View Full Version : Philco 624


mr_rye89
02-09-2019, 07:41 PM
Grabbed this guy off CL for a tenner :banana:

It's a farm set, so I gotta find a golf cart battery. :D

I'm planning on going through the electronics soon but the cabinet resto/refinish will have to wait for spring.

The cabinet looks shabby, but that's mostly the finish. there's a few chips/de-laminated areas, but with some carefully cut/matched chunks of walnut veneer, I should have her lookin good

dieseljeep
02-10-2019, 02:04 PM
Grabbed this guy off CL for a tenner :banana:

It's a farm set, so I gotta find a golf cart battery. :D

I'm planning on going through the electronics soon but the cabinet resto/refinish will have to wait for spring.

The cabinet looks shabby, but that's mostly the finish. there's a few chips/de-laminated areas, but with some carefully cut/matched chunks of walnut veneer, I should have her lookin good
You should check the vibrator power supply to see if it will function, otherwise it doesn't pay to locate a battery. The vibrator is a synchronous self rectifying type.
I also see it has a 3 volt bias cell. I would use a couple carbon-zinc penlite cells. The "C" drain is so low, it's basically shelf-life.
The tubes are filamentary tubes so the have to be a DC source. :scratch2:

mr_rye89
02-10-2019, 11:48 PM
Vibrator hums okay on a little 6 volt battery, either way I'm going to be retrofitting one of these https://www.pekorf.com/RadioHomePage.html and saving the mechanical one for an EMP :D

Thanks for the tip on the bias cells :thmbsp: first time I've encountered one of those before. I guess that's the only way the could get negative grid bias on a setup like this.......

I also have a synchronous Mallory Vibrapack and a dual power Navy Morale radio (async. vibrator w/ gas rectifier) around here that I've been playing with, so I'm no stranger to vibrating power supplies.

I just got done identifying all the capacitors and gouging out the bakelite blocks (3 total) so I can put together a BOM for the recap.

Titan1a
02-11-2019, 12:23 AM
Youtube has a repair series on this radio. JIC

mr_rye89
02-12-2019, 09:49 PM
Youtube has a repair series on this radio. JIC

Those are quite useful. I stayed up wayyy too late watching those :yes:

I have most of the capacitors marked, I tested all the resistors, marked the outta spec ones (even out of 20% tolerance!) replacement capacitors ordered.

I still gotta mark the picofarad value caps, schematic says their mica, their appearance says they're moulded paper "mica bombs"

Titan1a
02-14-2019, 01:47 AM
This is a nice radio once you get it working. An rf amp tube makes it special. A good antenna and this radio will surprise you! A really good DX queen.

mr_rye89
02-14-2019, 05:30 PM
This model lacks the RF amp stage unfortunately, It's the '36 model 624, not the very similar 37-624.

mr_rye89
02-15-2019, 10:41 PM
She lives! :banana:

I had a resistor hooked up wrong that was causing it to just play a loud hum(and the resistor getting really hot), I ended up replacing most of the original resistors trying to get it to play (all the voltages were way off anyway, and I had some filaments not lighting)

Now I just have vibrator hash to quiet

and yes I scored a golf cart battery :thmbsp:

Titan1a
02-16-2019, 02:19 AM
Very, very nice. Good show! Another one lives again. I should live so long.

dieseljeep
02-17-2019, 01:15 PM
She lives! :banana:

I had a resistor hooked up wrong that was causing it to just play a loud hum(and the resistor getting really hot), I ended up replacing most of the original resistors trying to get it to play (all the voltages were way off anyway, and I had some filaments not lighting)

Now I just have vibrator hash to quiet

and yes I scored a golf cart battery :thmbsp:
Did you reinstall all the covers on the power supply, If not, you'll get a lot of hash radiated into the signal.