GE roundie
 

picked this up today, will get to it later. Not my style but interesting chroma section. will get better pics don't have my camera right now.

WOW, that's cool! Especially since you are in the "land of no roundies" :) The GE sets rarely show up, even around here. Great score!

The riches of opulence abound in America, i would show my manliness to such a television receiver to my most desirable wife!!!! The television apparatus is so very fine. I wish I could shrink himself provides for very small, and to live in the list!
Your television make me feel very lucky and young in the before. I hope that you will hold it gently and add love. Please make picture after you restore
I think that television is very beautiful, I like this (large and vital thrust and solidity of television in micro-house myself!
This is the television reciever to be found in fanciful palace ruling class!!!!

Sorry Dave....I had tooo :banana:

I almost choked I am laughing so damn hard! This is the most funniness ever that I heard, I bow to your manliness! LOL^_^

Is anyone else having a problem seeing the pictures? I see the thumbs but they dont click.

Yes, they don't work

They don't work for me either.... I thought maybe it was a mini console:)

Maybe a 21 centimeter CRT.

Same here...I was beginning to wonder.

PS:CTC17, have you been smoking the same stuff as that Sanjarali cat?...Misa no standingunder what yousa sayin'.

Pictures aren't working for me either..

Me either... but kool looking set from the little pics I can see.

Wunner if that's the chassis that uses a NE-2 neon bulb in the burst gate circuit.:saywhat:
Had one in the shop one time with screwed-up color sync. Tried the usual tube subbing, voltage checks etc. and no luck. Then replaced the NE-2 and the problem was cured.
Strange, because the old bulb was lighting up normally.

those were the craigslist pics, I tried to saving the image, since I don't have my camera right now. will get some better pics next week.

Very nice set from what I can tell. I like the style.

whats interesting to me it does not seem to have a color osc tube, so no zero beat adj or other freq control issues to fight. Looks like the same demod system as used on the porta color, just amp up the burst and let it ring. The chassis layout is like a CTC-15, but the PCB are def not RCA, the chroma and sweep boards are swapped (sweep near the back of the chassis) 3 tubes on the chroma (uses a compacton triple triode for the color dif amp). The audio is on the deflection board and the space where the audio board should be is pure power supply, just resistors/diodes (full wave)/thermistor.

bigger than normal speaker. Has had some sevice (PS board has some replacement resistors tacked on top).

Odd, red loop of wire coming up from the back of the PS PCB, looks like it jumps the thermistor, looks factory, and has been cut at the top. Maybe a factory option to use in sets that don't have a auto degauss? with the loop intact the thermistor would be bypassed? this set has the degauss hardware.

looks like the CRT is near dead, cooking it now but not looking good. Oh well for 10$ I don't feel bad about it.

This set may have what is known as a crystal ringing color circuit (hope I remember that right). It doesn't have a color oscillator or a color killer. Burst excites the crystal and that provides the 3.58 signal. It is a bit weird to deal with.....

pulled the HOT and VOT, dialed up the voltage to about 60v no smoke, went up to about 90v sound out of speaker (snow sound) see some wiffs of smoke around the replaced resistor, on of the cans feels a bit warm, but its right next to a big sand resistor. hmmm.

I am going to leave it at 45v for a while and try again, but looks like going to have to pull it and check those filters before risking a full power startup.

Hey - at least no one here seems gislan.

went a ahead and tried it again, after jiggling the RF amp tube I was able to get a clear strong audio. I will prob give it a shot in a while with everything in, keeping an eye on the HOT cathode current of course.

good sound, HV comes up fine, HOT current about 185ma, horz just out of lock in range, can not flop the lines. Going to try some new tubes in a bit.

new 6BH11 got the horz to lock it, color working but a bit weak, contrast weak, and some odd horz shifting like a hum bar, but not a regular moving event.

I am going to try a new AGC tube and video out. The horz locks but can't flop both ways (lock at the end of the range). there are a few ceramic tube caps on the sweep board. The vert sync is not strong but it is there. Need to check the basics like the B+ etc... waiting on the service manual book for that.

well the ckt breaker popped so I guess I need to pull the chassis and check out the filters caps to see if they are shorting.

strike that not the breaker but a bad connection at the chassis interlock, but I do see a hum bar now so will check for HK shorts and if all good then will pull the chassis and check the filter caps.

after testing a couple sections of the cans, which tested a bit low (50uf vs 80uf) AND did not respond very well to an attempt at reforming I decided to go ahead and recap. This set only has two cans wiith good access to them so they were easy to buzz off with the bone cutting saw. I then used a long sharpened piece of music wire to cut hole thru the bottom. the long drill make it easy to go thru the bottom without getting near any of the parts under the chassis. Going from the bottom lets you place the neg lead right at the edge near a twist tab, then place the positive lead right at the can terminal. this make it a bit easier since you dont have to try and configure the caps to have a central neg lead, I use radial lead caps since they are much less expensive and fit under the can well, I will alum tape the can back just to keep it there for reference. the other advantages of this method is you don't have to waste time trying to remove the old can, and all the lead dress can be left alone, just wrap the pos leads around the term and your done. After replacing the filters I will power it up again just to be sure I have not messed anything up, if it works then I will start checking some of the low voltage brown drops, as they have a history of getting "weak".

argh, replaced caps still have a wandering hum bar, will check the rest of the tubes for HK, did not do the tuner/IF yet.

did adj the AGC, working as it should. Still very low contrast, I was hoping replacing the can caps (one was the video amp cathode bypass) would help there, no joy.

Got some other stuff to take care of so will have to give it a rest for a few days.

Yes, like the p0rtacolors. Seems to be much more reliable to me than the standard 6gh8 driven crap. I am always having issues with the color staying locked on the rca style sets.
The GE way of doing it always seems to work, its just very hard to get the color right. There are a few adjustments that are very touchy. I do have a NOS 19" GE with this decoder that works well though.

Dave - is that the CB-21 chassis? I worked on quite a few GE from 60's but never saw that one. DG

I think so, I remember seeing a C on the back will check later.

Chroma board as a bunch of trimmer pots on top and some trimmer caps on the bottom.

I always refered to the larger screen GE's as glorified Portacolors.
Proves out the meaning of the letters, GE. Good enough.
I got a few of those as freebees. I scrapped them all, as flybacks were bad. The last one I had, had an RCA hi-lite CRT that was perfect. I installed it in a Zenith roundie. Man, what a picture! I wasn't about to waste that great tube in a lousy Ge.:D

using a brightner on it make the CRT produce an OK pic, good enough to continue trouble shooting anyway. There is something odd going on with the tint, does not really seem to phase shift from magenta to green like my oher sets (including my porta color). I have a service manual coming so hope to gain some insights into how to trouble shoot the chroma. The upside is the HV section seems fine, fly runs cooler than most other color sets. Still have to hunt down the hum bar and contrast issue (maybe just the weak crt on contrast). there is no bias adj on the CRT either.

Does that one use a NE-2 neon bulb in the burst gate area? If so, it can cause color phase/ sync issues even though the bulb appears to be firing normally.

Yes it does, it also looks blackened from the inside? Have not tried to observe it in operation. Schematic coming. I will have to see if I have any spare NE-2 laying around. the color demodulation seems to be working ok, it just seems like the tint control does little to shift the tint, does seem to effect the color saturation, not to the extent that the color control does though.

I read in my book that the NE2-H was a recommended replacement. The grounding of the flyback aux coil (that triggers via this neon) may be faulty. This was an issue in the later rectangular chassis KC-KD-KE as well.

Edit: This book has a good bit of advise about alignment of the color circuit (a quirky GE exclusive). The predecessor chassis CA and those before were RCA design. The tint control is a variable capacitor for example. PM me if you want a copy of the 'CB' chapters.

back on it again. Had a weak video out tube, that helped with the brightness.

I was getting all kinds of RF interference, a close exam showed some breaks in the balun mounted on the tuner. got that fixed up then I lost color. I think it was just the color pot grounding on the chassis when it was in the tuner mount on the back of the chassis. Of course I broke the neon bulb while putzing around on the chroma chassis so I went ahead and replaced that. While I had the chassis out I replaced the broken thermistor (it was just being held in place with pressure on the leads) with a CL-90. I also checked the schematic, the hacked in resistor was two 3.3k WW in P where there should have been a 680ohm...oy.... anyway I did not have a 680 on hand so I went with a 830.

there are some .1 brown drops (1kv) in the vert circuit that I will keep an eye on. I did not have any sweep issues but one of them sits right up against the 6EF7 and looks discolored from the heat. I don't like to make too many "fixes" on a working set at one time, so I will try it again and see if the color is working again. If it does I will prob pull the chassis one last time to go ahead and replace those, as well as the .0082 in the feed back and the .001 2kv snubber on the primary of the vert out (its one of those paper in hard ceramic tube shell types).

I wish I could see pictures of this set.. It looks to be an interesting set..

I have the GE service manual book, is your book the orange one vol one by Robert Goodman?

Some other interesting things about this set. The CB chassis I have is for the round CRT, but the same chassis was used also for the rectangle chassis with a plug in board for the pin cushion (if I am reading it right) My set also sports the later tint control that has a pot with a variactor diode to act as a phase shifting cap instead of the variable cap.

If all goes well I will pull the CRT to remove the lens today or tomorrow, there is only about an eight inch clear spot so it should come of easy.

Then you people have the nerve to moan about the Motorola 6LE8 circuit.
I had one of those GE's that had a perfect RCA sourced Hi-Lite CRT in it. Needless to say, I scrapped that pig and installed the CRT in a Zenith. It was the last Zenith roundie they made. :yes:

well the CRT is indeed a RCA Hi lite. At 1st the pic was not that great, but the last time I had it running with color it was looking pretty good that is after I replaced the video out tube. The Cabinet is blonde and in very good shape.

Yes, it is.. I learned alot from those TAB books in HS because those 10 year-old sets started showing up on curbs and at VoTech.
My RCA vol 1 book by Carl Babcoke is tattered, bound with tape and smudged with notes, a treasure trove all these years later.

Funny thing is that Robert L Goodman also wrote the Zenith and Philco books the same year. Stan Prentiss wrote the Magnavox book and did a great job.

There are many I don't have in that series, but I just hooked a set of 14 of the books off ebay for $5 each, the original cover price. Hope to "get them for my birthday" next week:D

I bought a lot of those Tab manuals at the time. A lot of great imformation.
One of the quotes from the GE manual: " Color killer, Who needs it".
If you look at the GE schematics, you'll see a lot of simularity from the 1957 color circuitry design to the later offerings, such as the porta-color and the CB, KC etc. Cheap and nasty.