cruising craigslist and this came up.looks very nice.if it were in central ohio!
http://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/ele/2530463545.html

That's a looker, and only the mild beginnings of the Halo. I'd say a road trip is in order ;)

looks like a nice set! Someone needs to make a road trip before it goes to the landfill or fishtanked. If it was closer, I'd be in the car on my way!

Well, we brought the set here from Yale this past Sunday. Incredibly, it fit in the Prius (with the rear cap snugly at the top of the rear hatch window!).

The set is a Zenith 5317U, Chassis 24MC32 (I had been looking for a roundie for some time, as, when I was very young, our house had only B&W and my grandparents' RCA CTC-16 fascinated me).

I had to take a gamble, as I don't have a CRT tester, and the one other part I really wanted to look at - the flyback - appears to be in a box with no opening, and, in turn, behind another enclosure.

As can be seen in picture 8, the CRT is a rebuild. The owner (who was honest about the TV being not working from the get-go and was very kind to help us pack the set) said that the CRT had been replaced twice, so I am optimistic about the 21FJP22A, as it has likely had few hours on it.

The cabinet is in good shape for the age of the set, with the only significant scratches at the lower right of the front (I wonder if, and how, I should dye the scratches in the wood, but I won't worry about that until after I watch "Get Smart" on it).

I was surprised that the set is full of compactrons (being a roundie), this is disappointing, as my old Heathkit tube checker can't test them.

The IF strip is 6BZ6=>6BZ6=>6EJ7, so I guess this is the "later" 24MC32 (talked about this on another thread earlier).

Since the owner had already powered it up recently (a no-no, of course), we plugged it in, and all three filaments in the 21FJ and every chassis tube in sight - except the focus rectifier - lit up. At first, there was no other "sign of life" from the set, then I remembered the circuit breaker button, and the set gradually came up with the strange off-center blob in picture 9 (implicit in this is something must have overloaded the B+ supply once in the past to trip it). Later, I discovered the service switch was in set-up, and switching it to norm brought up a full screen of gray, too blurred for snow, and a pastel rainbow at the right as in picture 10 (without the bar near the bottom - that is only a digital camera artifact). The good news is that the CRT did light up white/gray and nothing popped or zapped.

The tubes have little white specks on their exterior, as in picture 5. I don't know what causes this, and I've seen it before (I suspect it will not affect the operation of the set at all). Picture 6 shows the high-voltage district, seemingly inaccessible, while picture 7 shows the yoke and static-convergence assembly seem intact (but what is that string that looks like fishing line around the neck?).

So, I'm asking for recommendations on how best to start the restoration project (the obvious first would be to check under the chassis for burnouts and replace the LV power supply caps). I want this baby to roll!

Forgot (or did not know) about the 6 pic maximum.

Hope it is not a problem to post the other 4 here.

replace the LV power supply caps
Yes. And replace other electrolytics, too, while you're at it. Then you can be more confident about powering up during the rest of the project.

Those "maroon drop" small caps are maybes. I've had some sets that work pretty peachy without replacing more than one or two. My CTC-7 really sat up and did tricks after I got rid of all of them.

But before replacing anything, I test all the tubes, clean their pins, and clean all the controls & switches with DeOxit.

Phil Nelson

The convergence coil/magnet assembly is identical to my Silvertone, except the blue lateral magnet appears to be in a different/possibly not right position. My Sylvania tube produces an excellent picture, and hopefully this one will too. Mine has a cataract similar to yours, and I'm on the fence about what to do about it.

Try and get the Zenith factory service manual for this before you start, or at very least the Sams. It will be a big help with troubleshooting and setup.

That HOT looks pretty tired and those white spots could be anything but be careful, it could be a type of white mold. Always be cautious when cleaning up a chassis or cabinet that has been sitting for years or decades, you never know what you will find especially if it was in the garage or damp basement. Wear a mask if you blow it out with compressed air.

yea that HOT looks tired based on the brown getter. Time for some test equipment, as a start I would get some new HV tubes (HOT/Damper/HV rec,Shunt tube) I I also like to replace teh HOT grid capacitor just in case its leaky at all. I go over on the voltage rating (like 1kv) on that one as well. then you need to do a complete check out and setup. Welcome to the world of roundies.

I've seen those white specks before, nothing I would be concerned about. Humidity related, I think.

So I foundie my roundie! :-) Now What......?
You foundie your roundie? Now, you fixie the pix-ie!

:D

And get aroundie to the soundie!

Thanks, everyone, I'm off to the library to see some schematics.

This is the exact model Zenith my parents had when I was a kid. They bought it new in late 1965 and we had it until 1976 when it started having problems. The left 1/4 of the picture went black. It wasn't shrinking in width, that part of the pic was being cut off. My parents had the TV guy come out to the house to look at it and he said something was causing it to burn out a bunch of resistors. He told my parents that the time and labor involved in tracing the problem and repairing the damage would be better spent on a new set. They ended up getting a new CCII 19" table set and the roundie went to the dump:tears:

This is the exact model Zenith my parents had when I was a kid. They bought it new in late 1965 and we had it until 1976 when it started having problems. The left 1/4 of the picture went black. It wasn't shrinking in width, that part of the pic was being cut off. My parents had the TV guy come out to the house to look at it and he said something was causing it to burn out a bunch of resistors. He told my parents that the time and labor involved in tracing the problem and repairing the damage would be better spent on a new set. They ended up getting a new CCII 19" table set and the roundie went to the dump:tears:

Too bad. I know what you mean here. I was upset when my grandparents' turned over their RCA CTC16 roundie to the dealer where they bought a new console, even though the CTC16 still worked.

As for the things that caused a TV to be dumped, I turn to the set I grew up with, a 1969 RCA CTC38 (rectangular). All of those service calls where 6GH8s had to be pulled off of the printed circuit board gradually caused all the connections on the board to fail (by 1981).

Hey at least you did not kill your childhood set with your own hands like me.

My folks had a decade-plus old WID Quasar that came from relatives. Some of my oldest memories are of that set, and one of them was me turning it on and off repeatedly(try ing to figure out why the sound came on before the picture, and why the picture came on faster when the set had been running just before) till it would not power on when I only a few years old. A few years later I scrapped the thing, and it was the only time to date that I saw inside a delta gun tube. That set is probably the reason why I get a surreal almost feaver dream like nostalgia from delta gun rectangular sets.

Tom C.

Reading between the scan lines since the mid 2000's.

I have since acquired all of the tubes I may need for the set (except the 21FJP22). It is amazing how many of the chassis tubes seem to be original equipment (Zenith branded with "65-nn" codes which I suspect are date codes from the summer of 1965).

Last weekend, I removed the bottom service panel of my set for the first time to look for damaged parts.

I immediately noticed a large blue axial electrolytic cap under C1 and C2 (completely blocking my view of C1). It is a CDE cap at 160μfd, the value of each of the caps in the voltage doubler circuit. Noticing that the C2 ▲ lug has been cut from the bottom of C2, I'm assuming that the newer (circa 1980?) replacement cap replaces a defective section of C2 ▲.

The big surprise was one old-looking Mallory paper tube electrolytic that was held in place by the access panel. It had a piece of electrical tape that had been holding it to something, but had broken off sometime over the years. Its paper tube also seems to be peeling away from the cap.
Someone had combined the 80μfd and 50μfd units of it to produce a 130μfd cap, with the + end connected by long, loose wire to the cathode of the 6HE5 (vertical out) at pin 4.

At first, I had taken this to be a shoddy replacement of C5, but after a closer look, this thing really has me shaking my head. It is not in the same place as C5. In fact, C5, along with the resistor parallel to it, are still in place. C5- does not go to ground, but to part of the convergence circuit. This additional cap is between the cathode of the 6HE5 and GROUND. I don't see how the set could ever work properly with the vertical convergence given an AC path to ground. I am tempted to simply remove this strange part.

One problem I am having is that the legs on the 5317 are so short, I can't get my head under the set to see the underside and work on it, only enough clearance for a camera.

thats correct a 100uf from pin 4 6HE5 to the convergence plug for a 25v pulse.

Now for the "OH duh" moment. The pannel on the bottom was not meant to be used by sticking your head under the set. It was put there so a serviceman could tip the set on it's side and work on the under-chassis without going to the trouble of pulling the chassis out. The only things to be careful of when tiping the set on it's side are that 1.) there are atleast two screws holding the chassis in, and 2.) that you don't put too much weight on the TV's legs when tiping it on it's side lest you end up snaping one off (that will ruin your day, trust me).

I'm not familiar with Zenith roundy chassis yet so that is all the help I can presently offer.

Good luck on your restoration.

Tom C.