(worded to confuse you)Fixed my first tube TV yesterday. GE model 14T017

[Electronic M]

I probably ought to wait until April first to post this, but I'd forget before then....

To those thinking "But he has posted many of his restorations of tube TVs here before" you are right. This ain't the first tube TV I've restored, but it is the first one I ever owned, and it's been sound only until yesterday.

The history of this set: When I was 12 years old I moved to Florida from Chicago, and started attending the Florida Antique Wireless Group (FAWG). In the first year or so I saw this cool TV that looked like a 50's car. The person who had it said it was not for sale, and they were repairing it for someone....In several subsequent meets over the next year or so it kept coming back, and every time it was 'not for sale' or 'just purchased' or something until one time I inquired and it was $5 and came with (IIRC) a flyback tester, and they said something about it having a bad transformer....That day it became mine. It had great OTA sound reception but no raster. Tubes were good, and one lytic can and all the tubular caps had been changed (took me forever to discover that since the chassis removal process was tough to figure out). I struggled off and on for a couple of years until a move put me between houses and the place it was at I could no longer work much in. From roughly age 16 until the last 5 years I could not work on it due to it's storage, etc. Given this set was someones' dog, it was a pain to work on with it's dopey cabinet/chassis/PCB layout, and it drove me nuts many times I kept putting it off, or getting other projects in ahead of it. I've had the skill with dog sets, parts and partially working reference sets for about 4 years, and have been wanting to dig in to the now trio of GE 14T series portables for the last year. Recently I watched a youtube video by Shango66 (AKA CTC17 on VK) on a similar trio of those sets and decided it was time to dig in.


I began by tearing open my old nemesis and replacing the remaining original lytics. That got me tiny hints of HV, but no sign of raster. With nothing to replace (or so I thought) I decided to replace some caps in my red parts set (parts because the CRT is rather weak) to try to get it producing a raster for reference. Once it did I contemplated replacing the flyback, yoke and sweep board (when I was a teen I found the H osc coil open and made a slap shot repair to it that I had little to no confidence in) in the green one with the one in the red one....I made a discovery that made me hesitant to make the board swap The green 14T017 and the red 14T09 are different chassis revisions The handle knob layout and lack of a H hold pot on the red were clues, but the use of a 5AN8 as a H phase detector in the red instead of diodes like the green showed the difference clearly.
14T017 ----------------------------- 14T09


I also was able for the first time to compare drive waveforms to a working set, and that proved good drive in the green. After a sweep tube swap I decided to swap flys....No change, and with decent yoke resistance I had a decided to fool around before trying the yoke swap.....I cranked my variac to feed the set 140VAC and it began to produce a sweep on the test CRT. There was no vertical, and I noticed that pulling the vertical tube resulted in MUCH more HV before the series heaters began to cool from the resulting heater string open. The vertical tube was drawing current and loading down the PS and H sweep. My first suspect was a 60's 'Herald' brand 60's Japanese tubular capacitor that I think the previous tech that had it installed.

It was indeed leaky below 50V (read that totally SHOT) I replaced it and still nothing, I began testing the vertical parts and found nothing.....Then as I was tracing wiring in the vertical circuit I found that the wire that connected the V hold pot to the height pot had broke loose at the height pot and that had been hidden by the factory wire rats nest there. Reconnecting that gave me a full raster, and decent HV even with the line voltage backed down to normal. Feeding it a signal and readjusting holds and the stabilizing coil got me a good picture....Finally!


There is some neck shadow I need to correct and over the 2-3 hours it's been on the reception signal strength has been fading (probably a tube), but I'm happy just to see a picture on it after a decade of keeping it as paper weight.

Up next is the gray one I got from Wiscojim. It astonishingly works on it's original caps and seleniums, but lately has no reception and struggles to produce a raster. Here are some chassis shots.


I'll then debate the fate of the red one (receiver circuits) are dead, and the CRT would need a brightener to work (and probably would not last long that way)....I'm thinking of scrapping the red one. It's sockets while not exact matches for the bad IF tube sockets on my CTC-4 look like they would work.

[Username1]

Very cool story !

I see you have a nice bench test picture tube for working on that kind of
tv..... I got one for a few metal sets like that..... Does it just plug right in...?
I got a good deal on it a few years ago, and as of today don't know the number
or have looked it up to see if they are compatible..... I was just there, had to
make the decision to get it or go home and regret it later on..... It has that same
white HV wire attached to the tube..... A dedicated test tube ??

Anyway I know my metal sets have 14RP4's or 14RP4A's in them....

.

[Findm-Keepm]

Congrats on getting a tough dog working again! Looks great!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Congrats on getting a tough dog working again! Looks great!

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Username1

Very cool story !

I see you have a nice bench test picture tube for working on that kind of
tv..... I got one for a few metal sets like that..... Does it just plug right in...?
I got a good deal on it a few years ago, and as of today don't know the number
or have looked it up to see if they are compatible..... I was just there, had to
make the decision to get it or go home and regret it later on..... It has that same
white HV wire attached to the tube..... A dedicated test tube ??

Anyway I know my metal sets have 14RP4's or 14RP4A's in them....

.

IIRC my test monochrome CRT is a type 8AXP4. That CRT is part of a Telematic test jig (pictures below) that I got it for something like 2-10$ at the donation auction of one of the MARC Extravaganza meets I attended a few years back.
The jig consists of a gray leatherette covered box with a plastic screen cover for the CRT a speaker and audio transformer, the CRT, a test yoke, and some adapter sockets for newer CRT sockets. On sets where it is a pain to pull the CRT, yoke etc I use the whole jig, but sets like this where you have to pull the yoke to get the chassis out it's easier to use just the test CRT to keep the jig from becoming bench clutter.....One thing that jig lacks is an HV extender cable. The white cable in the first post is part of that TV chassis' HV system. I have some HV cable off of BPC sets I could make into a test extender cable if needed....I also recently got an RCA/telematic color test jig from dieseljeep (I need to get around to sourcing/making roundy adapters for it since the ones it came with are mostly RCA SS and other newer/off brand stuff I don't work on) that I might be able to borrow such a lead from.


Only thing I don't have test CRT category wise is a (I think the number is) 5AXP4 test CRT for the older ~60degree deflection angle sets from the early post war era......Though I've used that 8AXP4 in such sets....It naturally don't fill the screen...I get a little 5" porthole image in the center.....Maybe I don't really need a 5AXP4....

BTW the CRTs in my GE trio are 14QP4 types.

[Username1]

~ Thanks ~

Looks like your ready for anything..... !

.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Username1

Very cool story !

I see you have a nice bench test picture tube for working on that kind of
tv..... I got one for a few metal sets like that..... Does it just plug right in...?
I got a good deal on it a few years ago, and as of today don't know the number
or have looked it up to see if they are compatible..... I was just there, had to
make the decision to get it or go home and regret it later on..... It has that same
white HV wire attached to the tube..... A dedicated test tube ??

Anyway I know my metal sets have 14RP4's or 14RP4A's in them....

.

The sets you have are not GE's.
IIRC, the 14T types shown, were made for almost three years. They all used the 14QP4 CRT. I sure worked on a lot of them.
I have a late '57 14" GE set with a 110 degree CRT. Performance seemed to be a little better

[Electronic M]

The gray one now works....Better. It had been running with some reception on original caps and selenium when acquired, but had faded to the point where there was no reception, and sometimes it did not want to make a raster....A full recap and replacing the selenium with a silicon rectifier got it back to working order.




I'm half tempted to find a close up of an eye to play on the 2 top ones, a closeup of a mouth to play on the bottom one, and then take a picture of that...

I'm debating weather to scrap the recapped red GE or keep it....It's CRT would probably be bright with a brightener, but the IF/detector system is dead, and not making repair easy...

[Electronic M]

I figured out what was wrong with the red one...The video detector diode went open. It works okay now so I'm going to let it live...Though I may eventually sell it. I got it going right about on the edge of Christmas EVE and Christmas.



The brightener is a nice tie in to the green one since I bought it for that set in the early years of my TV hobby. I thought the H hold slug adjuster shaft was gone but it was merely damaged and lurking deep in the cabinet. I found it while cleaning and fixed it up with a couple of plastic bits so that it works as it should. Here are some pictures of the trio together.





With this all my GE portables run.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

[Eric H]

Nice! I like those sets.

There's a 14QP4 on eBay if you want to replace that CRT.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-50s-...kAAOSw~otWc3fl