Many many years ago in the early 70's I used to repair radios TVs and record players for Woolworths. A local TV shop had 'the contract' a Mr Torr. He was fairly elderly and had pretty much lost interest so once a week my Dad would get the Maxi out and take me to drop off the completed repairs and pick up the latest bunch.
The stuff was fairly simple to fix. Open headphone sockets on little radio sets. Failed Amp chips on those 'orrible Fidelity record players. Dry joints on Wye portables. Then there was the Rigonda stuff... An odd record player "Party time"? The Odd Starlet portable. Then the VL100s. Piles of them! Well half a dozen a week... The faults were fairly simple at least easy to find. LOPTs and Tripler common. The occasional broken tube.
John Torr would order the parts and eventually they would come. The only circuit diagram was a tiny copy a really bad blurred tiny copy at that but somehow I got them going!
I had a couple of sets for parts and an egg box full of LOPTS the spares sets were robbed to the bone. Written off because they had been dropped and smashed. If the plastic was broken on the front or the metal case badly bent they were written off as John Torr couldn't get replacements. Knobs were another hard to get part.
When I left school and got a job Mr Torr called it a day and the Woolies repairs were no more. Around three years later my parents moved house. They wanted to take my workshop/shed with them so all my spares that were left behind including the Rigonda LOPTs and spare sets all went to the tip.
Or so I thought... It turns out Dad for what ever reason kept a box and put it in the loft of the 'new' house. I had no idea nor did my Mum. Recently Mum had a new boiler fitted which meant the tanks had to come out of the loft. The plumber found a box with my old school books, a load of early accounts from when I was first self employed and a box of Regondas! Two complete and one fairly robbed one.
I decided to see what I could do with the complete sets, the robbed on is beyond help! Of the complete sets one looks new the other isn't so maybe that wasn't a Woolies set. In any case for whatever reason Dad saved them!
The not new set has been coaxed into life. The LOPT was duff and was the brown type that always failed. The spares set had no LOPT fitted but a later grey type was loose inside and it works! There was a few other faults, mainly really knackered pots, wires off and a Transistor lead corroded. But it now shows a picture. It has an AGC fault which I will come back to.
The 'New' set has the original brown LOPT which for the moment is OK. The Brightness and Contrast pots were very intermittent there was a bright patch on the left of the screen which was a capacitor. It now displays a 'picture' but the line speed is miles off. I have called it a day for now I need to get a readable diagram. It has been great fun reliving my miss-spent youth!
The working (just) used set.
The new set with line speed fault.
The Bitsa
I have called it a day for now I need to get a readable diagram.
Data now in the temp library
Failed Amp chips on those 'orrible Fidelity record players.
They made a valuable addition to my pocket money, those! My trusty Antex X25 and some desolder braid in the red PVC carrier - plus of course, a steady supply of SN/AC 760x3 chips.
I'm sure the bulk (if not all) of the failures were from people plugging in the loudspeakers whilst they were switched on, after Mum had unplugged them to dust underneath the units...
crustytv Thanks Chris, Much appreciated!
@cathovisor Yes it seems incredible that Fidelity made them with no protection. Run it with the speakers disconnected and that was it.. Futt! Then there was the speaker leads extended with bell wire and Sellotape. After a few repeated failures I insisted on having the speakers back in with the unit for repair so they could be checked. Woolies also produced a typed sheet to go back with the machine warning about speakers and connections...
Right - I'm off to the library then a Rigondaring we will go!
Yes it seems incredible that Fidelity made them with no protection. Run it with the speakers disconnected and that was it.. Futt!
Given that it was a single supply rail in those units, I suspect that when you discharged the coupling electrolytic into the loudspeaker the surge current was enough to kill the chip.
@cathovisor Yes they would sometimes fail fairly violently as well, often split in half having got very hot and scorched the panel in some cases. I bet the warrantee claims were high!
@crustytv Thanks for the manual Chris, I have downloaded it. Already it has been a help, it has made identifying and locating parts much easier.
The 'New' or let's say better condition set was fairly easy to sort the line off speed was down to poor soldering touching and flexing the panel caused the line speed to go all over the place a good solder up around the osc coil sorted that out.
The contrast and brightness controls needed a thorough clean but have finally settled down. Then there was the poor frame lin, the lin pot had no effect and the vertical hold pot caused the height to vary considerably. The lin was easy to fix, an open capacitor in series with the control sorted that. The lin pot was then very intermittent once working but responded well to cleaning. I then changed a couple more dodgy capacitors which sorted the interaction between the hold control and picture height.
The set now works surprisingly well the definition is much better than the other set. At that point I decided it would do so after a quick check of the LT voltage. I put it all back together and gave it a bit of a clean. I don't know why this one wasn't fixed all those years ago, it is either NOS or very low hours. The square 'loop' aerial still in it's plastic bag.
That has to be one of the best definition pictures I've seen on one of those sets. 👍
Hi Chris yes I was surprised how good the picture is. I just hope the LOPT holds out! The definition on the other set is not as good. It Has an AGC and possibly IF fault. The tuning is critical with sound and vision apart, the definition is poor, the sound is low and it overloads at full signal. I am running it on an attenuator. This set has seen more use than the other.
The spares set is incomplete, no LOPT, a couple of capacitors and Transistors are missing, the Tripler is melted one end which is probably what caused the set's demise. The power supply has a faded label in my writing "Smoked". The signals panel is disconnected and various Transistors have broken lead out wires there are signs of green corrosion. I cannot remember removing the panel but I did repair a lot of these so individual sets and repairs are long forgotten.
If these sets were kept as spares they are surprisingly complete, well certainly two are in any case. The only spares sets I remember were fairly cannibalised and would have had almost certainly a broken tube. If the sets were dropped the neck would break off complete with scan-coils, the clue was all the Phosphor would be blown off the screen by the inrush of air and the set would rattle a fair bit!
I have given the set a good run today. I have used my bespoke test card which was produced for me by my mate Mick.🤣 Thanks Mate!
