Potential new project!! Silvertone Roundie

[basil lambri]

I have seen one Sears Silvertone TV from the 1960s with vacuum tubes. It had a fantastic picture. Also that model had a One Button Color button for automatic color. Maxhifi, I strongly suggest that you get that TV.

[maxhifi]

Went to the guy's house, he ran a TV repair shop for years, and has a small one out of his garage now. Really nice guy, he said he was put it together in 1971 from two broken TVs, and was planning on keeping it forever. Cabinet is nearly perfect. He gave me the service manual too.

Chassis is made by Fleetwood in Montreal. It's a Canadian Sears TV. It looks very much like RCA, but will take an expert to tell. The tube is a Sylvania.

Pictures are worth 1000 words, and here they are.

[bgadow]

Originally Posted by leonk

W/G!? they actually made chassis for TV's!?! They're HUGE in the arcade monitor world!

W/G has been around forever, going back to making radios in the 20's. They made the right decision to get into arcade games when they did.

I've never had the chance to play with a Sears tube color set (aside from an import). I suspect they were one of the top selling brands in the 60s, but not too many show up today.

[maxhifi]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - it's mine!

Pic of blond girl is out of focus due to crappy cell phone camera (digital cam is dead)

[maxhifi]

The picture quality on this TV is astounding, I wasn't expecting it to be this good. The three colour controls really allow skin tone to be dialed in with precision. Even the Simpsons are just flawless.

The tube has a mild cateract... I've read instructions on how to fix Zenith and RCA round tubes, but how about Sylvania? I don't think I'm going to attempt to repair it yet.

The first "issue" the set has, is in the HV cage.

The HV rectifier, directly over the flyback, is in a plastic tube, which is a bit melted on one side... it looks like the flyback is a replacement. I can also hear some arcing sounds with the set running. I shut off the lights, and saw little sparks between the 6BK4 plate cap lead, and the HV cage. I moved it, but can still hear a little snapping sound - probably is arcing where I can't see it now. The wire needs to be replaced, or maybe a sleeve put over it? Surprisingly (to me) it seems to have no impact on the picture

[mstaton]

Welcome to the "Roundie" family! I know you will enjoy it for years to come. I have 3 working ones now. My favorite so far is my 1966 CTC-16XL. Excellent color and sharp images! Congratulations!!

[maxhifi]

Beautiful picture, mine has that sort of "technicolor" look to it too!

I'm figuring out mine needs a little work, the picture jumps a bit in vertical height, and when the room is completely dark, I can see arcing inside the 6BK4 plate cap. Once the set is warm I can hear more or less constant arcing in the flyback zone, and also smell a bit of ozone.

The "fish bowl" shape of the screen is really not as hard to get used to as I imagined, since action is usually confined to the middle of the screen. I imagine it would be less nice for sports, etc, where the score is in the corner.

The sound also has quite a lot of noise in it, depending on what's going on on-screen.

[miniman82]

Originally Posted by maxhifi

The "fish bowl" shape of the screen is really not as hard to get used to as I imagined, since action is usually confined to the middle of the screen. I imagine it would be less nice for sports, etc, where the score is in the corner.

Sit farther away from the screen, it's less noticable the farther away you are.

[mstaton]

The digital graphics(lettering) will always cause noise(buzzing) and there is always going to be some background noise in the audio. Just the nature of the beast. After a while you get used to it. Roundie sets when working right can have excellent color quality. The sets were also made to last and be repaired fairly easily. Try that with your LCD or Plasma set 45 years from now! You cant even get new parts for a 5 year old set now. They are obsolete already and if you find parts they are very expensive, so off to the landfill they go!

[maxhifi]

mstaton,

You raise a couple of good points!
Now, in the context of no more ntsc broadcasts, and digital cable, is it against the spirit of this hobby to add a little circuit board with audio and video inputs? I figure all i would need is a couple of op-amps.

It seems to me it would kill at least three birds with one stone... No more IF ghosting, no more audio noise, no need to align tuner or IF stages, etc.

[miniman82]

Pete Deksnis detailed a circuit which does exactly that- it provides video to the set after the IF stages, which makes for a very nice picture!

[Glenz75]

What an impressive looking set and picture too The more I see these colour roundies, it makes we wish that we had colour TV here a lot earlier than 1974! Then there would be some cool old tube colour sets for me to collect and restore! I've never even seen a colour set with tubes in it, not even a hyrbid model either... Maybe I'll have to import one to NZ?

[bgadow]

The Sylvania cataract is the same as Zenith. Great set, all around!

[maxhifi]

miniman

I searched and searched, and came up with Pete's RCA circuit with the single 12AT7, and it also turned up this post http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...249148&page=12

I'm going to use Tom's single op-amp circuit, since it will be quick and easy to build and install. And it doesn't need any inductors.

Glennz

I am very happy with this set! It's the first roundie I've seen for sale around here, in over a year of looking.

bgadow

Thank you! I am happy with it too. Once I get the chassis how I want it, I might deal with the catreract - it does stain a nice white screen a bit green around the edges. This one would be a hot wire treatment I guess.

[DaveWM]

most of time heating the wire is not required, just warm the CRT face on in the sun on a hot day and use a strong steel wire to pull thur the adhesive. I use a couple large wood dowels to wrap SS .015 wire around them for hand holds, then you sort of saw thru. the adhesive should be like thick gel.

Personally if its just a very light green stain around the edges I would not be in a hurry to remove it. The CRT's are bulky and not easy to handle, and if you remove all the yoke/conv/purity gear you will have to reset it all up. Some ohter things, be very careful when removing the CRT socket and the yoke, you dont want to stress the CRT pin base, the glue that holds it on is fragile.