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Old 21st Jan 2015, 12:49 am   #101
Wendymott
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

In my later servicing years,(about 1995 ish) I had to do the "odd" field service call, at that time the company had the service contract with a well known catalog company base in Wakefield. They had a returns shop, and in each town where there was a returns shop you had a "blip" of calls. I did a couple of return calls to one house which had the Bush/Goodmans CRT TV with DVD player built in. As the house was a "smokers paradise", it was obvious why the DVD laser needed cleaning. After removing the DVD mech, it was too dirty for the normal cleaning disk, doing the business, and advising the customer, to use the disk cleaner, each time of use.. guess what... another call....same
M O...this time the customer was charged for the call out.. but what my question is...are modern TV engineers or other service people allowed to refuse to enter houses where it is obvious there is a serious danger to health. I do hope so.... we didn't know much about it then....
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 9:28 am   #102
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Any folks remember the Guyloid nut spinners (BA) ?

Those were my first major purchase, one size per week as I recall.

Lawrence.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 9:55 am   #103
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I don't remember the name but I certainley bought BA nut spinners, about 10-12 inch long to get to the front of the cabinet. Had the 0 to 8 BA ones if I remember, also had box spanners for the nuts on volume controls etc, save scratching the fascias.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 10:03 am   #104
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"also had box spanners for the nuts on volume controls etc, save scratching the fascias"

I ruined a couple of long nosed pliers before the penny finally dropped.

Lawrence.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 10:17 am   #105
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I wonder if anyone remembers the Ferguson 306, a 17" table model retailing at 69 GNS. This was quite popular, but had one stock fault, it ate a number of EHT rectifiers (EY86). Seems that the heater voltage, derived from the usual winding on the LOPT was too high. I suppose with the few turns required, it was difficult to get the voltage correct. Don't know whether there was a mod, but not easy in that area.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 10:34 am   #106
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Yes Wendy, I know just what you mean about certain houses. It was turret tuners that seemd to be to first casualty in smoking households. Cleaning was a three monthly task, fortunately a fairly quick job if you could take the bottom off the set. A lot of carbon tet was used, useful stuff, wish we could get it now. Later on it was system switches that fell victim, but fortunately those weren't around quite so long. I think it was nicotine deposits that caused the early demise of those LOPts with the plastic shroud. Made it difficult to replace EY51s.
Mike G4BIY.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 12:13 pm   #107
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neanderthal View Post
I wonder if anyone remembers the Ferguson 306, a 17" table model retailing at 69 GNS. This was quite popular, but had one stock fault, it ate a number of EHT rectifiers (EY86). Seems that the heater voltage, derived from the usual winding on the LOPT was too high. I suppose with the few turns required, it was difficult to get the voltage correct. Don't know whether there was a mod, but not easy in that area.
Hello,

The mod was a special valve, made by Mullard, for Ferguson. It was the TY86F.

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Dazzlevision
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 12:29 pm   #108
ms660
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The guff:

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0834.htm

Lawrence.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 12:36 pm   #109
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Default Re: Ex TV Engineers

Guyloid "box spanners".
I was looking, with the faint hope I still had mine, just the other day; it's on the to buy list.

Yeah Mike the Plessey and Cyldon turrets. Remember the AB tuners in the PAM 600, DON'T LOSE THE BALL BEARINGS was the cry.
Fireball tuners were the favourite to clean, one nut and they were off. What about replacing the EY51 in the oil filled Murphy lopty's?
Remembering not to put the TV face down in the van afterwards.

And the oil filled Lopty on the old Ferranti projection sets, I think 3 x EY51...and one would go low emission. Thank goodness for the U26.

Ref system switches - fortunately the 3 channels soon came on UHF 625 lines, thus no need to switch them, disconnect the Bowden cables, and solder any iffy joints.

Referring to the low emission EY86 reminds me when I was at NEI. We had a load and I mean load of returns with CRT low emission after 3 months.
What had happened was this:
We were sent the engineering samples and they were passed OK. When the containers arrived with the kits, no one noticed the LOPTY type had been changed. On investigation we found the CRT heater voltage was about 13V RMS. As you know it's a pulse, but the RMS voltage must be calculated.
True RMS meters do NOT show the true voltage if measuring pulses with only positive going pulses.
Although the EHT and width were ok, the supplier had not changed the series heater resistor. Once this had been calculated, Welwyn made us some special resistors. All the production was quarantined, and Goldstar had to swallow hundreds of CRT returns.

On the back of this, I designed a CRT heater meter, which, even if I do say so myself, was quite accurate.
I did publish in the TV Mag but I cannot find the date..
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Last edited by Mike Phelan; 21st Jan 2015 at 12:55 pm. Reason: Acne.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 12:52 pm   #110
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I went to service a newish KB/ITT mono set and had the chassis propped up on one side, I moved it and the scan coil plug fell out leaving an exceedingly bright spot in the middle of the screen which had removed a similar shaped section of fluorescent material from the screen. The customer of course noticed it.

CRTs were still very expensive then but to my considerable relief I noticed that the tube looked a little soft, as it was still under guarantee I got my wife to take it to Mullard's at Croydon. I had a phone call from her to say they didn't change tubes for burns - understandably of course, I asked her to tell them that it was actually low emission, which she did and they reluctantly changed it. Apparently it wasn't soft but had a fault on the gun affecting the focus - I breathed a considerable sigh of relief.

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Old 21st Jan 2015, 1:08 pm   #111
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Thanks for that Dazzlevision. We were not told of this valve, don't know why. It's a wonder the rep didn't point it out. Most of the sets were in an urban situation at the time, and I believe the mains was a bit down due to cable loading. Must have eased the strain on the EY86s, thus our call outs were perhaps not as frequent as some, but thinking further seem to remember taking off one turn on a LOPT winding to relieve one bad case.
We never stop learning.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 1:23 pm   #112
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Don't remember the name Guyloid, Lawrence, but did have box spanners. I also had a set of Osmor chassis cutters which I still have today. Useful for homebrew projects and the occasional valve type change, when a certain type was obsolete.
Mike.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 1:43 pm   #113
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pwdrive View Post
Any folks remember the Guyloid nut spinners (BA) ?
I know the devices of which you speak - though the brand-name I associate with them is "Xcelite". I have a couple of sets of these here - each set contains one yellowish-orange transparent plastic handle, several snap-in extensions and a range of different deep A/F sizes for the ends. The other set is identical but has splined "Allen" keys as the interchangeable parts. Got mine free, courtesy of an IBM display-terminal engineer after towing his car out oif a snowdrift in the very early 1980s. I guess display-terminals are "TVs" of sorts.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 1:53 pm   #114
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Quote:
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The mod was a special valve, made by Mullard, for Ferguson. It was the TY86F.
Interesting! And how super to have a friendly valve manufacturer make a 'special' for the TV.

I can't help thinking there must be an easier way though - such as for Ferguson to use resistance wire for the heater? (Granted, the small number of turns means it's not possible to get exactly the voltage needed). And for sets already 'out in the field' was it not possibleto add a series heater resistor, or was the design of the LOPT with its EHT insulation just too impossible for this mod?
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 2:02 pm   #115
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Here's an old ad for a Guyloid screwdriver from an old Aussie newspaper.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page...17?zoomLevel=1

Lawrence.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 3:53 pm   #116
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Originally Posted by Neanderthal View Post
Yes Wendy, I know just what you mean about certain houses. It was turret tuners that seemd to be to first casualty in smoking households. Cleaning was a three monthly task, fortunately a fairly quick job if you could take the bottom off the set. A lot of carbon tet was used, useful stuff, wish we could get it now.
This may be off-topic but the thought of sloshing carbon tetrachloride around in a building occupied by heavy smokers appals me! I am a non-smoker, but the smell of carbon tet makes me feel sick! (It used to be used in home "dry-cleaning" products, as I recall - "Thawpit" springs to mind). I am a qualified chemist, too.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 4:11 pm   #117
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Guyloid BA (Nut Spinner) screwdriver I still have one or more somewhere.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 5:48 pm   #118
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Interesting post Colin. We were issued with Carbon tet by RR, obviously we didn't slosh it around, just a bit on a cloth to clean contacts. I thought it to be the best solution as it was non flammable, did me no harm, but was a health and safety issue turned up later on? RS then brought out their switch cleaner - did that contain Carbon Tet?
Mike. G4BIY.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 5:59 pm   #119
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It had an adverse effect on polystyrene as I recall, as an apprentice I worked on the recon floor of a large service dept in Manchester for a while, first job was to whip the chassis out of the cabinet then take both on to the outside fire escape platform and blow the crud off with an air line, that was followed by a good dowsing of the chassis with carbon tet and a scrubbing with a toothbrush, I didn't like the stuff but that's all we had.

Lawrence.
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Old 21st Jan 2015, 6:53 pm   #120
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There was some stuff called Electrolube, dispensed from a 'pen'. Supposed to be good for tuner contacts.
Some of those printed horizontal boards got in a real state, it was impossible to see the components in some cases. I recall switch cleaner could trigger arcing in switches where there was HT present, so care was needed. A common fault with RR sets was unsoldered connections in IF cans. That used to cause all kinds of intermittents which an "Onslow" type thump might cure on occasions.
Mike G4BIY.
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