Finally started my CTC-5 recap
 

Wow, this thing has TONS of capacitors. It took me lots of hours mainly due to all of the cigarette goo. I could not read the values on any of the parts so I had to clean as I go. No flyback wax drippage. :) I like the little plug in crystal made by Midland radio. Hope it's good. I'll keep you up to date on the progress.

Mmmm yellow chinese caps. I hope you are fully testing each one before they go in. I would have started by just doing enough to test the HV. That if one flyback that can't be subbed and I almost want to say can't be found.

Caps test fine. I KNOW, I KNOW, CHINESE CAPS ARE CRAP. If all is good, I will get some USA made ones later. I have a NOS Fly that may be able to be subbed in.

Last SBE orange drops I bought from Mouser were also marked made in China on the package.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...?f=19&t=187233

Probably best to find older NOS ones. I think NTE are still US made but don't quote me on that.

cool ! show pic's when its all finished ,hope all you need to do is just cap's and dont find any transformer problems, or any other hard to find parts.

What is wrong with those yellow Chinese caps? I use them almost exclusively and have had no problems. Sure I've heard of one or two testing bad prior to install that other collectors have found, but come on!....Out of the thousands bought and installed what is one or two bad ones?...0.01%!....Most of the parts these are replacing had higher escaped factory dud rates back in the 30's-60's than these yellow ones have and a MUCH higher short term mortality rate than modern caps!

Aside from lytics, even cheap film caps of today are Worlds better than old school paper and paper-film types of the past and have a MUCH higher expected lifespan.

We should count our blessings that we can EVEN GET the right values for our equipment anymore!

i agree the cap's today are far more superior than the paper ones, and the tar filled multi sides caps have high failure rate ,i agree today lytics have there issue to but take modern one anytime.

OK, got it running somewhat. I do not have the correct schematic. Found one online(ETF) in pdf form but has a different tube lineup. Theirs shows two different sets but dont match mine exactly. The issue is when I turn up the contrast, the picture blows out losing HV. Have 20KV until I turn it up. Brightness seems to work OK. Of course it starts rolling etc. BTW mine is a super.

Those are tough problems to find. How's the cathode current? If you can tell me what I'm looking for I will look through the sams later and see if I can find your chassis. As far as china goes I will not give that country one more penny towards the ownership of this one

Hey, you have a full screen!! Have you tried setting up the screen adjustments 'by the book,' yet?

Have you got a degaussing coil?

Getting roundie sets running gets better and better every time it happens!! Seemed like these sets were shunned for alot of years after rectangular screens became the norm.

I have the Sams CTC-5 manual (set 385, folder 9) in .PDF format if that would be helpful.

Send me email via http://antiqueradio.org/contact.htm if you want it.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

IIRC, there is a mod that helps separate the brightness and contrast from interacting with each other on the Super chassis. It helps with the blooming issue as well. I can't find it online though. Maybe someone else here knows?

I have that sams 385-9. It is for the Deluxe model not the Super. The one at the ETF is correct. I must of been pretty tired and half asleep when I was looking at it. I have a degaussing coil. Any info on the contrast mod would be great. The exact model is CTC-5B. Sams may have that mod listed but unlikely.

Found the mod: http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ontrastMod.jpg

Sounds exactly what my issue is.

I wonder what issue thats out of. I have most of those magazines and that would be a good one to scan and post for long term. looks like nov 1965. Ill see if i have the 5b in a bit

yes, it's Nov '65

I have the ctc5b sams. It has a page with wiring changes. Email me what you need out of this and ill scan it.

I have a picture now with color. No sound. Just the buzz. Checked all resistors, replaced suspect ones. The vertical is stretched out too far. I replaced just about all the parts in that circuit but cant get it to shrink down. vert linearity works fine. I did the contrast mod, wow what a difference that made! No more blooming and HV loss. if anyone has any ideas on any of these issues, feel free to chime in.

Check the pots in the vert circuit, a bad spot in one can do things like that. Double check your work, easy to do something like replacing a .001 cap with a .0001 or some such, I've sure done it enough. A little (but big) mistake I made when I recapped my CTC-5 was to put one end of a new cap into the wrong hole on the board. Took me years, really, to figure it out. For the sound, have you cleaned the tuner?

I was wondering about the caps. Can easily be put into the wrong hole. I will double check. I do not go by what the sams says, I check the value of the actual part before replacement but maybe I grabbed from the wrong bin. I got sound for a short time adjusting the horz coil but never again. The tuner should be cleaned but the picture is decent.

I mention the tuner because my CTC-11 has a problem with intermittent sound coming from the tuner. The picture will be fine but you keep having to get up and jiggle the knob to hold audio. It hasn't quite bothered me enough to pull the set out and fix it.
I'd do a lot of prodding on the audio board, jiggling tubes, pushing down on the board itself with a screwdriver or something to see if a small amount of flex will do anything. I think it must be ahead of the audio section, though, in the front end. Look at the schematic and see if there are any common points between the horiz and the IF/audio that could cause trouble. It's been a few years since I've been that deep into mine. Have you played with the AGC a lot on this? Not the one on the back, but the one inside the contrast shaft on the front (if I remember right). Mine has always been finicky with contrast/AGC/brighteness/horiz hold, usually requiring a lot of tweaking as the set warms up. I did the contrast mod as well and it really does help.

Sounds like the alignment needs to be checked, does yours have a sound rej pot on it?

Yes. I have not yet tried that. I will give it a shot tonight

check R145 a 2.7 meg resistor from the center tap of the height control to ground.

r145 checks good. Sound rej pot does nothing but make static(dirty) The issue with the vertical was that I installed 2 caps of the wrong value. .003 and .0056 instead of .033 and .056. That's what happens when you work on something till the wee hours. I found 2 bad chokes in the IF section. Going to have to find the right values and maybe it will work.

Finally got the convergence pretty good. What a pain in the ass! The newer sets are MUCH easier. All I can say is that I wish it was a deluxe model. I think this is about as good as it gets. Color is decent but could be better. You can focus this set all day but the picture will never be as sharp as a 16 or any newer set. I think the CYP is not as good a match for the set as the AXP but I dont know for sure. Would be nice to make the picture a little brighter but that would be too much work. BTW, the sound issue was mostly the tuner, Thanks Bagadow for the suggestion

CYP's have a very good gamut as far as I'm concerned, next best thing to an AXP if you don't have one. It could be worse, you could have a yellow green/orange red FJP in there or something....

No AXP. This has been converted long ago. I think the picture could be sharper. My focus pot is all the way to one side. probably bad resistors or something simple. I'll address that later. i'm having a AGC problem now it used to work fine but now the control has little to no effect on the picture/contrast. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I'm done with it for the night.