HV divider question for old Zenith techs.

[kx250rider]

I usually put an ECG-526A type tripler, and remove the focus divider altogether. I don't recall the exact mods, but it's easy. You also eliminate the 2-wire anode lead and cap that way. The 526A has a focus tap and a terminal on the for focus pot.

Charles

[jstout66]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents. Charles is correct for a modified tripler, or find the EXACT focus divider replacement part.
High voltage is something one should never f**k with. I've seen other posts where some will try to use silicone, or high-voltage dope, or tape, or modify a part of the same brand, but not for that set.
Never a good idea........ It's a fire hazard, or could cause more extensive damage to the set. The engineers used the parts for that chassis for a reason.

[Electronic M]

Fraid I don't get what is meant by a trippler modification in the last post.

I finished my work on her yesterday I replaced the 6.8 meg 1 watt resistor in my mod by taking four 6.8 meg 1 watt units and wireing the four as two paralel pairs efffectively making four 6.8 meg 1 wattters into two 3.4 meg 2 watters I then put these two in series with eachother and used them as a replacement for the 6.8 meg unit in my old mod. This restored the focus to working nicely.

While I was in there I took the time to examine the horizontal output tube. The first thing I noticed was that the yoke cable was touching that tube, and on closer examination it was clear that 3 of the wires had the insulation chared off at the contact point (a major short waiting to happen). So I electrical taped the bad spots and dressed the wire about two inches away from the tube. I could not get it farther as the cable is short and the chassis is laid out such that they practically force the wire to touch the tube. I found out why the width was low it was indede the H output tube (type 6LB6 BTW) I had two spares one was labeled and the other was not, but the other tested good and had the same pinout so when the labeled one started glowing blue in the lower interior and causing a bad pin cusion I tried the other tube and it worked well. I was able to bring the width jumper back to the "normal" position from the "increase" position with plenty of overscan so I'm happy.

The output tube that was in there these past few months was testing at around 80 initally on my B&K 606, but quickly droping to 65 which is the upper border of the "?" zone. The new (well good used to be technical) one in there is rock solid at 92 so I now have a healthy tube in there.

I also had to relpace the original damper because to access where I made the mod I had to remove the tube and few mods and tests later I noticed that one of the damper pins stayed in the socket after I had pulled out the tube

[sampson159]

we got rid of those focus blocks and used 526 triplers too.actually our supplier gave us a better deal on the 526s.they were less than the focus blocks.in a pinch,you can use a 556.not sure about the longevity but we replaced a few with those.they didnt come back!that was back in the shop days and did we experiment.dave was very detail oriented and kept notes on everything.i could publish a book with his notes.thousands of pages

[Electronic M]

What did you connect the tripplers to asside from the focus lead? I would think that in Zenith pulse regulator HV system sets the plate lead of the HO tube would fluctuate too much to derive a focus voltage from.

I believe that the socket is arcing and not just to the spark gap.....This set has a problem with the color taking too long to start which always gets worse after fixing the focus. Also this set is a devious little scoundrel, I had it going good and just started to put stuff back on top of it then the gun balance went intermitant the blue gun will completely go dark the red is close (only working with a red color signal, or a tweak of the screen control) the green is impervious to this....The balance likes to go bad when the color control is not set for a black and white picture. The CRT socket was still making arcing noises even after returning the focus voltage to speck so I think there is something wrong with the socket.

[dieseljeep]

Tom. You probably have no choice but to replce that socket. It's all carbon-pathed inside. I was going to ask the same question. How is the trippler connected, to substitute the HV rectifier and the focus divider?