Magnavox roundie in MO

[Eric H]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Beautiful-Vintag...QQcmdZViewItem

[sampson159]

i like this one! we never saw many maggies from the 60s here in columbus.rca clone or something else?any info on this would be helpful.

[Chad Hauris]

This should be an actual Magnavox designed chassis...the control panel layout looks almost identical to this set I have from 1966 except mine is rectangular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USlzivO0cpM

[JB5pro]

Looks neat to see it on. At least the fly is good! The CRT may not have green in it but the photo is oddly tinted which may be making the green less noticable. It would be fun to service that set. One may get a perfect picture just cleaning and adjusting everything. I am thinking that VHF knob might be a generic replacement being that it is silver. Shouldn't it be gold?

[old_tv_nut]

1) Which CRT had built-in FROSTED safety glass? FJ?
2) even with the yellowish tint to that picture, there's no green visible - seems to me the buyer should be prepared to look for a replacment CRT

[RCAkid]

I picked up the Maggie last Friday and it is home and resting comfortably.

This seems to be a more expensive console for its day with the instant on feature (UGH), chromatic color control circuits and automatic fine tuning as well as two beefy 6x9 speakers which have a good, high fidelity to them.

I played around with it a couple of nights ago. The first thing I checked was the HV cage to see what the fly looked like. It has gotten hot for sure, but not much melted wax. From the condition of the rubber surrounding the windings near the center of the fly, it is charred as if there had been some corona arcing. The rubber seems to be lifting away from the windings. Not sure if there is a way to correct this. However I did operate the set with the cage removed and in the dark and saw no arcing. However after operating the set for an hour or so, I could smell a faint hint of transformer near the fly so it may be on its way out if I can't do something about the insulation. It may also be the result of not being used for a while.

The CRT is weak but the green gun is solid. Blue and red guns however were in the red zones on the meter. I ran the heaters for about an hour or so at 8v to see if there was much improvement. Not a lot was noticed so I ran the clean/balance procedure. The red gun came up to the high end of yellow portion of the scale. The blue I have only been able to bring up to the low end of the yellow scale. Tracking was much improved however.

After a lot of effort with the tuner (the fine tuning was all out of wack), I had a decent picture with rabbit ears. I will play with the crt a bit more but it could really use a new one. It doesn't have any cataracts though and would love to save it. But it has that dang instant on feature that has taken its toll on the crt. THAT function is now OFF.

There is evidence of idiocy from previous repairs that must be corrected. The cage around the tuner was flopping around...not helping it. The most aggregious issue was in the HV cage. In this version, it does not use a focus tube, although there is a socket for it but it is not connected. The tube layout shows the tube location but in the index shows it not used on some chassis. There is an adjustable focus coil. The cage is designed nice and tall with vents. Oh how I wish RCA did that. I guess they kept the parts division going with that closed off hv cage.

So, I examined the HV cage and notice a piece of cardboard inside. Kind of odd to say the least. I pulled this out and saw a nice little black hole burned through it. The hv pot was/had been arcing to the hv cage. It is a wonder this didn't cause a fire. The cause of the original arcing was simple, there was a small dent in the cage which placed it too close to the fly winding connected to the hv pot. I simply bent this back out and poof....no arcing. Whoever put that cardboard in there was a bloomin idiot in my opinion. Lots of electrical tape covering tired wires, etc. Kind of a mess.

The chassis as a whole seems to be in pretty good shape though. It has seen lots of use judging from the thick layers of dirt accumulated but it apparently was not in a smokers home thankfully.

The chassis also seems to be a bit of a reversed clone of an RCA chassis. Like a ctc-15. Many of the tubes and the layout and the components used seem to be of RCA engineering.

I was surprised at the cabinet work for a set of this level. Rather sloppy installations of the grill cloth and the construction of the cabinet in general seems to be a bit cheaper. Although I really like that it has casters on it which are still in good shape.

Despite its shortcomings, the set is pretty cool and I am glad to have it. Maggie roundies seem to be quite rare and I am glad to have one.

[andy]

---

[marty59]

If this is the chassis that I'm thinking of, it has a plastic rod that slides in/out of the focus coil to adjust. Also common and simular on the early 25" sets. Common for flybacks to cook on these too, I've replaced a few back in the day. I've seen those focus coils burn up too. Make sure that the Boost Rectifier is good also as a precaution!
I did a flyback job on one kinda like yours, with it's original RCA "hi-lite" CRT and that thing produced a beautiful picture. Nice sets!

[RCAkid]

If there was a plastic rod on the focus coil, it is no longer there. What really made me notice the piece of cardboard in the first place was that there was a small section of the hv cage at the base that looked like it had been cut out with tin snips. A cut about 1" x 1/2" in size. When the cardboard was removed, it revealed the focus coil.

In all likelyhood, the genius who put the cardboard there probably tossed the plastic rod in favor of the cardboard. Why the section of the cage was cut out I can see no reason for through examination. Whoever did this should seriously have their head examined.

The set was producing a pretty good picture given that it needs a bid of convergence touch up and some more time with the crt or a new crt. I hope to save the crt. Since it is not going to be a daily watcher...I may just throw a brightener on it if the blue gun can't come up enough. We'll see.

It is a cool set though.