Thread: 12 volt TV
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Old 09-22-2014, 09:30 AM   #16
NN5I
Carl, nn5i
 
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N3LYT View Post
It ran hot enough to make toast. I think it was a Philco
I remember those Philcos. They were called "Philco dual chassis" because they had, well, two chassis, each with about fifteen tubes or more, and a great mass of wires going between the chassis. If tube-swapping didn't fix the problem in the customer's home, the outside tech wuld pull both chassis and bring them to me (I was the bench man who fixed them in the shop). Philcos were actually pretty easy to work on, unlike some others like Muntz, Hallicrafters, Hotpoint and GE. Hotpoint was GE's brand name for their cheaper stuff.

Muntz was hardest to fix because of the circuit design. They used a single amplifier string for both IF and AF. Each stage had input and output coupling for both frequency ranges. The signal went through the tuner, into the mixer, through about three or four stages of IF amplification, then the detectors; then the audio went back through the same tubes the IF had gone through. Muntz saved many vacuum-tube stages that way, but it made them a bear to diagnose sometimes. Muntz was the first brand of TV to sell under $100.

Hallicrafters and Hotpoint used metal cabinets with a picture tube that was mostly metal. Only the screen and the neck were glass. A metal CRT in a metal chassis, with about 15KV between them, meant the tech got bit pretty often. We hated them.

The shop was in Miami, back when Miami was an American city. One day a Cuban walked into the shop, declaring that he was the best TV repairman around. We had an old Hotpoint, or maybe it was a Hallicrafters, in the shop that no one could fix, and let him try to diagnose it. It had a metal CRT and a metal case. He took off the back, fired it up with a cheater cord, and stuck his head inside. His hands were on the metal case. He got a hot spark to the tip of his nose and jerked back, cutting the back of his head on the inside edge of the case. This caused him to jerk his head forward in reaction, and he got another spark to the tip of his nose. After about five cycles of this oscillation I managed to cut the bench power with the emergency switch. He pulled his head out of the case, looked around dazedly, and walked out. We never saw him again.
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