1960s vintage 9" GE B & W Portable TV has no Picture

[Eric H]

I recapped one of these some time ago but couldn't remember the details so I just went out and looked at a spare chassis I have in the garage.

After seeing it I remember just recapping it without removing anything except the CRT, there's plenty of room on the back side of the board.

I would take some good pictures before starting just in case a wire does get broken but really one of the easiest sets to work on in my opinion since there's so little to it.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Eric H

I recapped one of these some time ago but couldn't remember the details so I just went out and looked at a spare chassis I have in the garage.

After seeing it I remember just recapping it without removing anything except the CRT, there's plenty of room on the back side of the board.

I would take some good pictures before starting just in case a wire does get broken but really one of the easiest sets to work on in my opinion since there's so little to it.

That's what I was thinking just remove the CRT but that looks to be a little tricky because the screws that hold the tube into place on the front panel are kind of inaccessible which with my screw drivers I have will make it kind of tough to get into the already barely accessible space.

Also one thing that's kind of crappy is that one of the retention springs had a broken mounting screw hole so its being held into place by just a little bit of what remained of the mounting screw hole and the mounting screw.

Now I would like to know what would be a good replacement for the original radial leaded capacitors that are in this TV? I'm asking because the original caps were radial leaded capacitors with the leads spaced apart at about an 1/8" whereas the modern Radial lead Capacitors have the leads spaced out at about 3/4" apart which is too wide for the original holes. I could just get axial leaded capacitors and mount them on end but that would look kind of silly and also it might be a little dangerous without having some sort of spaghetti wrapping on the exposed lead coming out of the top of the capacitor going to the board.

[Electronic M]

If you are talking paper caps I just mount the axial on end (keep the end tight-ish with the board to prevent flexing), and bend the other end over. I don't use heat-shrink tubing unless there is something (likely loose) near by that seems likely to short to it....there is no point in adding it for safety in most sets, since usually there are enough exposed high-ish voltage terminals and points already there by design that it would be like barricading the door while leaving the window wide open, and anyone dumb enough to get zapped by them likely had no business inside the back of a powered up TV in the first place...

I'll occasionally bend axial leads under using needle nose pliers and my fingers so that the leads match the foot print of the original, but that is uncommon, and usually done to match some instinctual aesthetic rather than for a functional purpose.

[Eric H]

Leave the CRT attached to the front piece, there are a couple of sliding latches that hold the front to the bottom, if you release them you can separate them and slide the tube and mask forward out of the yoke.

The posts that hold the CRT to the face are fragile, I've repaired them with Epoxy and using a slightly longer screw to extend past the break, of course not too long or it will poke out the front!

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Eric H

Leave the CRT attached to the front piece, there are a couple of sliding latches that hold the front to the bottom, if you release them you can separate them and slide the tube and mask forward out of the yoke.

The posts that hold the CRT to the face are fragile, I've repaired them with Epoxy and using a slightly longer screw to extend past the break, of course not too long or it will poke out the front!

That's funny because that's exactly the same way mine was repaired it had the post repaired with epoxy and had a larger sloted bit screw installed into the hole but then some how that broke again then the retention spring was just sitting on top of the picture tube. so then I just reattached the retention spring with the screw into what was remaining of the mounting post and its holding pretty well.

anyways I'm still wanting to know what kinds of capacitors to use in place of the old radial leaded "good-all" style caps in the unit because the modern radial lead caps don't look like the original ones anymore as far as mounting wise goes because the leads are too far apart.

Below is a picture I took of the unit since I took all the tubes out and reseated them, notice how its definitely got a nice bright picture now and the only issue with it now is that the bottom of the screen is folded onto itself and doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the screen, I've also noticed that there are some small horizontal lines that go across the screen that are barely noticable in certain lighting scenes.

[Gregb]

Just use those little yellow axial lead caps and bend the one lead over so it goes down into the hole in the board. Worked fine for me! I did also find a few resistors that were way out of tolerance so check them as well. This is all really easy to do with the CRT removed.
I am just in the process of putting my Hotpoint back together and will have a picture or two tomorrow, it works really good.

Gregb

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Gregb

Just use those little yellow axial lead caps and bend the one lead over so it goes down into the hole in the board. Worked fine for me! I did also find a few resistors that were way out of tolerance so check them as well. This is all really easy to do with the CRT removed.
I am just in the process of putting my Hotpoint back together and will have a picture or two tomorrow, it works really good.

Gregb

OK Sweet, I'm looking forward to seeing what yours looks like so I know what to expect out of mine when I get mine finished.

and I kind of guessed that's the kind of capacitors I would of have to use but I wasn't sure, which is why I asked.

My car is going to need a $500 shock and strut repair so I'm going to have to save up for that by mowing my parents lawn sometimes during the summer.

So anyways Hopefully I can still get some of my spending money from my mom that I can use to get the capacitors I need for this TV to get it up and running again. Because the guy at my church who gave it to me would like to know when I get it going because I guess it was the TV his parents used when he was growing up and he would love to see a picture or a video of it running again.

[Captainclock]

Well I finally was able to order some capacitors for this TV but now I just need to know which capacitors I should replace first considering the issues I was having (vertical issues), especially since I don't have the service manual for this TV it would be nice to know which capacitors in this tv are involved in the vertical circuitry, so I can replace those first since that's what's having the most issues right now.

Also I took a look at the tube in this set and noticed that it doesn't have a HV Anode anywhere on the picture tube, just wires coming off of the little assembly on the neck and that's it, I also took a look at the tube and found a manufacture date code, the code was 6024 (which if I'm reading it right would be the 24th week of 1960) but then I saw a tag on the top of the tube that said Rev. 4-63, so the tube in this set is definitely not original but it is a GE Tube though so it might of been a replacement done under warranty.

Thanks for your help.

Levi

[Electronic M]

Look at the tubes with vert. labeled next to them in the set's tube chart and the vertical output transformer.....All caps connected even through resistors should be changed. There will be a lytic connected to the cathode of the vert output (most likely the problem) and one filtering the B+ connection of the output transformer, change them.

In a monochrome TV you need to know the generic block diagram of circuits that applies to any monochrome TV....Most apparent problems are easily correlated to their given 1-3 (most can be tracked to only 1) circuits, then it becomes a matter of replacing parts in that circuit. You should know this, and not need us to tell you, if you plan to service TVs.

[Eric H]

The HV goes into the base of that tube. The pin is off by itself if I recall right.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Eric H

The HV goes into the base of that tube. The pin is off by itself if I recall right.

What I mean is that this picture tube doesn't have the 2nd anode suction cup thingy that most CRT TVs have is what I mean.

Anyways This TV has a 4 MFD 50 Volt Electrolytic Capacitor in the circuit and I was wondering if a 6.8 MFD 50 Volt electrolytic capacitor would be a good replacement for that capacitor, I'm curious because I don't have any 4.7 MFD 50 Volt Electrolytics in my capacitor stash and the only 4.7 MFD 50 Volt Electrolytic capacitor that Radio Shack has is an axial leaded one which I wouldn't think that using an axial leaded Electrolytic capacitor with one side exposed would be very safe without having some sort of shrink wraping over it so that it doesn't arc against something else in the TV.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

What I mean is that this picture tube doesn't have the 2nd anode suction cup thingy that most CRT TVs have is what I mean.

I realize that, I was just pointing out it doesn't have one on the side of the tube because they ran the High Voltage through a pin on the base of the tube instead.

The 6.8Mf cap is probably close enough, it's more than 50% over but depending on what it's for it probably wont matter much.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Eric H

I realize that, I was just pointing out it doesn't have one on the side of the tube because they ran the High Voltage through a pin on the base of the tube instead.

The 6.8Mf cap is probably close enough, it's more than 50% over but depending on what it's for it probably wont matter much.

That's why it would be nice to have a service manual for this TV, but I don't want to pay $20 for a Sam's Photofact for this thing because that's kind of rediculous to pay that much for a simple 4 sheet document that's over 50 years old and that's probably a very poor scan at that.

Also you never answered my previously asked question concerning where to start first when recapping this TV because I just ordered the caps for this TV but I would like to know where to start in the chain of things (which caps are for the vertical out stage where I'm having the main problems right now) and where are the HV/Horizontal out stage caps at?

Also the really weird valued .0039 MFD 400 Volt capacitor I had ordered a .0047 MFD capacitor to replace it, is that ok? I'm just wondering because there were no other values that came close to that funky valued cap at AES except the .0047 MFD.

[Eric H]

If you know the number you can get a Sams from John Kendall for $9.00 http://vintage-electronics.com/
If you don't know the number he can look it up by model number.
eBay is another place to get one for cheap.

As Electronic_M explained above you could find out which tube is the vertical output from the tube chart and start there, one of the Electrolytics is probably also part of the vertical circuit so that would be a good one to start with.
The set is so simple it can be completely recapped in an hour or two anyhow.

The .0039 is probably close enough, depending on what it does, if it's part of an oscillator circuit (Vert or Horiz) it might throw it far enough off frequency that it can't be brought back in sync with the adjustments given, you won't know until you try.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Eric H

If you know the number you can get a Sams from John Kendall for $9.00 http://vintage-electronics.com/
If you don't know the number he can look it up by model number.
eBay is another place to get one for cheap.

As Electronic_M explained above you could find out which tube is the vertical output from the tube chart and start there, one of the Electrolytics is probably also part of the vertical circuit so that would be a good one to start with.
The set is so simple it can be completely recapped in an hour or two anyhow.

The .0039 is probably close enough, depending on what it does, if it's part of an oscillator circuit (Vert or Horiz) it might throw it far enough off frequency that it can't be brought back in sync with the adjustments given, you won't know until you try.

The original Capacitor was the .0039 MFD and the one I had ordered to replace it was the .0047 MFD all the new capacitors i ordered were 630 volts so hopefully that should be ok. anyways I was actually thinking of trying to find a free download of the service manual, because I really don't have a whole lot of money to throw around at ordering stuff like service manuals and what not as my only source of income currently is Disability checks from Social Security because of my Autism and I'm currently unemployed and have been trying to find a decent paying job for almost a year now without any luck, and the money that I get from disability is handled by my mother, so the only spending money I get is $30 every two weeks and I can't just randomly blow that $30 all at once on just buying parts and service manuals for my repair projects because my mom would be upset at me if I did that.