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  #1  
Old 01-21-2016, 10:22 PM
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maxhifi maxhifi is offline
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Does this Canadian RCA have a US cousin?

Got this a few days ago from forum member Gregb - Thank you! It's a bit new for his collection but right up my alley.

1965 RCA Victor TC3656 23" black and white console.

Works great - all original inside. Has some replacement tubes, but not too many. The plate cap for the horizontal output broke off when I moved it, so had to re-solder. High voltage is 15kV, which should be about right. Picture tube tests excellent, Twin 4" speakers give a quasi stereo effect I quite enjoy. Also the EL84 audio output is a nice touch.. the one in this TV is even a Mullard. Linearity and focus are good. I hooked up a VCR to see if I could get it to work, and ended up just sitting and watching a movie, rather than playing with the TV.

I'm looking for service data because despite how well it works, I want to change caps and give it a tune-up. Despite not being a collectible set, this will be great for what it was made for - i.e. watching TV. Especially fitting to have it in my workshop room to watch videos of other guys fixing old TVs on YouTube.

Any chance this crosses to a KCS number which I can get a sams for? I tried regular sources without luck.
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  #2  
Old 01-22-2016, 11:01 AM
dieseljeep dieseljeep is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by maxhifi View Post
Got this a few days ago from forum member Gregb - Thank you! It's a bit new for his collection but right up my alley.

1965 RCA Victor TC3656 23" black and white console.

Works great - all original inside. Has some replacement tubes, but not too many. The plate cap for the horizontal output broke off when I moved it, so had to re-solder. High voltage is 15kV, which should be about right. Picture tube tests excellent, Twin 4" speakers give a quasi stereo effect I quite enjoy. Also the EL84 audio output is a nice touch.. the one in this TV is even a Mullard. Linearity and focus are good. I hooked up a VCR to see if I could get it to work, and ended up just sitting and watching a movie, rather than playing with the TV.

I'm looking for service data because despite how well it works, I want to change caps and give it a tune-up. Despite not being a collectible set, this will be great for what it was made for - i.e. watching TV. Especially fitting to have it in my workshop room to watch videos of other guys fixing old TVs on YouTube.

Any chance this crosses to a KCS number which I can get a sams for? I tried regular sources without luck.
It's similar to a KCS136, later production. RCA seemed to make that chassis for about five years running, with minor changes.
Ours had 3 stages of lower-gain IF, different AGC tube and circuitry and just a 6AQ5, audio output. The damper tube was a novar and right next to the horiz output. The horiz out and the vert osc/out were novars, as well.
The first production used octal tubes and a 5U4, 1962????.
They were as good as the Zenith and Motorola offerings at the time.
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Old 01-22-2016, 11:03 AM
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Marco-nix Marco-nix is offline
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As far as i know. Canadian RCA or US , is the same we live in America maxhifi.. same voltage and current....if you were in Europa, France by exemple, the voltage and current is so different.. So, i would be surprised if it had a US cousin.. but I may be wrong..
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Old 01-22-2016, 11:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Marco-nix View Post
As far as i know. Canadian RCA or US , is the same we live in America maxhifi.. same voltage and current....if you were in Europa, France by exemple, the voltage and current is so different.. So, i would be surprised if it had a US cousin.. but I may be wrong..
Back before NAFTA, there were tariffs on US produced goods, and most US companies who sold any sort of volume set up Canadian factories, which were independent but heavily influenced by home office.

I have Canadian made Admiral, Philco and RCA sets which have subtle but consequential differences from their US cousins. It looks like the Canadian divisions took the US product and made some modifications - most of them used Robertson (square drive) screws, a bit more real wood in the cabinets, minor circuit changes, and sometimes the use of british capacitors, or different tube types. My RCA pictured above for example has Plessey (UK) electrolytic capacitors. My CTC-38 is filled with original RCA Japanese tubes.

Notwithstanding, I found US manual and service info is completely adequate for working on Canadian products, and also is much easier to come by!

Thank you dieseljeep I will have a look for the KCS136 sams, it will at least give me a start! I believe this to be a very well engineered TV, without too much cost cutting, and have already logged quite a few hours of use in the first week!
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Old 01-22-2016, 12:30 PM
tom.j.fla tom.j.fla is offline
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The closes to your Canadian RCA is the KCS136YA, in folder(s)#649-3 from 1963 and #704-4 from 1964. You will also find it in the 1963 Beitmans TV guide which is closer still. All the best,Tom
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  #6  
Old 01-22-2016, 12:55 PM
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maxhifi maxhifi is offline
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Originally Posted by tom.j.fla View Post
The closes to your Canadian RCA is the KCS136YA, in folder(s)#649-3 from 1963 and #704-4 from 1964. You will also find it in the 1963 Beitmans TV guide which is closer still. All the best,Tom
Went to SAMS website and downloaded 649-3, somehow $7 cheaper than 704-4 so I took a chance with it. This is far from identical but definitely close enough to get me up and running especially since the TV works great now and just needs adjusting. Thank you very much for the cross reference! Hopefully some day I will find the real RCA manual but that could take a while.
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Old 01-22-2016, 01:49 PM
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Eric H Eric H is offline
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Seems odd that a set from 1965 uses a large neck, narrow deflection CRT with the duodecal base.
I can't think of any U.S. sets that didn't use a 110-114 degree CRT with a Button base by then.

I'm also green with envy at the sight of that pristine Yoke cover!
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Old 01-22-2016, 02:00 PM
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maxhifi maxhifi is offline
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One thing which is a little odd, the high voltage measures 15kV, but most 23 inch tubes call for 22kV. I think I had better make sure all the tubes are good in the horizontal section. Picture is nice and bright though, with good focus and sharpness.

Agreed the inside is in good shape ! Also the CRT really tests good. 1965 is the date printed on the filter capacitors so I am inclined to believe it.
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Old 01-22-2016, 07:45 PM
dieseljeep dieseljeep is offline
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Originally Posted by Eric H View Post
Seems odd that a set from 1965 uses a large neck, narrow deflection CRT with the duodecal base.
I can't think of any U.S. sets that didn't use a 110-114 degree CRT with a Button base by then.

I'm also green with envy at the sight of that pristine Yoke cover!
The RCA 1965 model KCS 136, did have a large neck 90 degree CRT. I think it was the last year of this chassis. IIRC, the next year B/W set had the 110 degree CRT and slight circuit changes. The yokes were more trouble prone than the 90 degree types.
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Old 01-23-2016, 07:55 PM
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Robert Grant Robert Grant is offline
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I find it interesting that the words "60 CYCLE" are so prominently stamped on the HV cage. Makes me wonder if they were still making sets for 25 cycle AC for areas in Canada that still had it (any? in 1965?).
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Old 01-23-2016, 11:57 PM
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Was working on the TV tonight, changed a few capacitors, and a couple tubes. The high voltage rectifier was bad, the 6GX6 really bad, and a weak 6AU6. Strangely the the 6AU6 and 6AV6 were made in Taiwan... Never seen that country on tubes before. TV has a strange problem where It gets vertical waves intermittently, even when it stays in sync. Not wavy like a bad electrolytic but a higher frequency. Cleaning tube sockets cleared it up. Annoyingly the only 6GX6 I had on hand is also weak, but not as bad as the one jr came with which was almost dead. Problem shows your as distortion on heavily modulated audio. This tv is really great to watch
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Old 01-24-2016, 01:13 AM
Gregb Gregb is offline
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Hey Max:
I can help out with that 6GX6 tube, I have some 6GY6 tubes that show as a direct replacement.

Gregb
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  #13  
Old 01-24-2016, 10:38 AM
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maxhifi maxhifi is offline
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Hey Max:
I can help out with that 6GX6 tube, I have some 6GY6 tubes that show as a direct replacement.

Gregb
Hey Greg, that would be awesome. One thing this TV surprises me with is lack of adjustments - for example there's no horizontal drive, or waveform adjustment. The only adjustment on the whole horizontal board is the coil for frequency adjustment. That said the waveforms look good. Next TV will be an older one though I wouldn't mind a few more controls to dial things in exactly!
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Old 01-25-2016, 06:22 PM
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maxhifi maxhifi is offline
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One theme which keeps getting repeated again and again, is "change all the capacitors, they're always all bad!" I see it on here, on Youtube, and have heard it from other collectors.

The "wavy" problem (intermittent vertical ripples) I wrote about above turned out to be a bad capacitor, and was interesting to find. TV would go "wavy" during warm up, intermittently, which could be corrected with the horizontal hold control. Touching the sync separator, or horizontal oscillator/horizontal AFC tube would also temporarily correct the waviness, and when the set got to full warmed up condition (two hours of running), the problem would correct itself. Substituting tubes, re-flowing ground connections, and cleaning the tube sockets did nothing. I even replaced the 6CG7 socket because it seemed quite loose, and was the same style which has a bad reputation in the philco predicta. to no good effect.

OK time for the oscilloscope. I first checked the horizontal waveform... it would start to vibrate a bit when the set was "wavy", and look rock solid when the set was stable. Then, I decided to wait for the set to misbehave, and ground the grid of the horizontal AFC tube. Of course the set would loose sync and the picture went nuts but the horizontal waveform cleaned up. OK, so it's something wrong with the AFC circuit. Must be a a bad selenium rectifier - I heard those are unreliable. Pulled mine and checked it.. had to use a DC power supply and a load resistor and it has very high impedance for a diode but works. Nope, a pair of new diodes did nothing.

Decided to check voltages around the sync separator 6AV6, and the capacitor coupling the plate of the 6AV6 to the vertical circuit was leaking... it had 135V on one side and 12 on the other (should have been zero). Changed that capacitor and waviness is gone. Not sure exactly how that capacitor leaking caused my problem but it's definitely gone now! After that changed a bunch more capacitors of values that I have, and TV is working great. I even became confident enough to put the back back on to the TV and put it against the wall.

Next issue is horizontal linearity. It isn't wonderful at the extreme left and right edges of the screen, especially when width is reduced to minimize overscan. No horizontal linearity control on this chassis. Unless this is an inherent defect in the set (which is possible, I have a tendency to nit pick - problem can really only be noticed with test patterns and menus), I bet it's another capacitor causing the problem. I changed most of the paper ones, but there's some old brown drop mylars in the horizontal circuit which could be causing problems. Next time I feel like doing some troubleshooting I will pull it apart and start checking capacitor values to see what if anything can be done to improve things!
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