Help needed restoring a Philco 50-T1479
 

Hello my friends,
I'm a newbie here and stumbled across a great find. I acquired a philco combo unit for a mere 10.00 and it looks in dynamic condition. At this present time I'm not sure if it works and this area if vintage collectibles is totally new to me so I prefer to tread lightly. I need for starters a Power cord for this baby and any intel would be greatly appreciated on where to research this particular model.

TY All

Lance

Hi Lance, welcome to VK :wave:

Your set is covered in the Riders series of service manuals in volume 6. I have a copy and I'll take some digital photos you you in a bit.

Please don't try plugging the set in until it's checked over electrically. There's a chance a parts has gone bad and could damage others. Also, you never know if someone had been working on the set and left wires and parts hanging or shorted.

Good luck,
Bob

As you probably know, it is a 1950 model. (thanks, Philco, for making these so easy to date!) That was a really big year for TV, they were selling like hotcakes. (maybe hotcakes were selling like TV's?)

That set will need new capacitors, assuming somebody hasn't already replaced them in "modern times" (the last 30 years, I'd say). To simplify greatly, there are two sorts of capacitors to be concerned with. The first are the electrolytic filter capacitors. When these go bad they have the potential to destroy the power transformer. This is a bad thing! Finding a replacement would be very difficult and perhaps costly; installing it would be something of a pain in the neck. On the other hand, replacing those caps before they can cause trouble doesn't cost all that much (unless you have to pay a professional to do it!)

The other type of capacitor (again, simplified) are "paper" and there are oodles of them in this set; I believe on your model they will be Sprague Black Beauties, also known as "Bumble Bees". These have a terrible reputation. In most cases, a bad one won't destroy your set (though it may blow itself up, making a nice bang and maybe let off some steam to scare you!) but they will keep it from working properly. With old paper caps in that set it is likely that, if it will display a picture at all, it will be too short, mishapen, and will roll uncontrollably. Other than that, it will look okay :) A Philco of that vintage isn't real hard to get going again; some like them more than others. There are a number of TV collectors in NJ, so maybe you could meet one of the guys in person?

If you haven't done any electronic restoration before, trying to restore a 60-year old TV would be quite a leap. You might want to start with a simple five-tube radio and see how that goes.

This article has information about identifying and replacing capacitors:

http://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm

Skimming some of the TV restoration articles here will give you a clue what's generally needed to get them working:

http://antiqueradio.org/restoration.htm

If you're not up for fixing it yourself, this article has advice on finding a repairman:

http://antiqueradio.org/howfix.htm

As noted there, I'd start by contacting area collector clubs for a recommendation within driving distance. The cost of shipping your set far away would exceed its value.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

WOW such great response so quicky :D :D :D

Thank you gentlemen I guess my first step is to hunt down those Jersey boys for my initial help. :)


Lance

I don't know how far it is from you, but NJARC is a pretty active club: http://njarc.org/ .

Phil Nelson

Sweet

Thank you they are only about 30 minutes from me :D :D :D


Lance

The Rider's service manuals are too big to fit on my scanner so I took a photo of each page and create a PDF document. Here's a link: http://www.bobandersen.com/images/sc...20vol%206).pdf

If you have trouble reading any sections, let me know and I'll try to take better photos.

WOW
Thank you SOOOOO Much :D :D :D

Lance