Scored this 7" Raytheon off eBay last week for cheap.
I've wanted one of these for the longest time but they always went too high.

It's complete and completely original inside except for a few tubes and one capacitor that was replaced in the 1950's from the look of it, I'm guessing it's a relatively low hour set.

I hooked the CRT up to a working VT-73 and it's in great condition! :banana:

The cabinet needs refinished but it's in solid condition.
Wish I'd taken a pic of the chassis while I had it out, the 6000v caps are the biggest ones I've ever seen!

Looks like a neat project!

I was watching that one myself Eric,, great score and nice set!!
Dan

Can't wait til you get 'er goin' again !

Started to work on this one today, it's going to go slow because I'm planning on restuffing all the caps, figured I'll take a couple of them to work each day and do them there, doing it here at home makes too much acrid stench when you melt them on the stove!

It's pretty much your standard Electrostatic 7" set except for one thing, The tuner! it's an inductive tuner using sliding ferrite and coils, I have another Raytheon built set that uses an inductive tuner but it's very small and simple, this big ol thing looks like Rube Goldberg designed it, Why they put it in their smallest and cheapest set I'll never know.

Anyway if anyones interested here are some pictures and a link to a 5 meg movie of the tuner.


http://www.vintagetvsets.com/videos/tuner.mov

That is the most bizarre tuner I've ever seen.

interesting tuner , it is sure complicated for such a small set .
Is there a glass shield in front the CRT , or is it just the screen mask ?
nice little set :thmbsp:

I replaced the filters and the 6000v caps in the HV Oscillator circuit but still no HV.
Pin 3 of the 50L6 oscillator is supposed to have 130v but it had 0, seems there's an open winding on the HV transformer. :worried:

I'm hopeful I can fix it, it's a separate winding at the back of the transformer, I found the broken wire on the outside of the winding and it shouldn't be too hard to splice a new wire to it and run it back to the connector, my biggest concern is it'll be shorted where the wire goes into the winding, this thing is dry as heck and the insulation crumbles when you touch it.
I'm planning on spraying it with lacquer when I'm done to stabilize it.

If all else fails does anyone have a spare transformer for this set?
Sams doesn't list any aftermarket replacements but there may have been some made after the Sams was published?

I think it can be fixed . Im not going to say this would work for sure , but what I have done rather than add a splice , is to remove a turn or unroll it enough to reconnect back to the broken wire . This way you only have 1 solder joint instead of 2 and it is easier to reinsulate the area again . I have never done this with a HV trans but have done this with other transformers and and field windings in electric motors and had exellent results . Thought
I would pass it along .
Best of luck with it , its a neat little set:thmbsp:

Murray

Hi Murray, the problem with that here is it's the inner winding that's broken.
I tried tugging on it but you can't pull any more out.

The windings in this transformer are actually made of fine stranded wire, not solid, think I can splice a piece of transformer wire to it, pull it over the top like it was and down through the hole in the tube, the wires run inside of the tube to the lugs at the back. I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Ok , I see , I thought it was the one one the outside . once it's connected it should work fine .
Is there any signs why it lost the connection , was somone atempting to repair the set before you got it ,and damaged the connection ?
Or did it just break loose , or is it more like it shorted out ?

Spliced in a new piece of wire, applied some Corona Dope then sprayed the entire thing with a nice thick coat of Deft glossy Lacquer.
Got lots of HV now and a raster!
Now on to the rest of the capacitors.

An interesting side note, these sets were available in kit form from Heathkit.
I picked up this pamphlet on eBay http://www.vintagetvsets.com/schem/heathray.pdf

You could get one for $69.50 and assemble it yourself!

Interesting , I never knew that heathkit sold that TV unassembled .
That was a reasonable price for the kit compared to a complete set .
Eric , glad to hear you got HV going .

i wish i could assemble one today

Slowly getting there, restuffing caps takes a long time.
I ran out of .01 caps so I'm stuck for now but I was able to tune a picture.