Today I got to look at three TOs Sam gave me about 5 years ago or so. Or maybe 6. I thought they were all 600 series but one happened to be H500.
While rotating the tuning wheel I heard a snap and then saw the cord broke. OK, I guess it was its time.
Under the hood I noticed a shiny twistlock cap with signs of fresh soldering; I unsoldered a couple of sections and the 40uF showed 45uF, and the 60uF showed 65uF so I think the cap is a new replacement.
Sam, that wasn't you who did it, was it?
All the bumblebee caps, as well as others, are original and so the radio wasn't recapped except for the twistlock, which is good - I hate changing them, it is laborious.
The Candohm seems ok, the ceramic large resistor is also ok but its leads are heavily oxidized and are pretty green.
I will treat the bumblebees same as I did in Stromberg AWP-8, will replace them with polyester yellow caps. No restuffing.
More tomorrow.
Hey mike
The way you recived them are the way I got them
The guy had one playing thought he said the all worked
Never played with them not ones I like but was package deal
Sam
Sam
Yes probably this is the one that played: the tubes are all good and the electrolytic caps are ok, though I replaced the tubular one, it seems old.
The rest has no tubes so they are unlikely to be able to play.
Today I almost have finished recapping the radio. Most caps are 47nF or 22nF Bumblebees.
All caps were really way off.
Tomorrow I will see what I have left and then may try to power it.
Mike;
Those plastic encased paper caps, whether they be Black Beauties, or Bumble Bees, or Sangamo "Little Chiefs", are all troublesome regardless of how they test for value. They are the only caps I have encountered that will shoot their contents out of their lead holes when they get electrically leaky enough, I have heard in some cases they will build up enough pressure to explode like an electrolytic. In fact I have a Canadian Westinghouse model 501A that had pink Sangamo "Little Chief" caps are original factory equipment, and they are all bad, leaky or open circuit, and oddly enough it is one of the few Canadian sets I don't have a diagram for.
With regard to the resistor with the green oxidation, is it coated with a tan, sand like substance? If it is I would replace it, those are like the plastic shelled paper caps, they seemed like a good idea at the time, but turned out to be garbage over the long run, and Brand Z liked them as well in that era apparently. Those are so unreliable that I have found ones that were NOS, and never even used, that went that way, first they go up in resistance, then go open, even if they test sort of all right, they won't be for long.
Regards
Arran
Arran,
Yes every single Bumblebee encountered in Stromberg, in Zenith or in my Eico amps are bad and bad in a worse way than paper shell ones. Almost 3 times the value. So there is no question in my mind as to whether replace them or not. Not that there ever was a question about any paper cap.
The resistor is indeed the one that is sand coated.
For now I will leave it be as else I wll have to buy one or even two (f I want to honor that voltage adjustment switch). But then I rn these radios from batteries so neither selenium element or the resistor are going to be used much.
More is coming today.
Changed the last three caps, one on the bands' coils' assembly (easy) and two under the antenna coils over the tning cap. These two were tough. Barely any access, so had to be crafty so not to have to remove everything.
Ready to power-up.
looking forward to hearing back.. good luck!
fabing up an FM antenna myself...... the wife wants this zenith back in the kitchen
My wife wants all my radios where they all came from
When I'm done with either of the two FM radios I have (a Philco and a Grundig) maybe than
Interesting (as I always seem to start my postings). The Zenith I'm working on has the sand'n'cement resistors. One is a dropper for the HT, the other a replacement for the speaker field used in an earlier chassis version, whereas mine has a PM speaker. They test OK, and the unit was working before I implored Mrs H not to use it again... I think we just avoided blowing it up.
Ed, the resistor won't result in anything blowing up. Worst case you will lose power.
And even that with AC only.
Thanks Mike - that's just how I read it. This is a console, so it is AC or nothing.
Spent the evening settng up new Pixma printer. Of course it didn't follow the promised easy setup and I had to call the support to setup the wifi which failed during the auto setup.
So the power up is tomorrow.
Today I simply plugged it in through the isolation transformer and got the stations just fine.
After that I decided to align it, and, having started with IF alignment I found out I need a tool to align dual hex slug IF cans. Which I lack.
Ordered the tools from Tubes and More.
Waiting.
hey mike
if you need tubes I have a few you can have
ill never use them all
Sure Sam, thanks. When we see each other