New rebuild project, Raytheon!

[Eric H]

I got tired of the beat up Olympic I've been working on for the last two months, off & on so it's time for a new project.

I picked this Raytheon 10DX24 up from eBay after the price dropped to 1/3 of it's original listing price, had it packed and shipped very reasonably (by "The Packaging Store") via truck to my work, it arrived without a scratch.

It's in beautiful condition with some minor scratches and dings and missing one knob.


The chassis is in very good condition but it was covered in a thick layer of dust, looked a lot like dryer lint or very fine sawdust.
In the picture I've already cleaned it up a bit

This set must have a lot of hours on it, a dead CRT and a lot of replacement tubes, mostly Westinghouse with 1953 date codes.


I don't see any replacement parts underneath however.

The original 1949 dated Raytheon CRT (made in Canada!) was toast, nearly dead, even 8 volts only got it half way good so I tapped it lightly three times with the B&K 466, after the third tap it came up to really good and has stayed there so there may be some life left in it still, I have a different one I can use if not.

I rebuilt one of these a couple years ago for someone else and have wanted one since then, it's an interesting chassis with a few unusual features like the weird tuner and the rf generated HV supply.

[Eric H]

Thus far I've cleaned the chassis, removed the paper capacitor sleeves with a heat gun in preparation for restuffing and removed the high voltage module.

Electrolytics are on order from Justradios.

I recapped the high voltage module a couple nights ago, it took a couple hours to replace 11 capacitors, some of them are in pretty tight areas and you have to remove some first to replace others.

Other than the doorknobs none of the caps in this box are rated higher than 200 volts, i replaced all with 630 volt yellow caps.

When I removed the cover for the first time I found something interesting, a long human hair embedded in the wax on a capacitor, looks like a brunette, probably from one of the women who put this set together so long ago.


I like how the tube numbers are neatly marked on this chassis.


Before recapping.


After.


This is the HV transformer, no Flyback in this one!



The Selenium Rectifier module, I will replace these with Silicon Diodes and resistors, they will fit nicely inside the metal cover and be hardly noticeable.

[Eric H]

Rebuilt the Rectifier module today, I left the Seleniums in for future historians to marvel at, meanwhile I mounted the 600V PIV Diodes on a terminal strip along with a couple resistors to drop the voltage a bit.

The metal clips are just disc brake anti rattle clips that happen to fit perfectly to hold the resistors against the metal bracket, that should help dissipate some of the heat.
The metal cover will keep them from coming off.

I figure the heat from the resistors will warm the Seleniums just enough for them to give off that nostalgic vintage electronics smell.

[bandersen]

Cool set and thanks for posting all the pics! I've never seen the insides of one of these before.
That chassis sure cleaned up nice I like your selenium solution. LOL - warm selenium smell

[Kamakiri]

Woooow....

[Charlie]

That's a really cool Raytheon! My Ratheon console has that same tuner design... feels like it's built like a tank when you turn the channel knob! I can almost feel the floor vibrate with each passing channel. Your cabinet is very nice... someone took good care of it.

[Sandy G]

Something about "Porthole" sets has always delighted/fascinated me...