1956 Philips B3X66U SW/MW AC/DC 5 valve midget radio

[howard]

Hello again,

When I saw this little Philips B3X66U on eBay I thought it was a Dutch AM/FM midget set like the German Philetta, but I was wrong, it's principally a shortwave set with MW, but I won it for £1.50 as noone else wanted it so it didn't matter. It's quite rare, I've only found two other examples of it on the web but its full service data is on RMOrg. It arrived complete and undamaged and in fairly clean condition with a couple of scratches and a minor mark on the top, and as described, it didn't work at all.

I took a look inside to find that the mains filter capacitor had been disconnected (no doubt as a precaution) but everything else looked OK apart from a capacitor attached to the external aerial socket that had obviously exploded, so I replaced those two and switched on and no valves lit up but there was a slight tinkling noise coming from its rectifier valve. This model is listed as having a rare UY42 rectifier valve fitted but mine fortunately has an alternative UY41, so I fitted a NOS Mullard (£3) and amazingly the set burst into life working reasonably well on all three wavebands ! This set had no wax capacitors but was full of big black pitch covered Philips capacitors, and most of them were rated at 1300 volts so I replaced a couple with the only 1500 volt caps I had (one lent to me by Ron Bryan) and took the old ones over to Ron for testing and they were both leaky so it was decided to replace the lot. That's when the problems started as I had quite a job finding the 1500 volt caps that I needed, in fact I gave up looking for 3 x 5600pfs and had to settle for 4700pfs from eBay (£2.70 for 4). The best and virtually the only place to buy nice chunky 1500 volt 10NF (£0.39), 22NF (£0.45), 47NF (£0.59) and 100NF (£1.34) capacitors in modest quantities is Farnells and as they're reasonably priced I opened a trade account and bought a pile of them as they (and RS Components) are discontinuing them. After all the black caps had been replaced, I checked each of the valves in turn with NOS ones, and decided to replace just the original UL84 with a new Philips valve (70p from Tonbridge), the UCH81, UF89 and UBC81 were all fine. Ron checked a couple of the resistors, they had gone up a little but neither over spec so they were all left in place. The audio coupling capacitor in this set is a good quality ceramic type so that was also left in place. The valve voltages were checked and they were all fine. Ron tested all the black caps and all but one were duff.

I dismantled the case and cleaned all the parts apart from the bakelite with upholstery cleaner. The bakelite I cleaned with white spirit and then polished with Brasso and that brought back a really nice shine. I took the rather bent badge off, straightened, polished and revanished it and put it back on. I encountered one problem, the gold paint under the dial I discovered was water based and it started coming off after it got wet so I ended up masking off and repainting that area with Halfords Ford champagne gold aerosol paint .... well it was a bit dingy.

I made a mistake initially choosing this little set but I'm really glad I acquired it as it works incredibly well and picks up just about everything on both MW and SW loud and clear with just its own internal ferrite rod aerial. It's in lovely condition and it's a pretty little set with its jukebox perspex front that all lights up when it's working and sounds quite good too. If it hadn't sold at £1.50 I daresay it could be in the skip by now .....

Howard

[Tazman1966]

Hi Howard.

What a stroke of luck that this set was rescued by you. It looks absolutely lovely. Well done as usual.

You were right about the big black chunky caps-there were plenty of 'em! Did they really need to be such high voltage versions though?

Regards,

[howard]

Originally Posted by Tazman1966

Hi Howard. What a stroke of luck that this set was rescued by you. It looks absolutely lovely. Well done as usual.
You were right about the big black chunky caps-there were plenty of 'em! Did they really need to be such high voltage versions though? Regards,

Hello Tas,

Yes I think it's a pretty little set and it takes up no more room than a Hacker Sovereign. In the evening when shortwave livens up it really comes to life and looks splendid with its lit up perspex front and gold grille.

Not all the black caps were high voltage, one or two were rated at 125 or 400 volts and those were replaced with smaller 630 volt caps, but those which were 1300 volt, eg: those attached to sockets, were replaced with the nice big 1500 volt LCR caps. They're likely to get scarce soon so stock up now.

Howard

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by howard

Not all the black caps were high voltage, one or two were rated at 125 or 400 volts and those were replaced with smaller 630 volt caps, but those which were 1300 volt, eg: those attached to sockets, were replaced with the nice big 1500 volt LCR caps. They're likely to get scarce soon so stock up now.

This set looks quite late for the 'orrible black Philips caps and I suspect that the stocks were being run down, hence the presence of so many HV caps. I doubt if they needed to be rated so highly, but I agree it's better to match the original rating if in any doubt.

It's certainly an attractive set anyway

Paul

[Steve_P]

I don't know why you thought it was a mistake! That's come up very well, like Philips sets always do.

Those black pitch things make Hunts look good though! But 60 years on - not bad going.

Nice set - well done.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Tazman1966]

Originally Posted by howard

They're likely to get scarce soon so stock up now.

I'll take your advice as I use these sort of capacitors in telly restoration as well.

Cheers,

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by Tazman1966

I'll take your advice as I use these sort of capacitors in telly restoration as well.

You can safely replace caps used to isolate sockets etc. with class Y caps. In fact all the 1kV caps you usually find in a radio can be replaced by X2 or Y types, and these should continue to be available.

Radios used 1kV and 1.5kV rated caps because the designers knew they would deteriorate and were likely to fail short circuit if stressed. X2 and Y caps will self heal and should always fail open circuit.

Don't know about tellies though

Paul

[howard]

Originally Posted by Steve_P

I don't know why you thought it was a mistake! ......... Steve P.

Hello Steve,

Only cos I like little VHF sets !

Howard

[howard]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

This set looks quite late for the 'orrible black Philips caps and I suspect that the stocks were being run down, hence the presence of so many HV caps....... Paul

Hello Paul,

Philips were still using these high voltage big black pitch covered capacitors well into the 1960s, typically on audio transformers. All my Plano sets had a couple of them fitted, and they've all now been replaced except those in my Reverbeo as that set I'm keeping original.

Howard

[murphy512]

Hi Howard,
I also bought what I thought was a Philetta, but turned out to be a B3Z75U that has MW an SW only. The Mw button says BROADCAST, was it made for the american market?
Mario's website http://www.datastress.com/~mario/radio/philipsindex.php seems to list all philips radios, but this one is not listed.
Anyway, it works really well and pulls in many SW stations with only the internal aerial.
Cheers
Aldo

[petervk2mlg]

Maybe it was made for the NEw Zealand market. There was one on the trade me NZ auction site. Sold VERY cheaply!
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics...-139709579.htm

Peter

[howard]

Originally Posted by murphy512

Hi Howard,
I also bought what I thought was a Philetta, but turned out to be a B3Z75U that has MW an SW only. The Mw button says BROADCAST, was it made for the american market? ..............Cheers Aldo

Hello Aldo,

I think that's a variant of the 1957 B3X75U and as you say, Broadcast rather than MW on its waveband switch suggests it was built for the N. American market although it should have a Norelco badge. It's certainly a pretty little set.

Howard

[howard]

Originally Posted by petervk2mlg

Maybe it was made for the NEw Zealand market. There was one on the trade me NZ auction site. Sold VERY cheaply!
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics...-139709579.htm Peter

Hello Peter,

The third character in Philips model names at this time denoted the country of origin (X = Holland, D = Germany, F = France, G= UK etc) but I can't find anything about 'Z'. They don't seem very collectible these little shortwave sets, mine was even cheaper, shame cos they're pretty little sets and work remarkably well.

Howard

[petervk2mlg]

Howard
Thanks for that info.
Here in Australia the MW band is often referred to as the "broadcast band".
There are a few of the B3Z75U sets for sale on tradme.co.nz
Also one badged as a Fleetwood -

Peter