Zenith I procrastenated on.. - Videokarma.org TV - Video

DaveWM · #1 04-21-2010, 01:02 PM

well after getting depressed about seeing that old zenith console get lost I am following up on a early 70's set that I just dropped the ball on a few months ago keep your fingers crossed folks....

it was a white mod looking one on a pedistal.

radiotvnut · #2 04-21-2010, 01:26 PM

Was that the tube type Avanti that was pictured at a recycling dump? I seem to remember someone posting about such a set.

DaveWM · #3 04-21-2010, 01:28 PM

no it was a SS version. If it had been a tube I would have jumped on it, but lately I am growing to like SS as well as tube.

DaveWM · #4 04-21-2010, 03:35 PM

Good news, still has it, still watching it, wife wants it sold. I will check it out this weekend

DaveWM · #5 04-21-2010, 03:37 PM

here it is...

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=246565

freakaftr8 · #6 04-21-2010, 03:52 PM

Neat set! The stand looks good too and no yellowing, obviously not a smokers tv.

DaveWM · #7 04-23-2010, 11:28 AM

going to check it out tomorrow..

DaveWM · #8 04-24-2010, 08:11 PM

got it. Pics and details tomorrow, took all day (had to go to the beach while I was over on the west cost.

electronjohn · #9 04-25-2010, 10:09 AM

I have one of those Avantis...it was purchased new by my late father-in-law. He was getting ready to watch a big game on a Saturday when their TV went on the fritz. Callled the local TV guy & told him to bring his best set toot-sweet. Don hauled it to the house & set it up & father-in-law was able to watch the big game. Ended up with my wife...we used it for years until the motorized tuner went crazy. Had the TV guy lock it on channel 3 & we tuned it w/a VCR. A few years later the pic collapsed to a line...so we invested in a 31" RCA. The Avanti resides in the spare room & needs to go to a good home.

DaveWM · #10 04-25-2010, 12:05 PM

no pix today unless I can find a camera went MIA on me.

anyway nice neat chassis, fly has some rubber looking goop on the the HV lead at the fly and on the tripler. there are also a couple dipped caps on the side of the fly that looks like there were not orig.

I has one of those ferroresonate caps (3uf 450v np I think if its like the sylvainia I have) looks like it anyway.

uses a 25vbqp22 CRT.

I will try it out later (it needed a horz adj at the guys house, and I did not want to futz with it there) and get a base line pic.

I thought the cab was a laminate but it looks iike its just painted. that should be an easy fix to sand down, prime and shoot some new paint. the Pedistal looks good, need some fine sanding and polishing to get the scratches out. the top looks good. the front looks very good.

Any thing that I need to replace right off? I wil of couse check the filters and prob replace that 3uf NP, but I am wanting to know if there is any thing to watch out for right off, like those caps that were added on (repair job does not look very neat, there were 3 caps one looked orig the other two do not).

radiotvnut · #11 04-25-2010, 01:16 PM

Those caps that are on the flyback were originally white tubular caps. I think there are 5 of them in parallel (3 on the flyback and 2 under the chassis). They go from the HOT collector to ground and if they open, the HV will skyrocket and you'll lose the CRT. Since there are 5 different caps, you usually get some form of warning in the way of picture width if one opens. It's recommended that these be replaced with orange drops of the same rating. The early production vertical chassis sets used one large white safety cap that would suddenly blow open, causing the HV to run very high, which took out the CRT and other parts. That cap was quickly upgraded to an orange drop.

I've also seen the HV triplers fail in these. I think tripler failure was more common down here in the South where the humidity is very high.

Except for other isolated part failures, these sets were trouble free except for what I mentioned.

DaveWM · #12 04-25-2010, 02:54 PM

roger that, I will get some new orange drops for it.

I wonder if the replaced ones were done preventively or did it all ready blow once and get repaired?

DaveWM · #13 04-25-2010, 03:22 PM

this is gonna be fun...

I powered it up, came up very nice, no horz issue now. Color is very good, has ever so slight of a convergence issue on the very top, you really have to look for it. Vert is just a bit short on the bottom (I am losing about 1") volume is very scratchy. But other that that its looking very nice. I can tell this is going to be my "Rockford Files" tv for sure.

Does this have a lot of small electros that go out? I cant see many from the top.

With a on off remote and the DTV converter I will have full remote going to it as well. I am pretty happy about this score.

DaveWM · #14 04-25-2010, 03:25 PM

I am thinking about a trial run for say 1 hour to see if the can electros heat up. I am not seeing any hum bars now. I can also check that motor start cap for heat, the sylvanias got very hot before it started kicking off the circuit breaker.

I think my wife may actually like this one.

DaveWM · #15 04-25-2010, 04:05 PM

ok I see not external vert height/vert lin adj but there is a borad ID'd as the vert board, and it has two trim pots, one with a cross and one with a reg flat adjustment slot. May I presume this is for vertitcal, I will be trying it of course but figured I would ask.

I did notice a bit of purity issues, so I spent a few min with the manual degausser ring and it is lookng much better for purity.

I don't hear anything from the internal degauser like I do on more modern sets. I am assuming it uses a thermistor that has a voltage drop across it when turned on. I guess the best way to check it would be to do a continuity check on the internal degausser. I also assume if the thermistor was open then the set would be dead?