Rca xl-100
 

Greetings,

I'm new to the site, but I've been reading posts here for a while and I've been posting on ARF since August. I'm amazed at the collective wisdom here!

I rescued this RCA XL-100 from the curb more than 20 years ago. It was dirty and it didn't work. The main trouble turned out to be lousy plug-in board connectors. I ended up soldering jumpers across quite a a few connections, mainly on the IF module. I watched it for about a year and it's been in storage ever since.

The model number is ES-475W and I believe that it was manufactured in 1974. It's an instant on chassis, so I've always controlled it with a power strip. I took it out of storage over the weekend and cleaned it up. It plays just about as well as it did 20 years ago. The main issues are weak greens and bad linearity.

Any gotchas that I should know about this set? It seems very well built, aside from the board connectors.

Thanks,

Clark

I've had some good experiences with RCA solid state of that vintage. They don't seem quite as reliable as Zenith, but they are close. If you ever need parts or service literature, ask here. I have a lot of small RCA parts from the 70s as well as factory manuals.

The main trouble I had with those were power supply problems (shorted rectifier diodes, bad filter capacitors, etc) and horizontal sweep / HV circuit failure (tripler, SCR's, horizontal module, etc). Also, I've seen some random module failure as well as faulty module sockets. Overall, these were good sets and they produce a picture that will often exceed the quality of more recent CRT sets.

...and don't forget the 470uf vertical cap that would go bad. We kept a caddy stocked with the caps, MAD modules, power supply boards (shorted diodes - original had marginal PIV ratings) and triplers. Ditto on the module sockets - don't rock them side-to-side, else you're looking for a socket!

Cheers,

I had that same set in the late 70's, I had to replace the CRT but it had a great picture after that.

I thought it was a 73 model but it could be a 74.

I recall it being RCA's first something, I think it was the first inline CRT, it was also a 110 or 114 deg tube, very shallow for a Color set of the time.

Thanks for all the helpful pointers. I guess a good place to start would be to get the service literature on it. I know that SAMS has it but maybe I'll poke around a bit to see what I can find for free.

I played around with it a little over the weekend, getting reacquainted with the set. The gain for the green channel was already maxed out, so I suspect that the green gun may be weak. I don't have a CRT tester to confirm this. I see that a silicon rectifier near the vertical output transformer has been replaced. Other than that, and my soldered jumpers, all looks original. I set the kine bias control by eye-- probably not a good idea. It has a control labeled "noise" that behaves very similar to an AGC control.

I almost got rid of the set numerous times over the years. But now I'm glad that I kept it:yes:

-Clark

I would say align the yoke and pincushion adjustment. it looks good

Resurrecting an old thread, but I need to adjust the pincushion control on my XL-100, FU505W (1975). Does anyone happen to know where said control is located?

I don't know the specific model, but on most color sets pincushion was a slug adjustable inductor/transformer.

that is the first generation xl100.very good performers.

Hi everyone. I'm new here.

Just wanted to say that RCA was always a favorite of mine. I'm glad that you didn't get rid of this set. Looks cool and I hope you can take care of the issue easily.

Actually found it. There was a diagram on the inside of the back :whip:

This is one of my twin CTC-68s. Always had a green convergence problem on warmup, and no matter what I did, the colors always seemed off somehow.

Pulled the chassis, and replaced 5 capacitors.....3 on the convergence board and 2 on the main chassis. They look like hot dogs with grill marks....lol. Weird because ONLY this exact style of cap was affected.

Anyway, the set performs perfectly now, and the convergence is dead dead DEAD on (did I say dead on? :) )......which ain't something that I'm used to seeing :)

Arco-Elmenco Capacitors! EM= Elmenco. Same construction as an Orange Drop (plastic film/paper), and I've replaced exactly one in 20+ years. When I was in the Navy, I had access to an ESI capacitor analyzer - I sorted through my junk box and rid myself of a dozen or so bad NOS caps. This was in 1991/92, and I found a handful of caps that had high Dissipation Factor and quite a few that were leaky. One of the leaky ones was an Elmenco. They also make the axial, white ceramic "time bombs" found in some GE's, Admirals and the .1/1000V boost filter in old Zenith color sets. Some of the members here change them out whenever they encounter them, but I've been lucky, I guess.

The stripe indicates the outside foil. Arco-Elmenco now only imports film caps and offers mica caps too. Their website sucks.

Cheers,

Hah! Funny you should say that. I recapped a Zenith color roundie that's currently on the bench, and I flipped it over to reveal that I forgot to order, guess what, a .1/1000V axial white ceramic cap!

I'd been debating whether to change it or just put in the tubes I just got from ebay and power it up.....even though it *sort of* worked briefly when I got the set. Decided to wait and change it out, but I wanted to nail down some resistors for the Halolight first.....

Looks very good, Kamakiri. You're inspiring me to drag my XL-100 out of storage and have another look. I haven't done anything with it since I took the photos in this thread.

-Clark