[MrFixr55]

Why is my Taurus missing a speaker??

THese are not great but not bad either. Nice job

[GarySP]

Read post 15 again, MrFixr55. He called your Taurus a dumpster! Take care and BE HEALTHY! Gary

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55, I snuck over to the set of Road Trip and stole it from that nerd kids Ford Taurus, and put the speaker cover back over the empty hole.

Cop:  "And we didn't find a single drop of seman yet"
Dad:

[MrFixr55]

Unfortunately, if someone looks at the back seat and trunk of my Taurus (2003 Taurus SE Sedan, 3L Vulcan, Plane Jane X Fleet car, 150K mi, runs like a top, zero rust), they may mistake it for a dumpster. Actually, it is a pretty darned good car!

BTW, no one is snickering at your project. $12, some junk box parts, honing skills, etc. is all really good! and your real Philco is safe. I don't think that ChiCom Philco and Crosley knockoffs are ever going to be collectible.

People can do what they want, but I cringe when I see one of these perfectly restored real antique radio cabinets where the "restorer" junked the real radio chassis and replaced it with a Bluetooth speaker. I cringe even more when they successfully sell for > $200. There are many ways of having it both ways, especially when the cabinet is large enough for both the original radio and the Bluetooth speaker.

The car radio probably has a power amp where the neg speaker leads are not grounded but go to a "mirror style circuit that 'swings" both leads in opposite directions. I don't think that you can just "parallel" the output. There is supposed to be a way to "bridge" the outputs for a more powerful mono output. Alternatively, score another 6X8 Ford speaker and make a grille on the back of the radio. You will then get a true stereo sound. Dunno why you had to cut the built in grille. Both my taurus and my wife's 00 Explorer (5L!!), as well as neighbor's 05 Explorer use the same speaker. I believe that these are rated 25W.

Re the brick, I have had no problem running audio systems or even car radios off a "brick". Now having it in the cabinet with the antenna may be an issue.

What I did have an issue with was trying to run an AA5 radio from an inverter. If transformer powered with a full wave rectifier, no problem. If a series string, transformerless, with a half wave rectifier, entirely different story.

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55,
My woodworking skills suck, they suck because when I took woodshop in HS I was afraid of getting my fingers cut off, and I was like that Tweak kid on South Park complete with coffee. And between now and than I didn't get much practice in until I got some decent tools.
Nobody is Bob Vila at first. I got better playing around with hanging shelves and stuff and the important thing is I was seeing improvement.

The speaker I used had a lot of crud and crust inside the speaker grill, the whole thing being glued together. This stuff rattled around, and there was a hairline crack straight across the plastic grill that buzzed. Plus all that was buried behind another sound muffling layer.....the china "Philco" speaker cloth.

You reminded me of this solar off-grid type book from TaB books from 1982 or around there.
They talked about different battery bankes and the kinds of inverters you can run stuff off.
It mentioned rotary inverters, vibrator inverters, square wave slidstte inverters and the sine wave solidstate inverters.
It said having a sine wave inverter wasn't the end of problems, that some radios would work just fine on a cheap square wave but crackled like H**l on an expensive sine wave inverter. And vise versa
It mentioned a "Topaz" inverter which was a pretty no nonsense piece of gear.

[Oldie Goldie]

The last thing i did gents before I parked this radio for my REAL project, was bolt a piece of angle aluminum to the back, and screw on a real steel car antenna.

The real project I am practicing cutting with accuracy on is a period correct 1964 replication of something somebody reading "Junk the car save the radio" article would have built with some crap.

I am making a mini consolete radio with a discarded 40s table cabinet, a 1949 Buick Delco Sonomatic radio, old grill cloth, old switches, and very little "new" parts and zero millennial buffoon "upgrades". That if you saw it, you'd never think it was built today but sat somewhere from some guys home diy toy from the early 60s made from used stuff from twenty years before.

It means a lot to me and I'm drawing dozens of drawings of the front faceplate and trying to settle on a speaker hole design I don't hate, but it's not really Philco related so I didn't want to talk about it much. I do have some drawings but this doesn't belong here.

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55 having the brick inside totally lays waste to the AM band but on FM it pulls in lots of stations.
I wonder how good this radio could be if it was aligned. But I don't know anything about doing rf alignment.
I like watching shango66 do it on YouTube.

I have a WWII vintage dynamotor that puts out something crazy like 250v DC 60w on 24v DC.
I was playing around and on 12.5v it would put out 125v DC so I hooked my cheap 1949 northern electric baby champ AA5 to it.
It worked well and hashfree but it was a bit quiet. Plate voltage was just 125v DC not 160v DC from rectified and filtered mains.
Now this radio came to me with a factory 35v output tube which with an AA5 should have had a 50z5.
Turns out the series string had a resistor in there. I bridged it with a wire and replaced the 35z5 with a 50z5 and the thing sounded better and was one watt cooler.

I think if I took out the bridge wire, and jacked up the dynamotor to 14v, the b+ would be as high as it would be in normal AC mains.
But running on a fully charged 12v battery and dynamotor

[MrFixr55]

Hi Oldie,

First off, I am a horrible woodworker, basically because I have no interest in it, so I will never criticize anyone's woodwork.  Yes, the brick being inside the radio will raise issues.  However, having it outside and far enough away should solve the issue.  Current green energy rules have all but eliminated transformer powered analog "wall wart" power supplies.  The car radio is likely rated at 13.8V, the nominal output of the 12V car electrical system.  In fact, it is not uncommon for alternator output on some cars to reach 14.5 - 15V on all but the newest cars.

Secondly, the Phorum is not just for Philco radios, there is a whole section for non-Philco radios. From the Phorum Main page, scroll down to "Various and Sundry Categories, and you will see the Phorum page for non-Philco radios. Many of us would enjoy reading about your Buick radio conversion project, particularly if you convert the power supply instead of building a 6V supply.

Thirdly, your "build a car radio into a console" is a useful project.  Not only did people do this throughout time (now they call this "upcycling"), in fact, in 1942, when the government curtailed both car and radio production due to WWII, Philco built 2 consoles that used left over Philco car radios.  Their only mod to the car radio was to replace the vibrator power supply with transformer powered 6.3VAC / 250VDC Supplies.  The radios are the A381 (conversion of a basic Ford F1942 car radio) and the A801 (conversion of a Chrysler C1908car radio).  Both of the car radios were manufactured by Philco. Pix and Schematics are below:
   

Philco A-361 Ford War Surp Car Radio Conv to House Current.pdf Size: 121.63 KB  Downloads: 4

   

Philco A-801 War Surp Chrys Auto Rad Conv House Current.pdf Size: 149.97 KB  Downloads: 4

They used to dump old cars into our town landfill in the 1960s and 70s.  My friends and I used to scrounge for electronic devices.  This is how I learned electronics, got my first TV, first Color TV and many radios, some of which I still have.  I ran car radios from 6V cars off of old TV power transformers without the aid of a rectifier.  They ran just fine off of AC.

Your 49 Buick Sonomatic radio may sound just fine, especially if it has a push-pull output.  You can either run it off 6VAC from an old TV power transformer (this radio likely draws at least 8A at 6V or more if the speaker is electrodynamic as opposed to PM dynamic) or sub the vibrator and car radio transformer with a later model power transformer form a table or console radio that did not use an electrodynamic speaker.  If the speaker is internal to the radio, you may want to remove it and place against a grille, depending on how big the cabinet is and the layout of the radio

[MrFixr55]

Hi Oldie,

The 250VDC is not so crazy an output. The power supplies for the vast majority of transformer powered tube radios from about 1932 to the last transformer powered tube radios had an output voltage of approximately 250V for B+. This is the reason for the output of the dynamotor. Some WWII military vehicles and most airplanes used 24VDC. "Command Sets" used dynamotors and many hams subbed a simple power supply for them.

I am not familiar with Northern Electric (the Canada equivalent of the USA Western Electric) sets but I have rebuilt 2 Northern Electric crank phones. Is this the typical AA5 Set (12SA7, 12SK7, 12SQ7, 50L6 and 35Z5? I have an Emerson 330 that was wired the same way. It may have been a war repair because the 50L6 was replaced by a Loctal 35A5 in an adaptor, or the set was built with a 35L6 before the 50L6 was introduced. Mine had a dropping resistor (likely added) so I switched to 50L6 and took out the resistor.

Unless your set has a voltage doubler rectifier, the output of a rectifier is a lot less than 160V. While 160V is the theoretical output of rectifying 120VAC RMS, the size of the filter caps and voltage drop across the tube comes into play. The actual output of a 35Z5 or 35W4 based AA5 power supply is closer to about 95-110V (if you are lucky). Philco made a range of radio-phonographs using a 50Y7 rectifier as a voltage doubler. this did, in fact produce about 180V, but only if the set was run on AC. The set was rated AC only due to this voltage doubler and due to the AC only induction motor in the record changer

[Oldie Goldie]

When I said crazy I meant the dynamotor putting it 60w.
That's the part that impressed me.

I have more than one dynamotor.
I bought a brand new old stock WWII or even early 50s dynamotor dirt cheap in eBay. It has a crinkle finish and it is so new and untouched it makes my heart ache it fell into mMY hands and not one of you guys.
It's 12v input at 400v output at around 60w.
The first one is a 24v to 250v 30watt one from Westinghouse.
I loved running three 120v dimmable led bulbs in series on it, and they ran happy as a clam.

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55

It's a baby champ bakelight radio.
Chocolate brown.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/norther_el..._5000.html

I did some quality of life upgrades to it. From the factory the antenna was a handful of wire pre-soldered and poking out a hole in the back.

There were holes with notches for screw terminals that were never used. I salvaged the chassis from a sidewalk abandoned console radio and put the screw terminals from that into these preexisting holes.
Spread the sharp tang and popped it in, soldered it into circuit and it looks factory.

Than replaced the weak 35Z5 output tube with a nos 50Z5 and put a jumper wire across the HOT resister they put under the kimono.

Strung my own longwire crappy antenna up in my living room and hooked it to my new screw lug.
Got Boston radio 500miles from me.
That got me into radio dxing at age 38. Haha

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55
My interest in using a car radio in home came from reading something I read online when I was 14.

But the junk the car save the radio is something I read last year.
Id just started putting aside pieces of junk to build this thing, the two most important being the Delco sonomatic radio and the 40s plywood mini cabinet/table with side magazine holders.
Found this wood down the street from me at a 40s vintage home some young yuppies were renovating.
Threw out the original 40s solid brass mailbox, which I grabbed.
A wooden ladder I tightened and use, and a 60s vintage overhead bar light with a gold label GE ballast.

The Buick Delco Sonomatic is a model 980868. It has what you would expect from a 1949 radio from a nice American car.
An 8" speaker, rf-amp front end, push-pull 6v6s, and all octal tubes.

Walking down the street last week somebody had thrown out a 50s couch with yellow burlap itchy fabric. It was a flowers pattern which I like because I like pictures of flowers.
Out came a box cutter and I took ALL of it. The big piece on the back of the couch, everything.
I'm going to sew some simple drapes with the big piece. Reupholster my 1920s kitchen chairs which somebody must have done (badly) in the 50s with puke green fabric.
Use some as speaker cloth on this radio project.

Beat up wooden 40s cabinets
Ciggerette glazed flower speaker cloth
1949 Delco radios

I think I'm on the right track

[Oldie Goldie]

MrFixr55 I'm going to remove the vibrator from its socket, put in a jumper I made, and feed it 6v from a nice 6v 18A 50s transformer I was given as a gift years ago.

[Arran]

Those first generation Northern Electric "Baby Champs" we used to call those waterfall grill sets, and N.E must have built and sold tens of thousands of them between 1946 and 1950. They were lots of variants made during that time frame in the model 5000 series, some had a shortwave band, some had a tone control, some for some weird reason used a 12K7 as opposed to a 12SK7, and there were battery powered versions as well. I've had a number of model 5000s, and still do, a 5002, a 5104, and a pair of 5200s which are technically not a Baby Champ but related. The 5000s used a 35L6 with a dropping resistor for the series string, but later versions from 1947 onward used the 50L6.
Happy Christmas
Happy New Year
Arran

[Oldie Goldie]

Arran, mine has shortwave, no tone control and originally a 35Z5.

The front looks like it's begging for a fine control to be added.
The shortwave band on this radio sucks, so take it's grafted on circuit out, and replace the band selector control with a tone control.