Thrift store find!!! Was priced at $4.04. No vertical deflection in the set. I never looked at these sets till you folks turned me on to them. I now check all the little portable sets. Got a little pen light to see if there are tubes in there. This is my third find of the little tube color sets.

polaraman

Nice find, Looks real clean too! I found one in the trash earlier this year with the same problem, Turned out to be a cracked solder connection in the area of the vert out tube.
There are a couple caps by the horiz out that should be checked or replaced too, KC8 can help you there as I don't have one apart at this time to tell you the values.

Polaraman scores again! This time it is $4.04 cheaper. Can we say freebie!!!! This is my second Zenith color tube portable.

polaraman

The caps that should be replaced are ceramic-encased paper caps in those GE portacolors, I think these are the ones captainmoody is thinking of. One is right near the damper tube. One of those had exploded in one of my sets before I got it, and I think someone had recounted in the past how one of these ceramic-encased paper caps exploded and caused injury from the flying bits of ceramic.

Chad is right about those ceramic paper caps. The value that is trouble is a .1uf @1000 volt. if the cap is open, horizontal linearity will be very bad. I just experienced this earlier this year. In fact, I discovered mine was clipped out of the circuit probably because it exploaded. Change it before the shrapnal bomb goes off!

hey polaraman, how did you get that chromacolor? You are the thrid on the forum to have found one of those. Is yours working?

I do get a picture on the set. The color red is screaming at me. I have yet to try to play with it. The man I got it from said he thought the CRT was bad. It was from a local Tv repair friend. He has had it for years and did nothing with it. I am more than happy to have it.

polaraman

Originally posted by drh4683
hey polaraman, how did you get that chromacolor? You are the thrid on the forum to have found one of those. Is yours working?
he's chasing them out of the woodwork like you did the rca's:D

believe me, those zeniths are rare. Ive got a few of them. Dont get the wrong idea, Im not trying to take them away from you guys. (the rca's I was after last month are extremely rare and had to find one before they were totally extinct. I think captainmoody, rcaman and I are the only ones in the nation to have those!) Ive wanted that style forever, as I always had the 1969 rca service manual with a picture of one of those. I figured I would see one on ebay one year, but hasnt happened yet. I must say, both of those ctc27 and ctc19 table sets are my favorite rca sets and rank at my favorites in the whole collection.
anyway,
Im just interested in where you found that zenith. They have been very hard to find lately, but more recently, Ive been seeing them again. I just bought 2 of them on ebay, and one Ive had exactly like yours from a local tv shop. The tv guy I know has a bunch of them in his garage.

I do get a picture on the set. The color red is screaming at me. I have yet to try to play with it. The man I got it from said he thought the CRT was bad. It was from a local Tv repair friend. He has had it for years and did nothing with it. I am more than happy to have it.


What do you think kc8? Sound like red screen control "screwdriver drift" ( I like that term!)

i have seen lots of the zenith g2 pots die.
i doubt its a bad crt.when those sets were common i dont recall ever seeing a bad one.
could be anything at this stage of the game.screwdriver drift included.

As a test you can disconnect the green and blue screen wires from their current terminals and connect them to the red screen wire and power them all off the working (red) screen voltage output from the set. You should get a neutral colored picture if CRT is good. If necessary you can also do the same with the cathodes and grids.

Polaraman is back from his trip to Texas! Scored some goodies while there. Got this working chroma color II set and a working tube pana-color set there. The CTC 11 was bought a couple of months ago. I was just able to bring it home this trip. It is not working at this time. Now, I have 5 tube color portables. ( 3 working) This is fun! there was a Chroma color II table top set that I passed on. If it had the Space Command option I would have bought it. The set was dated 1976. Is there a spare remote out there for the Chroma color II?? This set is missing it. Would love to have one.

polaraman

Sorry! Forgot the picture!

Sorry! Forgot the picture!

That looks like very similar to the remote chromacolor II I found last week. What's the small rectangular object just above the channel display? Mine just has the Zenth logo across the top.

Those Pana-Colors aren't bad TVs once you fix all the bad soldering and replace some bad small electrolytics. They also used a damper tube that tended to fail and take out the HOT. Check for bad soldering on the plate caps to the HOT and damper. Mine were both badly soldered.

The square thing is a button for the Color Sentry. That chroma color II set is a tank!! it weighs 50 pounds. Got it for $10 at a thrift store.

Pana-color set works real well. I have yet to take off the back to check it out.

polaraman