In this video we take a look at a Phillips K30 chassis TV set from the 1980s , the golden age of reparability and reliability, the K30 was a easy to repair classic TV set of its day which would have cost about £300 new in the 1980s .
The K30 was highly popular here in Spain back then. It came out just before the FIFA world cup of 1982 and many people bought the K30 models as their first color set. As I recall, most of them had the 12 preset push button channel selector and were fitted with the hi-fi box. So not only they had excelent picture, but also outstanding sound. The picture tube was the 30AX with quick heating, manufactured by Miniwatt in Barcelona. Ironically, the weakest part was the channel selector. Internal contacts failed over time, rendering the set with a snowy screen and a 0 in the preset number display.
Wow. This takes me back a bit. My parents had this exact TV model from the early 80's when I was in my teens - I remember watching Live Aid on it for example - until 1989 when they replaced it with an enormous (compared to this) Panasonic Prism W1 TX-28W1D NICAM Stereo TV and the Philips went to my Grandfather who I think used it probably until he had a burst pipe flood his house in the early 2000's when he was away on holiday. It probably lasted near enough 20 years.
These were a very popular set back in the day ,I repaired a lot of these back in the 80 s , I actually saw one on the tip a few months ago but couldn't persuade the guy to sell it to me .
Great video again michael. A trip down memory lane, fixed so many of these sets. I think maybe the KT3 was and K30 after the G11, this was a staple repair line for me in the 80’s G11/KT3/K30.👍
Thanks for uploading this Michael , I was immediately taken back to my days at Visionhire and shorting out those coils on the tube base heater to get a bit more life out of a a well boosted tube. Sorry I didn't realise I posted before. Just been been watching a G8 550 on you tube , mum bought one of those on my advice , the EW coil failed eventually as did the tube but no line scan or lopt problems
shorting out the heater chokes was also very common place of the 20 inch KT3, in some extreme cases I even wound an extra turn on the LOPT in some Japanese sets, it was a very short lived bodge though !
Greetings from ireland, been watching the channel since the weekend really enjoying it, being an 80s child i remember a few models of my childhood, the ITT Ideal Color 1922 and the Bang and Olufson - Beovision 8902, which if i stand correct was basically Phlips
yes , bang and oulfsen was Philips based but with 20 percent more parts than actually needed to overcomplicate the design, I did quite a bit with ITT in the 80s and early 90s , good sets
Philips in my opinion did the clearest circuit descriptions and fault finding data on their set's. And a proper technical response team at Purley Way. It was a sign of the trade going into decline when manufacturers lost interest in their after sales support to the dealers and the trade.
The KT3 and K30 I think the best Philips design high quality componets and most of those panels never went wrong common faults intermittent tripping some even slight dry joints loose aquadag spring or degausing thermisor were common
So many of these sets were condemned so easily because of a misdiagnosed symptom of the CRT looking like poor emission and half the time in my findings the CRT wasn’t always causing the poor grey scale problem a little known thing I found out for myself was checking the 4.7 microfarad 250 volt capacitor it was an (axial blue Philips capacitor) right near the focus potentiometer, provided nobody had got at the set beforehand and linked out the heater inductors on the tube base panel or played around adjusting grey scale settings with the old capacitor still in place. Like I said Changing this capacitor half the time provided an instant cure for the grey scale problems and the picture looked like it was on a new set again. However this grey scale issue never worked out for changing the capacitor in the smaller KT3 version of this type of set changing the capacitor on the smaller screen version which was a different value but in the similar position to the focus unit it was also in a similar position electrically but for the KT3 it wasn’t the silver bullet cure although I seem to remember the 16” and 14” versions of the KT3 tubes seemed to fair much better than the 20” standard A51-570X tube. My belief was that the portable versions of the KT3 sets were that they probably had less use during there lifetimes than a regular television in the living room thus having. The CRTs lasting longer.
I will bear this tip in mind if I ever get this set out again , it was kept in a shed and the case is not in the best of condition, as you say though the 20 inch KT3 had a poor life , I remember shorting out the heater chokes to squeeze every last drop out of the CRT before resorting to the regun tube .
Yes nice tv i've got a k30 mk1 working great , well it was a year ago , but my favourite set is the G8 wish i got one today it was my bread and butter set in the late 80's
Love the 80s TV, not just for there easy repairability but they bring back so many memories for me as I have been repairing TV s for over 40 years but they are getting very difficult to come be now and ones you do see for sale can be more now than they cost new.
Thats the best schematic ive ever seen for any television. And youre right those mullard CRT's didnt last very long, maybe 4 years then they went really low emission
Do those springs against the rear cover also help to discharge static build-up on dust? I read somewhere that housewives dusting the upper vents of TV backs had received shocks. Nothing fatal; just a surprise. I had a couple of Körting sets in the mid-80s; I'm pretty sure they had those spring contacts. The K30 looks really neatly designed, with good consideration for the service engineer.
The K30 was indeed a reliable chassis and capable of excellent results. I think it was released sometime in 1981 as a 110 degree development of the KT3 and replaced the G11 in 22" and 26" models. Your set is the basic non-remote version which seemed popular with older customers, sometimes as their first colour set. I remember the Amstrad 2200, two vertical panels joined by a rats nest of wires, I recall. I wonder if any survive - I was as guilty as anyone of canibalising these for the A56-540, which probably then went into a K30, or a TX10...
I must admit I did like the Amstrad CTV2200 for its excellent tube reliability but needed a lot of work dry joint wise to make them reliable, to change the on/off switch you needed to drill a hole in the back of the cabinet to get access to the screws for the switch .Dont have any 2200 s now but I do have an Amstrad CTV1409 I think it is 14 inch set .
Great set company i worked for at the time had hundreds of them on rental along with the thorn 3.5k, very easy to repair and excellent performance, just don't ever mention the G9....
I think that one is the MK1, I sold a few of Pye version in the early 1980's. Very reliable as I recall, apart from the 4.7 ohm 5 watt mains surge limiter resistor & the degauss positor.
A well designed set on the inside...not so sure about the outside. Always looked old fashioned compared to Thorns TX10 a similar aged set. Another interesting and entertaining video.
Nice video , the Philips k30 seemed to suffer more than the Pye k30 with failing tubes though both used the a56-540x .The KT3 chassis 16"/20" was out at same time as the G11 but as you said the G11 was replaced by the K30 remarkably reliable apart from the tubes. Yes I remember HRS ,Willow vale, Charles Hyde, Seme, Pinnacle even PHAB and others now all gone ,and CPC when they only sold Toshiba valves in orange boxes
Im glad I lived those days now , new stuff is just not made to be repaired any more, and if your lucky enough to fault find without a service manual manufactures don't supply spare parts anyway ,the correct procedure is just to replace the whole board which does not require any skill.
I have a nice Philips 20C937 set that's fitted with a K30 chassis (Or maybe it's a KT3?. It has a tripler instead of a split diode LOPT). It had an excellent image. I said had because sadly, it no longer turns on... When I power it on I hear the tube trying to turn on (even get sound from the speaker for about a second) but it immediately fails and it's stuck on a loop trying to turn on. A person I know who repairs TVs suspects it may be the focus unit (the rectangular box at 5:19 ) but so far I had no luck finding a spare for him to try...
K30 has split diode LOPT so you must have a KT3 , I would first disconnect the eht transformer to Tripler connection and then if the set comes on but with no picture its more likely your Tripler is faulty , if it turns out to be the Tripler damping the line stage and you cant find one have a look at my video how to make a Tripler .
@@michaeldranfield7140 Thank you for your reply! We'll try. Fortunately the triplers for this chassis are still easy to find (I'm able to source one - hope it will work!)
@@michaeldranfield7140 Yeah the Philips TVs were very popular here in County Durham as the tubes were made in a big factory nearby (we were the weirdos for having a Ferguson!), but unfortunately the unreliability in the early '80s kind of destroyed all the good will, even though Im not sure the affected ones were even built there. That said the late-' 70s Colourstar (think it was a Thorn 9600 variant) we had seemed to lunch its way through tubes as well!
nice beasts, i repaired quite a few of these and kt3s, and ctx, mostly dry joints 😉, poor connections on the module boards, degauss posistor, or for the kt3/k30 a 4.7ohm wirewound resistor on the psu input board
The Philips K30 and KT3 was the best ever Chassis ever made designed for Sevice Engineers .Philips also had Export Models sold under Pye Sierra range which were multi standard for World wide use PAL/ SECAM Models.Regret the System 4 TV Chassis came out and was one main PCB chassis after these Models the worst Model ever so complicated with so many features on Power supply protection that many were scrapped as Beyond economical repair ,this was the beginning of Philips demise regret, they made the Philips 2A Chassis and CP 90 and CP110 all designed on large PCB of poor quality did not last well , Philips worst years shame
