Philco Model 53-T1886 Code 125 AM/FM/Phono/TV Combo

[vortalexfan]

Hello Everyone, a friend of mine recently had a friend who passed away recently and he was helping his friend's widow go through her late husband's stuff and he bought for me a 1953 Philco Model 53-T1886 Code 125 AM/FM/Phono/TV Combo Unit that was something he had I guess bought years ago to restore, but I'm not sure if he ever got around to restoring it electrically or not or if it just sat around collecting dust. I'm wondering if there's anything in particular I should look out for when attempting to restore this unit electricallly or if I should just go about working on this unit like I did with my old Meck/Philharmonic TV and just replace a few caps at a time and just test it out as I go? Was this TV known to drive tubes hard or was it easy on tubes? Also how was the flyback transformer on this set and the Hi-voltage section in general?

This is the first Philco TV from this time period I've ever worked on and so I'm not sure how the early Philco TVs are to work on compared to say Zenith or the Meck I previously Worked on thats from the same time period, I have worked on one other Philco TV, a Philco Townhouse, but that was from almost 15 years after this TV was made and so the chassis was quite a bit different.

See Photos Below.

[zeno]

Almost always its best to take it SLOW & in order. More like a repair.
1) power supply
2) hoz osc & output.
3) HV
Now you have a raster & can evaluate the set At this point it is
often working pretty good !
4) vert
5) video detector & output.
6) tuner & IF
7) audio.
At this point if everything looks good restore it.
Do a few caps at a time. RETEST as you go & watch for changes. An
example is you change a few caps. Then the hoz osc goes nuts. Only a few
places to check for mistakes, not 20 places. In reality often you fixed it.
A cap was drifting over the yrs & the tech has been compensating for it.
Now the new cap is the right value. VERY common especially in the hoz osc !

enuf fer now
Zeno
LFOD !

[Electronic M]

Philco split chassis. They made them for roughly 5 years. They're great beginners sets. They usually come back to life with just a recap and perform nicely. Each chassis is about the size of a large table radio or mid-size console chassis so relatively easy to work on. There were several versions of both chassis over the years, but the interface was standardized to the point a service tech with a spare chassis could swap it into any split chassis TV and the set would work.
They're rather cap heavy as we're all Philcos until around the time the Predicta came along.
The Predicta era was the low point of Philco chassis design, they threw away the cool running and serviceable design of the split chassis when they made the Predicta, got a lot of shade thrown their way for the Predicta then came up with the cool chassis sets which were good again.

If the CRT is good, work through it normally and it'll probably be a pleasant restoration. These sets aren't worth a ton so if the CRT is bad it's not worth investing in.

[vortalexfan]

I tested the picture tube and it tested like brand new yet (likely a low hours set.)

This TV is basically virgin, there have not been any components replaced in the set, all of the capacitors and resistors are all original in it yet, and it also has almost all of the original Philco branded tubes in it yet, the only tubes that aren't original are the tuner tubes, and a couple of the tubes in the IF/RF Section of the TV.

I did notice that even though the TV was never actually worked on electrically there were a lot of screws missing and even a tube shield from one of the 12AU7 tubes from the TV's RF/IF Section, and the power cord Safety Interlock was defeated (the mouting frame for the power cord to mount it to the back cover was removed from the back cover) and it was missing one of the casters from the bottom of the cabinet (which I thought it was missing 3 of the 4 casters but 2 of the 3 missing casters were inside the record storage compartment.)

I noticed also that they used mostly Sprague "Bumblebee" capacitors in this TV with only one or 2 capacitors that were either Philco branded or Sprague capacitors that had the value written out numerically rather than using color coding.

Also is the modular chassis design used in this Philco Set related to the Modular Chassis Design that was used by Setchel-Carlson in their sets?

[Electronic M]

No relation between this and Setchel Carlson. SC typically used a single large motherboard chassis and many daughter board chassis that connected with straight line terminals and a couple of mounting bolts (the bolts weren't essential unless you're shipping it and intend to have the chassis sideways or upside down). I've got a couple of old topics on their color sets with good pictures here on videokarma if you want to see a SC set.

There were at least three other makes with modular tube chassis out there but SC was the only make that did it on all their TVs throughout the tube era...the others either tried it on one year of chassis and gave up, or were such small makes they didn't survive long. There was no common module standard between makes AFAIK.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

No relation between this and Setchel Carlson. SC typically used a single large motherboard chassis and many daughter board chassis that connected with straight line terminals and a couple of mounting bolts (the bolts weren't essential unless you're shipping it and intend to have the chassis sideways or upside down). I've got a couple of old topics on their color sets with good pictures here on videokarma if you want to see a SC set.

There were at least three other makes with modular tube chassis out there but SC was the only make that did it on all their TVs throughout the tube era...the others either tried it on one year of chassis and gave up, or were such small makes they didn't survive long. There was no common module standard between makes AFAIK.

OK, I was just curious because I find the concept of modular chassis designs fascinating and think its kind of odd that more companies didn't pursue the concept (although Zenith did something very similar in their Chromacolor TVs in the 1970s where they made it so you could swap out modules so you could get the TV going again and I think they did that for quite a while, but those were mostly Solid State and Hybrid Sets.)

[bgadow]

I really like the Philco split-chassis; I think I still have a spare up in the attic. Likely these went away because, as sets got more simple (as they did throughout the 50s and beyond) there was less advantage to using 2 smaller chassis vs one large one.

Philco did love those "Black Beauties" which wasn't a bad thing at all at the time, as they were the state of the art. They didn't yet know they wouldn't last as long as what they were supposed to replace.

After SC, modulars really took off once Motorola did it with color sets at the end of the sixties. By the mid-seventies almost everyone was doing them to some extent. Then, just like with that split chassis, it got to the point where it just wasn't worth the effort.

[Kevin Kuehn]

Thant's a decent looking and compact combo. Does it have 17 inch CRT?

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

Thant's a decent looking and compact combo. Does it have 17 inch CRT?

Yes, it does use a 17" CRT, its a 17YP4 Tube it uses. I have a B&K Picture Tube Tester, and the test meter has a Normal and Special setting, and in the Normal Setting for the meter, the picture tube registers as dead, but in the Special Setting it registers as nearly pegging the meter out on the good end of the meter and has extremely good cutoff, and the manual for this picture tube tester says that some picture tubes need to have the meter set in the special mode in order for the tester to test the tube properly, but it doesn't specify which tubes need the special setting in the setup manual.

The Turntable/Changer for this unit appears to be a Voice of Music made unit, and its a 3 speed unit (it plays LPs, EPs and SPs as it calls each speed setting rather than using the actual playback speeds of 33, 45 and 78, and it seems to be seized up.)

[Kevin Kuehn]

Does the CRT respond normally as you turn the filament voltage down, as in the emission gets less? I'm not familiar with a BK normal/special setting. What is the B&K model number?

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

Does the CRT respond normally as you turn the filament voltage down, as in the emission gets less? I'm not familiar with a BK normal/special setting. What is the B&K model number?

Its a model 465 CRT Tube Tester, from what little information I could find about it online, it was the last CRT Tester that B & K Made before the CRT Size change took place in 1969 when they made it so that the viewing area measurements had to be what the tube size was given in.

filament of the picture tube glows nice and bright and it seems to respond to filament voltage changes.

[vortalexfan]

A little update: I located the Sam's Photofact for this TV on feebay and I'm waiting for it to arrive in the mail currently, but the radio portion of this TV, I thought was AM/FM but it turns out its just AM only (I took a closer look at the tuning dial and it only covers the AM Band) but I do think this thing is capable of FM radio as well through Channel 6 on the TV Tuner (much like many TVs were back then) so I guess Technically it is an AM/FM set, just not in the way I thought it was originally.

Is the record changer on this unit covered in the Sam's for this TV? I'm asking because I was attempting to see if the speed control switch and changer control knobs would turn and the changer control switch works but the speed control switch is locked up and doesn't want to rotate which I'm wondering if its due to a flat idler tire or maybe just hardened grease?

[Electronic M]

Usually Sam's gave changer mechs their own folder so every console, table model, and portable could call back to a single print.
If you're lucky the TV folder tells you which folder the changer mech is in.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Usually Sam's gave changer mechs their own folder so every console, table model, and portable could call back to a single print.
If you're lucky the TV folder tells you which folder the changer mech is in.

I did finally get the folder for this TV in the mail the other day and it did tell which folder the record changer was in, and fortunately the folder it was in, was one I already had, so I have both Sam's folders for this unit.

By the looks of the fact that this unit still has all of the original components in it yet (none of the original capacitors were swapped out, or resistors) and the TV has almost all of the original Philco branded tubes in it yet including the original Philco branded picture tube, I'm going to wager a guess that this TV is a low hours set, or was relagated to bedroom or familyroom duty when the people who originally owned this set got a better TV, or got a Color TV when it became available.