Vintage TV Job

[countryford]

There is a local antique store here in the PHX area, that had this tv set. They had a vcr hooked up to it and it would play I Love Lucy episodes all the time. Well just recently it quit working. Last time I went there I talked to the owner about it. He doesn't want to sell it, but does want to get it repaired so he can watch Lucy again. Since it broke down, he has a small portable tv hooked up to the VCR. Anyways we were given the job of repairing it for him. Just picked it up today and it is now in the shop waiting to be repaired, so Lucy can enjoy it. Its a General Electric.

 

[countryford]

The back with the cover on.

 

[countryford]

The guts of the tv.

 

[cfz2882]

cool! hopefully the problem can be found and corrected easily.I have found GE tubes from around the era of this tv seem to be "gassy"more than earlier GE tubes or other tube brands.

 

[whirlcool]

This set is from around 1957 or so I believe. It could be anything from a tube to a capacitor or resistor causing the problem.

 

[fester]

I'm green with envy!

Another technology I'd love to learn about. Vintage electronics and vacuum tubes! I even have one of those old DIY tube testers like every appliance and TV dealer had. It's on the to do list.

FEster

 

[rp2813]

The guy who re-capped my 1950 Admiral told me that tubes rarely fail.  I'd still try changing out tubes first, but the likely culprit is a capacitor or resistor.  I don't know how you'd go about isolating the problem component without a schematic, and it's commonly recommended to simply replace all capacitors and resistors anyway.

 

It's a beautiful set and worth fixing.  However, if the guy is running Lucy on it "all the time" he should be on the lookout for a replacement CRT.

 

[countryford]

I'll of course test all the tubes, including the crt to see how they are. As soon as I get a schematic I'll start obtaining the caps and replace them. The set is from 1959.

 

[rp2813]

So Justin, what is the set doing -- or not doing?

 

[arbilab]

The large tube near the photo center looks gassy. The white haze around the black/silvered dot is not supposed to be there. There's a lot more to a TV than that, but start there.

 

[d-jones]

The guy who re-capped my 1950 Admiral told me that tubes rar

I wonder why a repairman would have told you that. I have a very clear memory of the tail end of the "tube" era, and my family had both radios and televisions with tubes in them. Once I was old enough to be trusted with small errands, if the old Zenith black and white(that's still in my folks garage by the way)started acting up, my dad would pull the tubes and put them in a brown paper lunch bag, then send me down to the local Sav-on to test them out in their tube tester. I was always given a few dollars to buy any replacements if one or more should turn out to be bad, and I almost always ended up needing a replacement.

 

[rp2813]

David, my guy does repairs out of his home as a hobby.  He's some type of electronic engineer for a large high tech firm and not in the actual repair business.  He was likely speaking from his own experience, but I'll bet even on the old Zenith chassis you still have more original tubes than replacements.  Also, in some cases when capacitors fail they can create conditions that will burn out a tube -- collateral damage to a tube that was perfectly fine.  Maybe that's part of the basis for my repair guy's statement.  Regardless, if I were tackling a project like Justin's, I'd try the easiest fix first and validate that all tubes were good before getting any deeper into things.

 

[arbilab]

In the 60s as repairman for Monkey Wards I replaced a LOT of tubes. They DEFINITELY go bad.

If a tube didn't fix it I pulled the chassis for the guys back at the shop. Tubes fixed it more often than not. But not ALways.

 

[rp2813]

I replaced a LOT of tubes. They DEFINITELY go bad.

Yes.  Duh.  Tubes are man-made items.

 

I guess my point isn't getting across. 

 

I presume you made more than one service call during your time with Wards and opened up many a TV set that had a rogue tube.  Put another way, I presume you didn't quit your job after making one service call, which required replacing all of the tubes on a single television set.

 

Is anybody getting it? 

 

[maytagbear]

The cabinet is just gorgeous

Gorgeous!

I miss console TV's. Yeah, they took up a lot of room, but they were great for family photographs, or for the cat(s) to sleep upon.....and they looked nicer than a flat panel display, which is not great looking when it is off. Flat panels are one of the many reasons why I have abandoned TV for the time being. That and the craptastic programming.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[tolivac]

Yes,tell what the synptoms are-just what is the set doing or not doing-like no picture,dim picture,rolling picture,no sound,etc.I go along with what rp2813 is saying be on the lookout for a new pix tube-or perhaps another newer TV to play the Lucy shows on.An older TV like that GE-has a lot of hours on its CRT already-however CRT's are VERY reliable display devices.This does bring back memories when I fixed tubed TV's while in college to earn a little extra money.Careful on those store tube checkers--they can be errenious.Substitute a known good tube in the stage you are troubleshooting or test them on a shop mutual conductance tester like a Hickock.

 

[arbilab]

A service call resulted when the set ceased to function. It could take up to 5 tubes to bring it back to proper operation. Let's see if I can remember them. 6BQ6, 6DW4, 6BK4, 1B3, 6GH8.

If substituting tubes didn't improve it, there was no charge for the attempt. I NEVER sold a tube that was not needed to solve a problem. Not to say EVERY TV truck driver was as ethical as I was.

 

[tolivac]

In the above tube lineup-sounds like the set had HV problems-6BQ6-horizontal output stage tube,6DW4,damper diode tube-works with the horizontal output tube to generate horizontal signals to drive the horizontal deflection windings on the CRT deflection yoke.1B3-HV rectifer-rectifies the seconday voltage of the flyback transformer-used with the horizontal out and damper tubes.the HV supplies the HV anode on the CRT.6GH8 horizontal oscillator or sync seperator stage tube-drive the horizontal out stage-sync sep-separates the sync signals from the transmitter and sends them to the vert osc and horizontal osc stages to sync them to the transmitter.(prevent picture tearing,rolling)Remember those WELL!

 

[beekeyknee]

If you don't know it all ready, be careful of that high voltage tube and where it connects to the CRT. I'll shock the PISSSS out of you if charged.