1967 Magnavox 3-In-One Vintage Console

[germanshepherd3944]

I just bought a Magnavox 1967 3-In-One Vintage Console & Yesterday I Cleaned & Regreased the Analog UHF/VHF Tuner which took all Day!!
All the Tubes light up except for (1) real small Tube in the High Voltage Section which has (6) Tube's in it!!
That Tube is Totally Dead & don't light up which should!! I know I'll have to get a Tube Tester yet!! Any
Idea's what could be Wrong with the TV? The Back of the Picture Tube does light up!!
I bought it from a 92 Year old Man that hasn't used it for many year's!!
It was really Clean!! So where do I begin at?

Ron

 

[clarkjd]

First step is to go to Best Buy and get a new TV and audio system. You will end up spending less money than you would getting a 50 year old TV to work, if you can even find the parts! And if you, by some chance, got it to work, you would still need a converter box to get it to accept a digital TV signal, forget about HDTV!

 

[groundrat]

Be very careful about what you are doing. I don't have schematics but from my old college days working on CRT's I'd bet that the section that doesn't light up is connected to either the aquadag, the horizontal/ vertical amp, or both. Don't know how much you know about CRTs, so here is a primer. The electron gun fires electrons at the phosphors on the inside of the picture tube. the hoz/vert amps are powerful magnets that control the electron gun and create the scanning motion. Those electrons must be sent back to the gun or they polarize the screen and nothing works, that is the job of the Aguadag. it is a mass of sealed wires on the top of the tube, heading back to the gun, at the center rear of the tube. Very high (knock you across the room) voltage there, be careful. If any of that isn't working properly, the TV will not work. I am guessing your small tube is a pentode (five sections, the control screen can look like a section, but isn't) that controls the sweep generator and that, since its dead, safeties are disabling the other sections. good luck.

 

[clarkjd]

As groundrat alluded to, working on a tube based TV is VERY dangerous, much more so than working on say, a computer PSU. If the CRT is a color one, then you are looking at around 25000 volts (That's twenty-five thousand volts!). A black & White tube will be on the order of 10000(ten Thousand) volts. So unless you know what you are doing, I would advise you to NOT open the back of the TV. As I said before, a TV that old is strictly an analog device, and as such is NOT compatible with modern digital TV signals. If you got the TV to work, you would still need a converter box to change the digital signals into analog signals in order to be able to watch anything.

 

[americanaudiophile]

If you just have to work on it you may be able to get a SAMS service manual for it that would help.
https/www.samswebsite.com/
If there is one dead tube then it should have a number on it. Try to get a replacement. A tube tester will cost you anywhere from $100s to $1000s of dollars and may not work with all tubes so not a good investment for a one time user.
If there is a repair shop in your area with an old technician around he may be able to help.

 

[tsmith1315]

Come over to vintagehifi.net and you'll find a lot of folks happy to help you. Lots of folks to help, who view your Magnavox console as something that should be cared for instead of thrown out. Schematics, too. Videokarma.org is another site dedicated to vintage TV's, a wealth of knowledge over there. Join 'em both and you'll find a solution.