1957 SYLVANIA 17” Restoration

[Dj3928]

Check out my YouTube video, part 1 of a 17” SYLVANIA Restoration

https://youtu.be/HQLtrtntEF8

[zenith2134]

Very nice. I would love to find one of these. My collection is lacking in Sylvania.
I always read about those selenium rectifiers and how they are failure prone & smell when they burn. However, I have owned a few Fisher tube stereo rcvrs which use them and have not yet seen a bad one. I replace them of course along with many other underchassis components, but still.

That looks like a fun project. A real rival to RCA's comparable offerings of the time.

[Dj3928]

https://youtu.be/G6EQBw81mvo

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

Very nice. I would love to find one of these. My collection is lacking in Sylvania.
I always read about those selenium rectifiers and how they are failure prone & smell when they burn. However, I have owned a few Fisher tube stereo rcvrs which use them and have not yet seen a bad one. I replace them of course along with many other underchassis components, but still.

That looks like a fun project. A real rival to RCA's comparable offerings of the time.

IDK if it is a rival to the RCA sets at the time.
RCA contracted with Sylvania at the time to build the same identical set at the time. All the tubes were badged with the RCA logo. IDK why they did it!
I also seen one with the AMC logo.

[DavGoodlin]

I have two of these, just sold one at Kutztown that was red and light gold. All RCA as far as printing and model number but a Sylvania chassis number "5377" was used by RCA instead of "KCS-

A black and silver one, also with UHF came from Kamakiri's collection 6 years ago. The "upstairs - downstairs" series string chassis was used on 21" and Halolight sets too!

I recapped it and it was working fine until it lost V sweep during a burn-in process I use for TVs that I plan to give as a gift (leave it on for a long while like the new owner might). No transformers to fry, these have fuse resistors, new 1N4007s and a series string but these ALSO have some of those bug-a-boos that Sylvania was particularly famous for like tin whiskers and PC board failures.

I used a Sencore SS-158 to inject a V sweep signal which cleared the output transformer and yoke. I suspect a tin whisker, only after checking everything else. I smelled toasted carbon when I discovered the fail, but all the pertinent resistors check within tolerance.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I have two of these, just sold one at Kutztown that was red and light gold. All RCA as far as printing and model number but a Sylvania chassis number "5377" was used by RCA instead of "KCS-

A black and silver one, also with UHF came from Kamakiri's collection 6 years ago. The "upstairs - downstairs" series string chassis was used on 21" and Halolight sets too!

I recapped it and it was working fine until it lost V sweep during a burn-in process I use for TVs that I plan to give as a gift (leave it on for a long while like the new owner might). No transformers to fry, these have fuse resistors, new 1N4007s and a series string but these ALSO have some of those bug-a-boos that Sylvania was particularly famous for like tin whiskers and PC board failures.

I used a Sencore SS-158 to inject a V sweep signal which cleared the output transformer and yoke. I suspect a tin whisker, only after checking everything else. I smelled toasted carbon when I discovered the fail, but all the pertinent resistors check within tolerance.

I never thought too much of Sylvania TV's.
The 21,23" Halolite consoles with the exotic cabinets, that had that cheap & nasty chassis were a farce. They were expensive and the owners really thought they had something.
I thought, while working it, for the money you paid, you could've bought a good set!

[DavGoodlin]

I guess Philco, Westinghouse, Silvertone and GE created similar whoop-de-dos, using a cheap chassis in a superficially fashionable set. I have two Suburbanite 21's that are doubler-supply series heater sets. The reduced component count made them less suitable in an a tough reception area.

The small town dealers who survived upstate where this matters seemed to have signs for Quasar, RCA and Zenith toward their respective ends. This seems to fit brands found of 50s sets at estate sales among other places.
Sets of late 50s that survived use in mountainous locations had to perform on the few available channels and that seemed to be RCA, Admiral and Motorola.

Unfortunately we had too many of these series-wired, PC board sets lurking around yet to learn on. Zenith sets only started showing up in the early 60s this far east, before that Motorola, RCA and Philco graced many a yellow pages ad in the 50s.

[Jeffhs]

This region of northeastern Ohio, 30 miles from Cleveland and 40-some miles from the TV transmitters in the western Cleveland suburb of Parma, is (or was) solid Zenith territory until DTV came along, although I don't know how many, if any, Zenith flat screen sets were sold here (before Zenith left Chicago and the TV/electronics business for good, being taken over by Goldstar in the late 1980s or early '90s). My next-door neighbors in the '60s had a Muntz 21" console TV on a conical rooftop antenna; our own set (we had several, among them Crosley and RCA) was hooked up to an antenna in the attic. There were only three channels in Cleveland at the time, on channels 3, 5 and eight, affiliated with the three major US TV networks; the first UHF station, an NET (now PBS) affiliate, was on channel 25.