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-   Early Television Foundation CRT Rebuilding Project (http://www.videokarma.org/forumdisplay.php?f=185)
-   -   RACS France (http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=259552)

murphyv310 09-20-2013 02:54 AM

RACS France
 
Hello.
Firstly if in the wrong area may I apologise.
I have a question. Has anyone any news of this re-builder, it looks as if they have closed down but news is patchy to say the least with no official confirmation.

Also has anyone sent a CRT to them and not received it back nor had any communication.

Regards
Trevor

miniman82 09-20-2013 03:55 PM

They are closed/no longer accepting rebuilds. The 15GP22 tubes there now are supposedly being worked on, but updates have been slow. August is the traditional month off in the EU, but they should be back working now. jerome may add his thoughts, as he is in contact with them.

jhalphen 09-23-2013 07:58 AM

Hello to all,

I am very sorry to report that RACS is deliberatly avoiding all forms of communication since mid-june 2013 when Philippe R. had his hand injury.

Throughout these last 3 months, i have on a 10 day basis repeatedly tried Mails, leaving messages on the owner's cell phones + some calls at home, none have ever been returned. Was it the fact that i reminded the R. brothers that they have customer tubes at the plant (10x 15GP22) and that they have an obligation to propose a satisfactory solution to each and every owner, i don't know; but the hard facts show that they are not responding.

I have no recent info about the company's current financial status, but it's pretty clear the plant is not operating: the factory's phone line is still paid for, but no one ever picks up. The Fax line has been cancelled, not a good sign.

Last week i made an inquiry on the contact page of the town of St-Christol-lez-Ales were RACS is located to get an update. No reply yet.

http://www.saintchristollezales.fr/fre/index.html

I also asked an attorney friend to look into their operating status.

Financial info sites such as this one show no recent change, but how often are they updated?

http://www.societe.com/societe/racs-309216414.html

I cannot say more on a public forum. PM me please if you have private requests.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Username1 09-23-2013 06:18 PM

Well, Jerome;

If that is the case and they are closed, then at first we all owe you a thank you for all that you have done for all the collectors here.....

Second, It is sad that their talents no longer are in demand, I sure hope they have the ability to find work and maintain family etc... For those retiring, you should wish them a happy retirement and thanks from us for what they have provided over the years.

Seems like while many here don't yet have much to say, I guess most here had hoped for them to be around just a little longer.....

Good day to you and thanks....

jhalphen 09-24-2013 05:12 AM

Hi to all,

@SquirreBoy:
In its heyday, RACS employed up to 15 people. For the last 2 years, it was just the 2 owners, one in Sales/Financials, the other in Rebuilding.
The only employee left was a warehouse person to pack/unpack the CRTs.

Of the two owners, one was already retired, the other very close to retirement, so no major layoffs here.

The factory's break-even point was 1500 CRTs/year. Why? because of the fixed costs associated with having 7000 square meters of factory space (property taxes, ...) + the very expensive electrical bill as the utility co. has to provide massive KW delivery capacity which includes the rental of a quite imposing substation transformer to power the plant. We're talking hundreds of KWs here to power the ovens & other machinery.

About 6 months ago i suggested why not regroup just the machinery needed to produce 1 or 2 tubes at a time in much smaller premises. This would allow selling the factory floor space and the smaller setup would have minimal fixed costs when not in operation.

Sadly, it appears that they didn't pick up on the idea...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

jhalphen 09-24-2013 08:28 AM

Hi to all,

RACS update, fresh from today.

Had a long talk with Philippe R. one of the co-owners.

Yes, they are indeed closing up shop but he assured me that beginning Oct each and every tube, parts, etc. will be shipped back to their respective owners at no cost.

He has also promised to give me a detailed list with prices of salvageable machinery: vacuum pumps, getter Al sputterers, ovens, neck glass, virgin CRT glass bulbs, cathodes, filaments, getters and chemicals, Lab power supplies from Filament to EHT, deflection yokes, for possible transfer to the ETF.

So a bit of good news after all & not too long to wait.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Username1 09-24-2013 10:38 AM

Thank you Jerome......

tubesrule 09-25-2013 08:37 PM

Thank you Jerome for heading up this thankless job over the years. I can't imagine it has been easy for you as a middle man, but we all appreciate what you did. Perhaps the equipment and knowledge can live on at the ETF.

Darryl

sweitzel 11-30-2013 04:31 PM

I just happened across this company. They rebuild power tubes for transmitter equipment. I wonder if they have the means to work with CRTs? Has anyone reached out to them?

http://www.rell.com/supplier/Econco....FaE1Qgod-TYAZg

N2IXK 11-30-2013 04:39 PM

I have used Econco to rebuild a few power tubes, but I doubt they would be able to help with CRTs.

The only tubes they will work on are ceramic/metal transmitting types, and only the larger sizes of those. They no longer do the glass/metal transmitting tubes that were once common, so I suspect that they got rid of all their glass lathes, etc. once the market for glass tubes went away.

CRTs also require some specialized gear that has no overlap with transmitting/power tubes.

ChrisW6ATV 02-23-2014 02:32 PM

Has there ever been a resolution of the situation with RACS last year? Did they get any or all of that one batch of 15GP22s rebuilt, or are they still in (slow) progress with that work? Either way, I hope the owners of those CRTs were able to get them back, rebuilt or not. Do any of you have news to report?

CT-100 03-31-2015 01:51 PM

Racs
 
Does anyone know if the 15GP22's were ever returned to their owners as promised?

Electronic M 03-31-2015 04:17 PM

IIRC RACS did not work on the 6 15GP22s. IIRC in the ETF museum rebuild project progress thread they mentioned that RACS sent those tubes back to the USA (the ETF) along with a big shipment of rebuilding equipment.

jhalphen 04-01-2015 04:03 AM

Hi to all,

@ElectronicM,

There were 10x 15GP22 in all + some parts (Guns).

All are now at the ETF awaiting their owners or in readyness for further work once the ETF CRT plant can process them.

2x belonging to customer #1
1x belonging to customer #2
1x belonging to customer #3
6x belonging to customer #4

Names withheld for privacy.

The first 4 tubes were worked on, multiple frit passes, up to five.

One had a gun installed, never activated. The CRT was in observation for slow leakage. To the best of my knowledge, none of these 4 are truely vacuum-tight.

The last 6 were never touched.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

ohohyodafarted 06-11-2015 07:01 PM

Just saw this thread and have further information after reclaiming our broken 15GP22's at the ETF convention:

6 tubes that were shipped over to RACS by customer #4 came back without being opened by RACS and were undamaged.

Customer #1 John Folsom and Bob Galanter each sent a tube over. Both tubes had the guns removed prior to shipping and each tube was sent with a new base and an expensive gun which was rebuilt by Southwest Vacuum. Upon return from France, we discovered that both of the tubes were damaged by RACS beyond further use. Neither of the 22 pin bases were returned (very hard to find 22 pin bi-decal bases). One tube had the front cover glass severed from the tube and RACS broke the phosphor dot plate on the other tube in the evacuation oven. The glass, phosphor dot plates can crack of the evacuation oven is heated or cooled too rapidly. I have since learned that the ovens at RACS did not have automated ramp controllers and the ovens temperatures were being controlled by the operator turning the power to the oven off and on manually. Even Scotty had a more sophisticated oven controller than RACS.

Customer #2 & #3 is the same person. One of his tubes came back with a broken phosphor dot plate and is now beyond any further use. I can't remember the condition of his second tube.

John and I lost two perfectly good candidates for rebuilding and so did customer 2/3. In addition we all took a sizable financial loss in shipping and loss of priceless rebuilt 15GP22 guns.

All in all, we never should have sent any of our 15GP22's to RACS. RACS did not have the technical or scientific expertise to solve the 15G leaks, and what's more they didn't even have a Helium Leak detector to determine where the leaks were. They had assured us that they had a capability to seal the leaks using frit glass. But in the actual attempts to seal the tubes they had nothing but problems with their frit formulations. Each attempt to seal the leaks with their frit became one disastrous failure after another and in the end they ruined a total of 3 15GP22's which will never be able to be used again.

It takes a real scientist using scientific principals and sophisticated scientific equipment to rebuild a 15GP22. We have a person with those qualifications on our team. He is Dr. John Yurkon and he is close to completing his first attempt at making an ALL GLASS 15GP22. You can follow his effort at the ETF web site if you follow this link.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/yurkon_15g_project.html


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