Mint Green Portable Metal Admiral

[Arcanine]

Picked this up today at the WARCI meet in Milwaukee. I was able to fiddle with and clean it up pretty decently inside, and cleaned the pots, and was able to get it to produce a picture and clear sound, as shown.

Reception is weak and very finicky on VHF though. UHF seems to work correctly. Though despite that, it is proving to be a very promising little set. I plan to leave the patina the way it is, as well.

The picture is pretty bright, but the set does have some healthy hours on it, but I think once it's filled with new capacitors and some adjustments, it should still produce a pretty healthy and watchable picture.

Now for the meat of the post: Does anyone have a PDF for the Photofacts for this Chassis? it has a lot of bumble bee capacitors in it, and honestly I don't know how to read them. I've never found a chart to translate their colors to make sense of them.

[Phil Nelson]

If nobody has the service manual on hand, you can order one from http://www.samswebsite.com/ .

This article has info about identifying old capacitors, including a chart that explains the "bumblebee" color codes:

http://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm

Your TV already works so well that you are likely to have a great watcher if you can avoid making mistakes while recapping. Instead of replacing many caps at once, I would try the set frequently -- after every replacement or two -- to make sure that you didn't make a flub which suddenly made things worse.

Remember the old doctor's motto: "Above all else, do no harm."

This article has some more basic restoration info that you may find useful:

http://antiqueradio.org/FirstStepsInRestoration.htm

Have fun,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[Findm-Keepm]

I may have the SAMs, I'll check and let you know.

[Radiotronman]

I love that color. I've got that set in red/white with chrome.

[Username1]

That is a cool little tv ! Neat that you are able to see it working before making
any parts replacements.... Good Luck ! Take your time, and as stated be careful !

.

[decojoe67]

I have one in solid orange/red and it's an excellent reliable performer. In pictures it looks larger than it is. It's actually a very light, compact portable. The problem with these are that the paint will often just pop right off the aluminum cabinet in large chunks.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

I may have the SAMs, I'll check and let you know.

I've got it - PM me your address and I'll get it in the mail, yours for postage only...

It appears that set was a popular one on the bench - the Sams folder shows wear, or as my Dad used to say "This looks like a repeat offender, or at least, that's what Howard thinks" - Howard being Howard W. Sams, of course...

[Eric H]

I have one in exactly the same color scheme, it even has the same missing paint.

They must have been hugely popular, cheaper, lighter and larger than the RCA portable and far superior to the GE 9" of the time.

Lots of kids probably got one for Christmas.

If I recall right, only the sets with the model number ending in AL were Aluminum cased, some of them had Steel, I think I have a blue one with a Steel case.
The Aluminum was probably a later revision to make them lighter.

[Findm-Keepm]

Your set has several "prime value" bumblebees - save them and offer up on eBay, and pay for your recap with the proceeds..

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Your set has several "prime value" bumblebees - save them and offer up on eBay, and pay for your recap with the proceeds..

My guitar friends are always looking for "bumblebee caps" to "color" thier sound since they were used inside some of the 50's guitars. I have supplied a few at no charge.

[Arcanine]

My capacitor order came in today so I figured I would start making some headway on this set. I am going to do it board by board.

This board lives right under the CRT and it's pretty hard to reach. So I figured I would do it first since servicing it requires removal of the CRT.



Two more caps to go in this section.

[Arcanine]

Whoops. I only replaced 5 capacitors so far, and I lost HV. It's suddenly only producing 5000 volts.

I'm just going to set it aside, and wait for the sam's to arrive then tackle it again.

Can anyone tell me the values of the bee's in my picture? Just double check my work for me, so I know I read them correctly. Never really dealt with bee caps before. I think I read them correctly.

[bandersen]

The big one on the left is 0.033 and 0.047 on the right. Small on the right is 0.0047. Can't quite make out the one in the back.

Same color code as resistors with value in pico farads.

So three orange stripes is 3 + 3 + 3 zeroes = 33,000 pF or 0.033 uF.

[Arcanine]

Originally Posted by bandersen

The big one on the left is 0.033 and 0.047 on the right. Small on the right is 0.0047. Can't quite make out the one in the back.

Same color code as resistors with value in pico farads.

So three orange stripes is 3 + 3 + 3 zeroes = 33,000 pF or 0.033 uF.

Okay so I flubbed something else then. I replaced them all exact, and was reading them correctly.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Arcanine

Okay so I flubbed something else then. I replaced them all exact, and was reading them correctly.

You may not have flubbed anything. It is quite possible that one of the horizontal caps went and took the HV with it....

As a general rule on paper cap era sets, I prefer to go after the horizontal stage first (once the PS is operating) to restore it's operation to know the state of the rest of it, or to keep it from failing (and thus demanding attention).

My recommendation while waiting for a schematic, if the set has a tube chart, is to find the horiz osc, osc control, output, and damper tubes, and go after the caps connected to those tubes and the ones connected to the parts connected to them.