New find... 1950's Philco Console

[Don Lindsly]

Nice find on the Philco Diamond D. That TV came out during my tenure at Philco and I rate it among the three best Philco B & W chassis. The originals did have aluminized picture tubes. That TV will show a great picture if it's working right.

Tighten the 1/4 " hex screws on the PC boards as a preventive measure. They hold the PC board to the chassis to complete the circuit ground. Goofy intermittent problems show up if they're loose. Sound detector transformers could also be troublesome. Otherwise only routine maintenance is expected. You will be very pleased with the performance.

Good luck,

Don

[Charlie]

I couldn't stand it anymore, so, last night I decided to drive home (about an hour drive) and get some gear to bring back to the cabin so I could play with this set.

This morning, I started out with the CRT which tested fine. After that, I looked around a little closer to see if any parts looked near death. Everything looked okay, so I pulled the HO tube and decided to do a very slow soft start. After a few hours of inching the juice up, everything seemed okay. The lytic cans were a little warm, but not so much to cause concern. The B+ voltages were pretty close to spec. Looking promising at this point.

TV is extremely hard to pick up in these woods, so, I connected a dvd player and was able to get some audio. It was somewhat weak, so I went thru checking and replacing tubes along the path. No changes. I have all the tubes except one... the tuner's RF amp. The tube chart showed it as a weird number like X-155. When I jerked the tube out that was in there, it was labeled 6BS8. I'm sure i'll find that later.

After letting it run for a while like this, I decided to plug in the HO tube and see if I got any kind of light on the screen. I did get light, but only a white line going across. Tried changing both the verticle tubes, but no change. Guess I'll know where to start when I pull the chassis out for changing caps.

At least I have something to work with here... a signal and light on the screen is promising. I'm sure once I get all those black beauties out, things will start to shape up. I'll probably pull the chassis after dinner.

Stay tuned.