Pye 92 17" 'Transportable' Television set - 169 Chassis

Back in about 1981-82, I bought one of these sets from a jumble sale for 50p. I lugged it all the way home, stopping many times along the way (I was only 10 at the time). It didn't work. My mum kindly took it into the local TV shop (Seamen's Television in Carshalton) and they fixed it for me. It's a larger 17" TV, using a hybrid chassis of valves, transistors and 2 IC's, 625 line single standard, black and white.

It's more "trans-luggable" really, you can see that woman in the ad straining, it's got some weight!

The fun continued until about 1985 when the tube failed, curtailing the fun. It was binned.

I'd kept a casual eye on eBay for one for the last few years, and then in late 2014 one surfaced.

I collected it from the south coast and returned home with it.

Cosmetically in good nick, although the tuner was seized solid.

 A few repairs have been carried out in the past...

 .. but it looks OK.

Callins electrolytics are most likely to be faulty...

 TAA700 sync separator and video pre-amplifier chip.

These sets had a reputation for poor caps in the line stage, they've been changed in the past..

Mazda CME1713/ A144-120 tube. Flaky aqua-dag, but that shouldn't effect performance.









So, the mains filter capacitor was snipped out, and some mains applied via the variac.... and, the smell of burning dust and hot valves awaking from their slumber filled the workshop... a few moments later , a picture appeared! Tube looked to have plenty of life left. I went to the kitchen to get a cuppa, and on return was greeted with a VERY hot dropper resistor, and a line output valve glowing cherry red :(

Probably one of those rotten caps stopping the oscillator I thought ... I thought wrong. After an hour or so of testing, I pulled out the line transformer, and performed a ring test ...

No doubt it had developed shorted turns. The TV restorer's worst nightmare.

I asked everywhere to see if anyone had a replacement transformer. I had a few leads, but nothing was forthcoming....

It's probably the EHT overwind, I thought, so the plan was to remove the overwind and ring test that to see if that was at fault. I had some other unknown line output transformers I could take the overwind from.

Unfortunately nothing would shift the glue used to hold the winding to the ferrite core. Disaster struck, it broke up ...

I reassembled the set and stored it in the attic, until a suitable transformer could be obtained.

















Time passed, a lot of time......


and then, several weeks ago, a wonderful gentleman emailed me from one of the forums, who had seen my request for a transformer. He suggested a Philips 210/300 chassis transformer may be a suitable substitute. He had a Konig replacement, a ZTR371, which had the benefit of having a solid state EHT rectifier built in. It duly arrived in the post...

The set was removed from storage, and prepared for the transplant!

Both the Philips and Pye circuits were examined... there were differences. Mainly in how the line linearity is handled.

I initially decided to modify the Pye circuit, to accommodate the Philips positioning of the line linearity coil... stood well back and slowly increased the mains on the variac. Almost no width, but there's something....

I then changed the circuit back, and changed the wiring on the transformer to suit the Pye line linearity cicruit... results were much improved, although "boost" HT was woefully inadequate at about 320V, 850V would be better...






The reason for the lack of boost HT was quickly spotted.... another wiring change...

It's all a bit of a lash up of bits of wire and croc clips, but it IS working.

During this time I noticed there was now a precious lack of "snow" on the screen. I decided to stop here, and evict those awful Callins electrolytics, and anything else which looked suspect.

 ... and un-seize the tuner.

 ... lots of surface rust on the tuning spindles, which is cleaned off using a little WD40 on a cotton wool bud.

The cam-gear on the other side is also stiff, but eases with a little WD40.

After it's all moving again, I cleaned off the WD40, just in case it attacks the plastic nuts on the spindles. A good coating of spray grease should keep everything lubricated.








So, the tuner is reassembled and fitted back to the set. I can now tune in the set, and can *just* see a picture, but it's totally lacking in contrast. Time to evict all those nasty electrolytics. Many are either physically leaking, cracked or electrically leaking or low in value. Sadly, this doesn't fix the issue. On a brighter note, the height and width are improving, probably due to the valves waking up after a long slumber! I add a 100pF capacitor across the line harmonic tuning cap, which improves the amount of adjustment available on the width control.

I mount the line output transformer permanently, and tidy up the wiring.

So, back to the lack of contrast. The video is demodulated by the TAA700 IC. Expect for in this case, there was precious little video coming from the IC. I find a few resistors outside of spec, but changing these makes no difference. I fit a new IC. No change.

Scoping up some of the waveforms around the IC shows it not quite getting the right information back from the line output stage to correctly operate. Unsuprising considering the wrong line output transformer is fitted. It's probably stuck in blanking...

I turn my attention to the line stage, and R 92 in particular.

I connect a 1 megohm pot and a 100K resistor in series, and connect it across R92, in an attempt to increase the drive to the IC.









Tune for maximum smoke. Only it doesn't work, as I get the required pulses at the IC , the picture gets worse! ... So I re-wire the pot so as to decrease the pulses to the IC!

Bingo! Pots of contrast. I disconnect the pot and take a measurement of the value. It's near enough to 1 megohm, so R92 is replaced with a fixed resistor.

Now just to centre up the picture and soak-test it...






... if only...

You might glaze over at this bit ....

After being on for about half an hour, the picture faded out rapidly. I cut the power quickly. Is this the return of the fault that had killed the original transformer??? The new transformer is running a little hot. Perhaps a bit hotter than I'd like. The boost capacitor, and the first anode decoupling capacitor have both been replaced in the past, it was probably in the 80's at the latest, so I order some up. Replacing these makes no difference, and half an hour later the set cuts out abruptly again, as the line output stage shuts down. I wait for a few minutes, and scope up the line drive signal to the PL504 output valve. It remains strong, even in the fault condition, so something is loading down the line output stage. I change the PL504 and PY88 boost rectifier, and I'm rewarded by more width, so I remove the 100pF cap I'd previously fitted to improve the width. Sadly after a few mins, the line stage once again shuts down. I move the width stabilisation feedback from the direct tap on the transformer, to the capacitively coupled tap. This improves the range of the width control further, but doesn't sort the fault... phut! The set goes off.... I give any remaining suspect components in the line output stage a liberal squirting of freezer (on the cheap).  Sadly it appears the line output transformer can't cut the mustard. It's failing when warm. I'm about to give up. It has taken hours and hours of work to get this far, and I hate to be beaten, but enough is enough.

I made some tea, and studied the circuit diagram again. Nothing is really forthcoming. I decide to cut apart the original Pye transformer to see if I can learn anything from the windings. I make some simple resistance measurements and compare them to the Philips transformer. The winding I'm supplying the HT to is a lot lower resistance than the Pye transformer. It should therefore be drawing more current. I scope up the current flowing into the transformer using a totally inappropriate hall-effect amp-clamp, which appears to tell me there's 2A flowing into the lopt. I suspect there's a lot less than this in reality. I can see there's an unused tap on the primary of the Philips transformer, so I hook up the HT feed to this tap. Now my (lying) current probe tells me there's an amp flowing into the transformer, well that's a change in the right direction. The picture comes up, and stabilises, the width is still good, and stays there .... for hours .... Success at last!

So for future reference, here's a quick sketch on how to fit a Philips 300 transformer to a Pye 169!

Some of the guilty & redundant parties...












Obligatory arty valve shots (seem to be getting the hang of this Nikon camera now!)

...and here's a video of the thing in action (maybe not so good with the new camera!)...

Marshall JTM-60 repair.

Steve gave me a lift home from the Indian restaurant with an ulterior motive. There's a duff Marshall amp in the boot, which belongs to a friend of his.

"Makes a noise like a dalek, And. Can you take a look?"


Why not....

Initial tests show it does indeed sound like a dalek. Any audio making it to the speakers is being modulated by huge 100Hz hum.

Removal of the chassis, and I've got a good idea what the fault is. It's no secret I'm not a lover of Mr Marshall's amplifiers. They're OK, but the engineering could be better. This amp dates from 1994, and has a proper valve output stage, 2 EL34's in push-pull, and a smattering of ECC83's doing other things. There's some semi-conductors and op-amps in there too...

What I spotted is the two mains smoothing capacitors. They're located directly above the horizontally mounted EL34's. Not a good idea.

Heat rises, and will have dried out the electrolyte in the caps. Removal of the capacitors shows both to be completely open-circuit! They're 47uF 550V parts. Two new ones are duly ordered....










... and fitted, restoring operation.

Arty valve shots follow... starting to get the hang of the new camera now.

Sony 9-90 UB repair.

This is a somewhat unusual repair..

Now, on his last visit from Wales, my friend David dropped in a Sony 9-90UB in a bag. It's a dual-standard (405/625) 9" black and white set, made from about 1969 to 1972. It's fully transistorised, and can run off a 12V battery if required. There's a continental version, the 9-90UM, which is UHF/VHF and has 625 and 819 lines for France and Belgium. Quite why Sony developed a 405 version so late into the game seems strange, but I suppose VHF reception was better for a portable set (?) There's also a dodge for getting 625 reception on this set on VHF, and that's to gently press the 405 button so the 625 button pops out, but leaving the 405 button un-latched. I watched some Spanish TV in the early 90's via sporadic-e reception on just it's telescopic aerial!

anyway ...

"It's in bits, I had a go at fixing it...."

Fixing it? A Sony 9-90? Surely not. These sets are the most reliable in existence. I've seen dozens over the years, and, well, they just work..... Normally, if you get a vintage TV in, the last thing you do is connect it to the mains, well, with these that's exactly what you do, and they just work. Scratchy pots are the norm, but other than that, they're perfect...

... not this one.

 A bit of an ominous warning on the mains plug ...

 A selection of screws, knobs and trim parts....

Anyway... I'll take some shots of it, because I've never had the need to take one apart before!!

This is the power supply, It's mounted in the back. Don't undo the two screws holding the mains transformer to the back, take the back off with it in situ.

 Compact chassis... wiring everywhere. Typical high quality Sony late 60's construction.

PCB....

















Anyway, having checked there's nothing disconnected, and nothing looking too bad, I throw caution to the wind, remove David's "DO NOT PLUG IN" label, and plug it in, via an isolated variac.

Giving it 240 of Her Majesty's finest English volts , and nothing .... the set isn't drawing any current, so I check the fuses and mains switch, and all prove their innocence. I check mains is getting to the transformer (it is), and then check the output. Nothing. The transformer is open circuit. I then notice some wax has been melting from the transformer. It's been hot. A check on the bridge rectifier shows this to be short circuit.

 To prove the rest of the set, I disconnect the output from the rectifier and connect the bench power supply....

... and at 12V, the set springs into life, and gives some results on 405 ....

.... and 625 lines. The set is drawing about 900mA from the bench supply. I look around the workshop for a suitable transformer, but I've got nothing that will supply enough current and fit in the hole....

Then I remember I bought a small switched mode supply, capable of 2A... just the job. Now these are available on eBay, but be careful when buying, as some lack the most basic of mains filtration, and are really not fit for purpose. I got a box of these from a reputable supplier. They produce almost no RFI. I connect it up to the set to prove it out...

... and once I'm happy, I mount it in place of the original transformer.

A quick check again... 405...

625....

The guilty parties....

All buttoned back up and given a soak-test for a couple of hours. It's missing the VHF channel select knob, which David seems to think is "in the living room somewhere"

And here, just to embarrass my brother Rob, is him sat in front of one back in the 80's...

... nice curtains ...

... and here's Nik-Nak's "Colour" 9-90's from the 1974 James Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun" (c) MGM 

Rickenbacker / Rickenbacher model 59 Lap Steel Guitar Amp from 1939

Here's a delightful old timer. Norman (Sorry Norman, couldn't resist).  Anyway, he brought an amp over for a look...

It's a 1939 Rickenbacher (note pre-war spelling here, although there's no markings on it.), made in the US and designed for 110V 60Hz power. Norman had just finished restoring the lap-steel guitar that it came with, as they were sold as a kit.







The amplifier is a very simple design, featuring a 5Z4 full wave rectifier, a 6N7 double triode, one triode as an input amplifier, the other as a phase-splitter, and a pair of 6L6's in push-pull output.









The power supply deserves some mention. The speaker does not have a permanent magnet, so there's an extra set of windings in the back of the speaker, which forms an electromagnet. This winding is fed from the power supply, after a small smoothing inductor and capacitor. It's in series with the actual amplifier HT rail, so the current supplied to the amp, passes through, and energises, the electromagnet. Now, all things being equal, this is a stupid idea... but it's put to a clever use. There's some rippe on the HT supply, as the smoothing caps are quite small in value. Here's the clever part... the amplifier is busy humming away, but the field coil is so connected as to effectively cancel out the hum! So not only does it improve the filtering (as it's an inductor itself) but also cancels out a lot of hum. Once working correctly, this works fantastically!

So, how's it look? Well, those capacitors will be no good after 77 years. They're out.

A note about those resistors... they're dog bone resistors... and were about 20-25% accuracy when new. They don't have the normal striped colour code. There's an article on Radio Museum about them here.

All the resistors check out within 20%, and I'm surprised!

Main smoothing caps, "Beaver" brand!

The internal connecting wire is cloth-covered and in good condition. The mains lead is rubber, and is also in reasonable nick, but will have to go anyway.. read on!

Here's a close-up of the speaker. The tiny output transformer is mounted underneath it. On some pictures of this amplifier, I've seen the speaker the other way up.

After a recap, and a check of the integrity of the transformer insulation with a 500V Megger test, I gently power the amp up via the variac to 110VAC. Nothing, not a jot. There's heaters and HT, but no audio. There's no volume control (or indeed any controls of any kind!) but there is nothing coming from the speaker.

Checking around shows there's HT on the anodes, so the output transformer primary isn't open circuit, and the field-coil in the speaker is OK. A check on the secondary shows that's not open circuit. Damn, it's the voice coil....

The chances of getting another speaker are about a million to one, so I CAREFULLY disassembled it, lifting off the field coil, and gaining access to the voice coil. Sadly, I negated to take pictures of this process. I could see the break where the coil connects to the back of the cone. Carefully, I tinned the wire, and soldered it back to the remains of the wire on the cone. I check the resistance of the coil with the meter. 18 Ohms... Bingo! I painted the joint with a blob of lacquer to give it some insulation and mechanical support, and left it to dry before reassembling.

Powering up again, there was some very slight "blow" through the speaker. I plugged in a guitar and gave it a strum. Horrible distortion. It was clear that the voice coil was fouling on the field coil inside the speaker. I slacked off the 4 slotted screws holding the coil assembly onto the speaker basket, and tapped it slightly to one side. A couple of goes later, and it's working well. The level of white noise (or "blow" as it's called in guitar amps) is minimal. There's no hum whatsoever! That anti-phase field coil arrangement is working well!

Electrical safety, or lack thereof...

This amplifier has a metal cabinet, and metal chassis.... and a 2-core mains lead. It's transformer isolated, so I'm ok with that, but that metalwork needs to be connected to a safety electrical earth. I remove the rubber 2-core lead and fit a modern 3-core PVC lead. The owner has a 240-110V auto-transformer to supply power, so that mains is still "live" and not isolated. I fit a 3-pin american plug to the end, and, for peace of mind, perform another insulation test. It's all good. Sadly, although not unexpectedly, as the chassis carries the signal and HT grounds, adding a safety earth has introduced a small amount of hum pick-up. It's not significant though, and better to be safe and humming, than dead and not. As this amp was designed for 60Hz operation, there is some concern that the mains transformer could saturate when being run at 50Hz, and get hot, resulting in failure. I ran the amp for a few hours, and the transformer was barely warm. I pronounce it fit, clean up the years of dust, and Norman is delighted!

Arty valve shot (still getting the hang of the new camera!)

Norman has kindly supplied some pictures of the guitar.