I saw an ad on Craigslist yesterday advertising a free Zenith Chromacolor II, about an hour's drive from my house. Went and picked it up today, luckily it had the new four lead safety cap put in. On the road now, more info when I get home.

Beautiful set! Very 1970s.

Nice! It's one of the more stylish cabinets too.

Unfortunately, the VHF knob did not make the trip home. Must have fallen out when I loaded it, or fallen off somewhere on the freeway.

The tripler is shorted. After 10 seconds of being on, the circuit breaker would pop out, and there was no high voltage. First thought is bad tripler. I unhooked the flyback wire from the tripler, turned it on, and no circuit breaker pop. It uses an ECG526.

New number for OEM tripler is 977-36

https://octopart.com/nte526a-nte+electronics-737998
https://www.kenselectronics.com/brands/nte.htm
https://www.ntepartsdirect.com/ENG/PRODUCTLIST/SEMICONDUCTORS_HIGH_VOLTAGE_MULTIPLIERS

I harvested the tripler out of my 1974 Sylvania and got the Zenith working. It has plenty of other problems though.

You seem to have zero luck with Zenith.

You seem to have zero luck with Zenith.

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

There is a zener diode in this thing that is supposed to regulate the B+, and it's not doing its job, so when it warms up the B+ skyrockets and the picture looks like rubbish.

Zener diode is in the 24 V source. 103-105. Also a 2 ohm 2W.
They are mounted behind the chassis either on a little
PCB or hand wired old school style depending on year. The 24V
transistor is on the chassis facing you. 121-992 IIRC
Zener would short & open the 2 ohm killing the set.
If the transistor shorts you get 2 white hum bars like a bad filter.
The 130 V is more likely. If the oil fillled cap opens there is
no regulation & the pix pulsates badly. Could explain the tripler
also but a lot did just go bad.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

You seem to have zero luck with Zenith.
I'd say it would be pretty rare to get any set that age that needs no work at all and will stay that way for the long term. At least it's a 19" mini console, I haven't seen any others like it.

I'm not really crazy about it. I'd trade it for almost any other Zenith from the first half of the 70's.

TUD1, don't panic! just assess what you have first, have you checked the crt with a tester? how does it check out? if it is reasonable good, that is a plus. A lot of good stuff has piddly things wrong with it. zeno is the man for tv diagnosis. I don't have a early 70's zenith to trade you but i would like to have another zenith delta gun CC to put in my stable even with a few little probs.

If you want to come get this thing, I'll trade it or sell it cheap. Just let me know what you've got. I just wanted to rescue it off Craigslist. The picture tube was tired, but came back to life after a rejuvenation.