Australian Saba Ultracolor T6717
 

Recently I acquired another example of early Australian colour television - the Saba Ultracolor T6717. This is a german import adapted to local conditions by fitting a 240v to 220v transformer. It came complete with instruction manual that is hand dated November 1977. I have been looking for an older european set that used this distinctive bezel-less CRT design for a while.

Australia adopted the same PAL B/G standard that was in use in many european countries at the time so they were a handy source of sets with the introduction of colour here in 1975. Unfortunately few of these early european sets survive as many succumbed to the harsh climate and poor parts support here. The Philips K9 chassis was one of the exceptions to this and it was a very popular chassis here that still turns up today occaisonally.

This set is a one owner set that was in regular use by its elderly owner till recently. Internally it is in excellent condition but has evidence of some repairs. The combined greyscale pot assembly has been replaced by the three trimpots on the rear of the right hand panel.

The set uses an early inline gun CRT (GTE Sylvania) and retains a simplified convergence panel that is acessed behind the upper front user panel. The horizontal scan circuits are a common european design of the time with the use of thyristors (SCR's) instead of transistors for the output stage. Nowadays this circuit design is a curiosity in itself.

Nice save ! Although I'll confess, I never have been taken too much w/the looks of the "no-bezel" style European sets. They just look "unfinished" or something to me, but I'll further admit I woun't mind having one, as you NEVER see such here in the states...

Here in Italy there are still many 70s Saba Ultracolor sets around, but our 1976-77 sets are quite different, they have a one piece vertical fold down chassis with the convergence panel built as a plug-in board at the top of the chassis and a two way speaker system with a large 5x8" oval woofer, the control panel is also completely different.

The Sylvania CRT in your set is the "uniline", if your is still strong you can consider yourself lucky as they tended to have a relatively short life, especially in some high end models fitted with the "instant on" feature, the Toshiba RIS inline or Philips 20AX inline fitted on smaller 22in sets is far more durable

I've used to see a lot of European sets as a kid. Normende and Grundig were a lot more common than SABA. For some reason they has a bad reputation in this area and were given up long before Japanese sets of a similar age. The local (now long gone) repair shop wouldn't work on them at all.

The last SABA set I had was a 80s monitor style set. If it wasn't for the 7 segement LED display it could easily be mistaken for a more recent set. It was unusual for a relatively old set to have not just composite video, but RGB inputs. I gave it to a friend when their set died and it was still going strong when they "upgraded". I don't know who ended up with it after that, but hopefullly someone is still getting use out of it.

RCA used SCR horizontal outputs in all of their early solid state sets. This includes the CTC-40 "Trans Vista Color", and the early versions of the upright modular XL-100 chassis. Later XL-100s used a different horizontal sweep module and a transistor horizontal output.

i think i know this kind of set, it had an ugly French Thomoson engineered chassis, in fact, Thomson bought Saba in the early 80s

i won't touch an 80s Thomson chassis with a 10ft pole! they were flimsy and over engineered, some even had two processors and two (rotting) backup batteries...

The Saba seems to dislike being away from its old home. I went to turn it on for a run and check the CRT condition and waft of smoke emerged from the deflection panel.

Closer inspection revealed a badly cooked 1 ohm safety resistor for the vertical output module. A replacement that I fitted is able to withstand a few seconds of power without getting too hot but the horizontal stage is being excessively loaded by the current drawn through the resistor.

I now have to fault find the V out module. :worried:

apart from the obvious shorted transistors and diodes, check each and every yellow "Frako" and "Elko" electrolytic capacitor, as they have a bad habit of going dead short,

The tiny tantalium drop capacitors are also worth checking as they often go dead short too.

Thanks for the advice, I've already found a 470uF 63v Fraco capacitor thats a dead short that smooths the V shift supply. It didn't solve the problem so I'm currently digging deeper.

An update on the Saba - it's blown the NPN half of the output complementary pair. After checking the specs of the MJ1000 that it uses I find its a high gain darlington power transistor. So much for an easy substitute.
Fortunately, I have found a source for this device here in Australia, so repairs will occur eventually.

Personally I always liked the look, but you're right they didn't seem to get made or imported here to the U.S. The closest I've seen was a set my sister owned, a Grundig which was a multistandard set she had purchased in Germany. Unfortunately the circuit board cracked during its return to the United States so it never really worked here. I'm still looking for one though.

David

The "no bezel" or "push through" style was a space saving design, by combining a 110 degree CRT with a push through bezel and a vertical chassis it was possible to make tabletop sets with compact, shallow cabinets

Remember that 99% of European sets made since the late 50s are tabletop models... there's just no room in most European homes even for a small US-style console... although some Euro sets had and optional stand or removable legs

I had the exact same Saba set some time back. It has instant on, so the CRT may be completely shot. If you take off the Saba badge on the front you find two screws that holds the speaker in place. The convergence adjustment pots are behind there. I never got mine to work properly; it was temperature drifting like an old quartz bulb filament and the picture was so dim that you could barely see it in normal light. It ended its life with a "snap" followed by a buzzing sound, then another "snap" as the fuse blew. At that point, i´d had more than enough, and it was headed right out to the trash container.

Edit: I just came to think of an incident when i scrapped it: I put in in the car and drove down to the dumping place. I stopped the car right by an old washing machine that was standing there, put the TV on top of the washing machine, closed the back door on the station wagon, jumped in the car, drove off... after just a couple of meters i heard a loud BANG. The stupid power cord was still INSIDE the car...

You didn't clip off the power cord, to salvage it for replacement use on other TVs or such?! :D

It's alive!

I've just fitted a replacement transistor and carefully powered it all back up. I have most of the screen filled with raster but I'm missing some of the bottom with scan distortion. I will have to do a more thorough check on the circuit one day. Hopefully its not the other output transistor.

I was able to run the CRT through its paces and I'm glad to say it is a good one still. Given what people have said about the poor life of these CRTs, I must be lucky.