Zenith issued an upgraded orange drop cap and the white safety cap was to be replaced, no matter the reason for service.

Magnavox also used a paper/oil 4-lead cap in several of their sets during the '70's and early '80's. In some cases, these caps would open and blow the neck off the CRT. In most cases, these caps would short and trip the circuit breaker on the back of the TV. When I run up on one of these bad caps, I now replace it with an orange drop.

Camille,

One follow up - if you do do get the set to light up, and all you get is a line across the screen from left to right, don't let it run for more than a brief second or two, as the TV in this condition could "burn" a perrmanent line in the phosphor of the picture tube. Most often, it is caused by one of three conditions:

A bad 470 microfarad capacitor in the vertical circuit, bad vertical output transistors, or a misplaced service/normal switch.

Either way, we can help! We've got members here that ran TV shops, worked in TV shops, helped design TVs, and those like me, that grew up in TV shops. Whether it's a part or circuit diagram you need, don't be afraid to ask. We all started with post 1...

Cheers,

Come back Camille, it's lonely over here with just us guys.