yet another RCA console

[freakaftr8]

Crap Carmine, wish I could stay longer, im leaving tomorrow morning. Im coming back in 5 or 6 mos or so if you wanna meet, love to see your collection!

[DaveWM]

Got the set today, really nice lady we chatted for a while. She brought it right to my door step, wow what can I say, that was nice.

Checked out the CRT with the sencore CR-70 all 3 guns tested strong with plenty of cut off. it has a mild cataract, but I will deal with that later.

I will do the normal routine, check the B+ for shorts, check the filter caps for opens if B+ is not shorted, then a slow current monitored B+ power up.

It will have to wait for a bit (I could not wait to test the CRT) since I want to finish that cute little maggie 1st.

This thing is Big time heavy

I will get some pics of the guts later. Only issue I can see is it looks like what I guess is the blue lateral magnet assy needs a new clamp, the old one is broken.

Overall the condition of the cabinet looks pretty good, prob a 8/10.

[ctc17]

Good to see a rca color come your way Dave. Mine has a great picture and the bass response is great. Enjoy!

[DaveWM]

yea, I dig the big consoles for their sound, hook up the stereo to the converter and bypass the tuner for true stereo. I will have to dig thru my box of knobs, missing the main tuner knob, and the UHF is stuck as well. The TT looks to be in great shape, like it was nver used. I did not see any obvious smoked parts so will keep my fingers crossed. Flyback looked ok as well.

[bgadow]

Dave, you're putting together a nice collection but fast!

[DaveWM]

running out of room too.. fast

[freakaftr8]

Way to go Dave! Thats a great sign that the CRT has good emmission!

[DaveWM]

just touched on it today, the stereo selector switch was frozen solid, I know a little thing but I like to make progress no matter how small, keeps the project alive.

Anyway I shot some cleaner on the switch, put a hefty knob on it (did not want ot break the little plastic knob it came with), Darn tight as in solid.

hmmm time for mister good wrench, got a big cresent on it, and "gently" if that word can be used, torqued it ever so slightly. Movement, back and forth a bit at a time, switch back to the knob, starting to hear some detents, worked it some more, nice a smooth now with solid detents. I take this as a good omen...

Whats wierd is there is no TV setting, I guess when the tv is on it just defaults (not a good word but I hope it gets the point across) to the TV inputs. come to think of it I dont see how the tv is turned on, going back out to look at it again.

[DaveWM]

well duh it has the regular CTC-17 alum face with the on off and volume built in. That is odd. It also has the audio output tranny. I cant belive it but I guess it uses the built in audio from the TV chassis to drive the speakers (there was no speaker in the TV spot) and not the stereo chassis at all.

Wow that was some kind of wasted use of the stereo, my maggies all used the tuner/amp to drive the TV sound.

[freakaftr8]

Yep, CTC 16's were the same way. Hey Dave by the pic of your set, are you missing the tuner knob? I believe 17's and 25's use the same knob.

[DaveWM]

yep was missing but I found a close replacement in my knobs bin.

I was checking out the stereo tuner, its will need some cap work for sure as I cans see some of the plastic electros are cracked and missing their tops.

the tuner is a two part unit, you have to unbolt it to service the two main boards. It has a monster umbilical cord that looks intimidating to try and remove so I guess it will have to be recapped out in the garage. At least the weather is decent this time of year.

Have not touched it other than to loosen up the switch, just too much going on this time of year. On a side note I did find a local maggie console with a super nice 6v6 amp for only 35$, so yet another distraction. I need to hurry up and retire so I can move to the sticks, build a shop and start having some serious fun!

[DaveWM]

well I decided to see what the TV would do on this set, I pulled the HOT, put on the variac, started out at about 20v for about 10min, very low current at the primary of the PT, cranked it up to about 60v, let is sit for about 20min, filter caps stone cold, all the filaments were starting to glow. went up to about 80v for another 20min, all looking good. Put the HOT back in with the cathode current monitor in place. go to full power, sound comes in, but zero cathode current and no hint of HV. Check the HOT (6je6) test very low on the tube tester, so I try another, this time HOT current quickly goes to 200ma and the CRT starts to get some raster, then all of a sudden it drops to about 50ma, no more HV. I notice the damper is glowing blue. Pull the damper and the shunt tube, the damper getter is gone the shunt tube looks like it has a lot of miles on it, so both of those get replaced, try again and get a nice nearly full raster (short on the bottom with some fold over). The vert out has one of those paper tube Electrolytics (prob the cathode bypass) on the circuit board, so I suspect that, could be the tube as well but I pressed on with the check out since I did not really want to pull the chassis. Lotsa green, so I check the green blanker tube, shorted, new one goes in, tint off, checked the phase detector, got a soft short in there, new one goes in,chroma lock not solid (horz rainbow) check the 6GH8 osc, hmm looks brand new, imagine that, anyway grab a pull and try it. finally it starting to look better. Color locks, tint control has plenty of range. Blue and Red are weak, Green is way strong, but the CRT tested with good tracking so I think there is something up, maybe the shorted blanker tube cooked a resistor in the green blanker circuit. did not check the burst amp or the demod tubes (the demod tubes were 6HZ6's I think). Before doing anymore I need to do a purity setup, the rings were rusted and the plastic mount was crumbling.

I dont want to get another project started, so I will prob just see if I can find a purity assy, try another vert tube and leave it at that for now. Get back to it when work calms down.

[DaveWM]

replaced the other 6GU7 in the chroma board, green problem gone, plenty of red and blue now, pic looks great. Still need to setup the convergence but I can tell its going to look good. the CRT has a RCA type cat (whitish) but I am in no hurry to mess with that. Oh and a new 6GF7 vert tube cured the vert size. I get excellant adj range on size and lin, and a solid sync lock. It never ceases to amaze me how these old mid 60's sets seem to be so easy to get going again. What a tribute to the enginneers of the day, AND the quality of the parts used.

[DaveWM]

the contrast is somewhat lacking, checked AGC, subbed a new video amp tube with a NOS, not much better. I have not checked but suspect a weak bypass cap in the video amp circuit.

[DaveWM]

ah I see another stage of video amp ahead of the 12BY7. Think I will give it a try. I also have to recheck the kine bias and make sure I have that set right. One last thing is there is a video peak switch I think I will play with. All the slide switches on the back seem a bit iffy, prob should give them a shot of clean juice.