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Old 08-30-2015, 02:33 PM
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Anyone familiar with servos, solenoids and relays in color tuners

I am a newbie in repairing television. I need advice on how to repair stuck, frozen servo motors with relays and solenoids in a CTC-7 tuner. It uses an ultrasonic remote. Power is going to the actuator, I can see it move, but no movement from the associated gears.
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Old 08-30-2015, 05:35 PM
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The motor shaft is likely supposed to extend when it gets power (I don't have any RCA remote sets, but a few Zeinths and an Admiral) and engage with some gears. THe shafts were usually greased and the grease gets old and can stop the spinning and or the shaft extending. I had a motor shaft that did not want to extend on a Zenith due to old grease....Spraying some WD-40 on the shaft and cycling it fixed the problem.
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Old 08-30-2015, 09:47 PM
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This shaft moves and depresses about 3/8 inch when any of the 14 push buttons on the hard wired control panel is pushed. Nothing else moves.

I hope it would be as simple as just a good lubrication.

http://www.visions4.net/journal/wp-c...s/image164.jpg

The brass gear is the fine tuning gear above the plastic chain drive gear and it looks like it disingages from the chain drive gear which rotates the channel indicator drum. I was able to manually rotate the fine tuning gear to get the tuner fine tuned. Was also able to manually turn the chain drive gear so that the drum would be set to channel 3 for a converter box. I still have no idea which motor, there are 7 of them operate the other functions. It is a 7 function, 14 push button remote. It also has a 7 function, 14 push button hard wired panel which duplicates the remote functions. I was using the hard wired panel because the remote has a special battery which I will need to figure out later.

http://www.visions4.net/journal/wp-c...s/image147.jpg
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Last edited by etype2; 08-30-2015 at 10:06 PM.
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Old 08-30-2015, 10:15 PM
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I posted your question from the other thread which I tried to close. :-)


What era of set are you interested in?

Most sets made between 1955 and 1975 used a standard tuner with a modified phono motor to drive the shaft. The motor would push it's shaft forward and spin when powered to engage a down gear system that connected to the tuner shaft. There would be a star wheel on the tuner shaft and the wheel usually would have tabs on it's petals. The tabs depending on how they were set would contact a switch when on a channel detent. That switch would turn the motor off. Individual tabs could be set to not turn the motor so the tuner would skip unused channels...
Most sets with mechanical tuning used sonic remotes, with a few rare exceptions.

As for varactor and newer sets, as well as a few oddball mechanisms I'll let others chime in.
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Reading between the scan lines since the mid 2000's.

It is a 1958 RCA Worthington CTC-7
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Old 08-30-2015, 10:16 PM
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It is a 1958 RCA Worthington CTC-7. It dose have some switches outside the set on the back panel for the user to set to ignore channels.
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Old 08-30-2015, 10:32 PM
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Your linked pictures are not displaying when I click the link. Screen says 'Cannot display picture because it contains errors'.

I've seen pictures of the front panel controls of those, and can say they were interesting sets.

If RCA used a drastically different mech from Zenith and Admiral on those I'd have to see it to be able to comment.
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Old 08-30-2015, 10:46 PM
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Hmmmm ... I can see the photos on my iPad. Here is a link to where all the photos are posted. Scroll down to 1958. Bear with my musings.

http://www.visions4.net/journal/vintage-rca-color-tv/

Can you see this link okay?
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Old 09-04-2015, 09:14 PM
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I've fixed CTC-9 and 10 remote sets which are probably similar, but probably less complicated that yours. It looks like the same sort of set up, where there is only one motor, and what function it controls depends on which solenoid is activated. On my sets, there was a separate relay for the motor and for each solenoid, and one for the motor to go in reverse. These were located under the remote chassis.

Because you're using the wired in controls, the problem can't be an alignment issue. But I've needed to re-align every RCA remote receiver I've had. (I don't know why, but the Zenith remote receivers usually don't seem to need it, while the RCAs do.)

Anyway, assuming this is like a CTC-9 or 10 remote set, if you find the relay for the motor under the remote chassis, you should be able to see it trip no matter what button you press, along with the relay corresponding to whatever solenoid corresponds to whatever button you pressed. If you see the relays tripping like they should in each case, then the problem is probably hardened grease like Electronic M said, and not an electronic one. Here is a pic of the underside of my CTC-9 remote chassis, you can see the relays I'm talking about in the top left corner. http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...6&d=1357321012

I didn't have problems with hardened grease on the remote CTC-10 I used to have, but I did on the CTC-9 I have now. On that set I actually had to take the motor apart. There was hardened grease around a bearing that shaft went through. I had to clean it and re-lubricate it. I cleaned it and the gears with some WD-40 and then put on some of that white grease in a can. It seems to have held up well, it still works and I fixed it back in Dec. of 2012.

If it's like the CTC-9 the remote chassis has its own power supply, so it is possible to power up the remote chassis, and not the rest of the set. When I was working on mine, I found it useful to be able to remove the whole chassis with the tuner, motor, and all those solenoids and gears on it, put it up on the bench along with the remote chassis, connect the remote chassis to the main chassis, and only power up the remote chassis. That way you can test the motor and all those solenoids where you can easily access them without actually having to run the set at the same time.

That's a great find, the Worthington is a really cool set.

Last edited by Adam; 09-04-2015 at 09:38 PM.
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Old 09-05-2015, 01:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam View Post
I've fixed CTC-9 and 10 remote sets which are probably similar, but probably less complicated that yours. It looks like the same sort of set up, where there is only one motor, and what function it controls depends on which solenoid is activated. On my sets, there was a separate relay for the motor and for each solenoid, and one for the motor to go in reverse. These were located under the remote chassis.

Because you're using the wired in controls, the problem can't be an alignment issue. But I've needed to re-align every RCA remote receiver I've had. (I don't know why, but the Zenith remote receivers usually don't seem to need it, while the RCAs do.)

Anyway, assuming this is like a CTC-9 or 10 remote set, if you find the relay for the motor under the remote chassis, you should be able to see it trip no matter what button you press, along with the relay corresponding to whatever solenoid corresponds to whatever button you pressed. If you see the relays tripping like they should in each case, then the problem is probably hardened grease like Electronic M said, and not an electronic one. Here is a pic of the underside of my CTC-9 remote chassis, you can see the relays I'm talking about in the top left corner. http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...6&d=1357321012

I didn't have problems with hardened grease on the remote CTC-10 I used to have, but I did on the CTC-9 I have now. On that set I actually had to take the motor apart. There was hardened grease around a bearing that shaft went through. I had to clean it and re-lubricate it. I cleaned it and the gears with some WD-40 and then put on some of that white grease in a can. It seems to have held up well, it still works and I fixed it back in Dec. of 2012.

If it's like the CTC-9 the remote chassis has its own power supply, so it is possible to power up the remote chassis, and not the rest of the set. When I was working on mine, I found it useful to be able to remove the whole chassis with the tuner, motor, and all those solenoids and gears on it, put it up on the bench along with the remote chassis, connect the remote chassis to the main chassis, and only power up the remote chassis. That way you can test the motor and all those solenoids where you can easily access them without actually having to run the set at the same time.

That's a great find, the Worthington is a really cool set.
I see the relays. On my photo, the shaft with the blue arrow pointing to it, moves inward whenever any of the 14 push buttons is pushed. Seems to indicate power is reaching the tuner. I have not inspected the underside of the remote chassis. Here is a photo of it.

http://www.visions4.net/journal/wp-c...s/image166.jpg

Do you see the adjustments at the rear and top of the chassis? What are those for? Is it possible to adjust the color, tint, brightness etc, with these adjustments?

I hope it just as you say, hardened grease. Thank you, I never expected to find a Worhington.
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Old 09-05-2015, 01:46 PM
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I would expect that only the pots that those gears connect to can make the actual adjustments, and that those controls have to do with the alignment of each remote receiver circuit or the sensitivity of each circuit. But I would need to see a schematic to know for sure. The CTC-9 remote chassis doesn't have all those controls, just the adjustable coils for alignment and those are those are the ones accessed from the top, not the side.
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Old 09-05-2015, 01:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by etype2 View Post
Hmmmm ... I can see the photos on my iPad. Here is a link to where all the photos are posted. Scroll down to 1958. Bear with my musings.

http://www.visions4.net/journal/vintage-rca-color-tv/

Can you see this link okay?
The problem I had seeing the pics turned out to be on my end....Firefox crashed not long after I posted that comment and is displaying those pictures fine now.

I'd assume that chain drive is for the channel selector, and meets up with the gear train in the other picture. Could you post a picture of where the other end of the chain goes to? If I understand Adam's comments correctly there are at least two electronically actuated elements that must function for the tuner etc to move: the motor shaft which extends to mesh with a gear train + spins, and a solenoid with a gear on the end which extends to mesh some gears to connect the motor gear train with the tuner chain system.

The motor spins some of the gears right? If so look at the nearest gear it spins to the chain drive mech....If one of the solenoid gears should be linking the two but is not, and does not move with the correct button pressed try manually moving the solenoid (with the motor off) if it is sticky lubricate it and work it by hand a bit, if it moves freely look for drive voltage on it when the button is pressed. If it has drive voltage see if it is open, if it lacks drive voltage look at the control circuits.

I've never seen a mech quite like that before...Quite an interesting way to do things.
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Old 09-05-2015, 03:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam View Post
I would expect that only the pots that those gears connect to can make the actual adjustments, and that those controls have to do with the alignment of each remote receiver circuit or the sensitivity of each circuit. But I would need to see a schematic to know for sure. The CTC-9 remote chassis doesn't have all those controls, just the adjustable coils for alignment and those are those are the ones accessed from the top, not the side.

I will photo the schematic for the remote chassis and post it here.
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Old 09-05-2015, 03:39 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
The problem I had seeing the pics turned out to be on my end....Firefox crashed not long after I posted that comment and is displaying those pictures fine now.

I'd assume that chain drive is for the channel selector, and meets up with the gear train in the other picture. Could you post a picture of where the other end of the chain goes to? If I understand Adam's comments correctly there are at least two electronically actuated elements that must function for the tuner etc to move: the motor shaft which extends to mesh with a gear train + spins, and a solenoid with a gear on the end which extends to mesh some gears to connect the motor gear train with the tuner chain system.

The motor spins some of the gears right? If so look at the nearest gear it spins to the chain drive mech....If one of the solenoid gears should be linking the two but is not, and does not move with the correct button pressed try manually moving the solenoid (with the motor off) if it is sticky lubricate it and work it by hand a bit, if it moves freely look for drive voltage on it when the button is pressed. If it has drive voltage see if it is open, if it lacks drive voltage look at the control circuits.

I've never seen a mech quite like that before...Quite an interesting way to do things.
In the first photo with the blue arrow pointing to the shaft, it moves inward, but all the white plastic gears you see are frozen they will not move when the shaft depresses and I cannot move them with my fingers. You can see four plastic gears in the photo. There are three more under the top four. It is a 7 function remote and hard wired panel. 14 buttons for up and down. So nothing moves except that shaft. You can see how it connects to the front gear assembly.

In the second photo the white plastic gear with the chain drive connects to another gear under the channel drum to rotate the channel indicator. I was able to rotate the chain drive gear with my fingers to channel 3.

The brass gear above all the small gears: I was able to rotate this gear just slightly with my fingers, enough to fine tune from b&w to a color image. There was very little movement in the brass gear with my fingers.
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Old 09-05-2015, 05:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
If I understand Adam's comments correctly there are at least two electronically actuated elements that must function for the tuner etc to move: the motor shaft which extends to mesh with a gear train + spins, and a solenoid with a gear on the end which extends to mesh some gears to connect the motor gear train with the tuner chain system.
This set up looks a little different then the one I have on the CTC-9 but that's the basic idea.

I found a schematic I had that shows all the remote stuff including the wired in controls. It looks like I was wrong when I assumed that the built-in controls would connect to the remote chassis and activate the same circuits the remote does. It looks like it's wired directly in to the motor and the solenoids and would work even if the remote chassis were disconnected.

So the only electronic problems it could likely be would be a loose socket where that control panel plugs in, or a bad motor. But it's probably just clogged up with old grease.

Those controls on the side of the remote chassis look like what they do is basically adjust how strong the signal from the remote has to be to activate the relay. If anyone wants a bigger copy of the schematic I posted, I can email it. It comes from the "RCA color tv receivers field service guide 1955-1966".

Last edited by Adam; 06-04-2016 at 12:06 AM.
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