Ahhh....Chromacolor II.

[jpdylon]

I just never seem to get over how good the picture looks on these sets. This is the 5th one I've fixed up in the last year. They always turn out nice. I never have the room to store them, but I can never just toss em!

[vinyldavid]

I'm definitely going to want to fix my future Chromacolor II up to those standards if I can...

What did you end up doing?

[jpdylon]

Had to replace main power supply filter. a fuesable resistor in the horizontal driver circuit had opened. Some coupling caps in the sweep section were leaky, Replaced a defective screen grid control and the High Voltage Trippler was replaced.

Afterwards a complete grayscale and convergence setup, cleaned the tuner, resoldered the tuner power supply board (a must on the varactor tuners) and finally.....


Sit back and enjoy! Total time on this set was about 3 hours and 60 bucks in parts.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by jpdylon

Had to replace main power supply filter. a fuesable resistor in the horizontal driver circuit had opened. Some coupling caps in the sweep section were leaky, Replaced a defective screen grid control and the High Voltage Trippler was replaced.

Afterwards a complete grayscale and convergence setup, cleaned the tuner, resoldered the tuner power supply board (a must on the varactor tuners) and finally.....


Sit back and enjoy! Total time on this set was about 3 hours and 60 bucks in parts.

One can't have too many CCII's on hand. I have 3: 25EC58 flat chassis, 19HC48, 19KC45. I'm on the lookout for more.

I'm sure the tripler was your biggest expense. Was your old one bad or did you just replace it as a precaution? I've ran into several of these sets where the tripler would short and take the flyback and HOT with it.

[jpdylon]

My old trippler was bad. It had been arcing through the plastic to the chassis. Some previous "technician" had attempted to apply a few layers of fish paper and silicone and make it stop, but ultimately it died anyways.

Now if I could find one of the first CC-II with the horizontal chassis ...

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by jpdylon

My old trippler was bad. It had been arcing through the plastic to the chassis. Some previous "technician" had attempted to apply a few layers of fish paper and silicone and make it stop, but ultimately it died anyways.

Now if I could find one of the first CC-II with the horizontal chassis ...

I saw a flyback where a "technician" placed one strip of black electrical tape over the burn hole to stop it from arcing. It didn't work, of course! I've seen triplers "patched" before but never liked the idea because they'll usually just break open somewhere else.

The 25EC58 that I have is a horizontal chassis CCII, maybe the first. I had it working pretty good and then the varactor tuner started drifting on VHF and then the horizontal fell out of sync. Those tuners are a bit of a bitch to work on! It's buried in the basement at the moment. It's a big monster console with the 4 button clicker remote. I'd probably give it to you if you were close by. I really don't have the room for it; but, can't bring myself to dump it. So, I'll dig it out and fix it one day and cram it somewhere.

[Duane]

Jordan,

Is this a keeper or do you plan on selling it?

[zenith2134]

Jpdylon, with all the work you've done to that set, it's probably good to go until the CRT dies... Which we all know will be a VERY long time on a CCII. great screenshots, nice job

[slow_jazz]

Looks great there. My family's first color t.v. was a Zenith CCII.

Lasted for years and we basically left it on 20 hours a day.

[sampson159]

beautiful set! perfect picture. zenith crts weigh 11 lbs more than most other makersrca had some heavy tubes also) i used to collect duds and sell to a rebuilder. i always wondered if the extra weight had anything to do with the longevity and resolution of the tube. i have a chromacolor crt that i am debating on for sylvania superset. i like that swap,but i have a zenith and might want this for a spare. have a vdc and an older sylvania 25v i used to work for a repair shop in the late 60-early 80s and mostly replaced crts,rebuilt tuners,etc.never a real tech.we swapped everything in those days!zenith crt in philco or sylvania sets were the nicest swap.we did many experiments back then.

[rcaman]

why is it everywhere else the zenith chromacolor sets have a good pix. i have been in the tv business for 30 years. worked on a lot of zenith very few had a great pix on them. mabey people down here just run the hell out of them. steve

[zenith2134]

Sampson, you got me thinking about the Crt weight and quality issue. I bet that heavier tubes (not counting heavy leaded or extraneously implosion-protected tubes) last longer since there is better vibration support for the filament/gun structure and possibly even a thicker coating of phosphor depending on the tube type. I could be way off, however.

Some of the military-grade crt's are likely spec'd to a much higher standard for field use, and back in those days when CRT was king I bet they cost a pretty penny....

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by rcaman

why is it everywhere else the zenith chromacolor sets have a good pix. i have been in the tv business for 30 years. worked on a lot of zenith very few had a great pix on them. mabey people down here just run the hell out of them. steve

I've seen the same thing on many color TV's by different makers from all years. A friend of mine had a mid '90's Sanyo that played 12-14 hours a day and non-stop when they went on vacation. The picture was dull looking and not as vivid as it should have been. It sort of looked like a tired CRT, although the CRT checked fine for emission. This may sound like a stupid question; but, does the phospher "wear out" from a zillion hours of use?

[andy]

000

[Kiwick]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

This may sound like a stupid question; but, does the phospher "wear out" from a zillion hours of use?

It definitely does

The phosphor usually wears out at a slower rate than the electron gun, but in a CRT with a really good gun the phosphor may go first after many years of heavy use, when this happens the picture gets dark and the colors get dull.

worn out (burned) phosphors usually have a darker shade when the CRT is off, it's usually easy to tell the conditions of the phosphors of Inline CRTs as the phosphor stripes will have the shadowmask pattern clearly burned on them.