This is my every day kitchen radio and it's been working fine since I repaired it a couple of years ago. Now it's started mucking up from time to time - but I can't get it to go wrong on the bench. Have I fixed it? You be the judge.
Those old "roundie" carbon resistors always seem to fail after being used for years and years. It is a physical thing with them as they usually don't change resistance unless they warm up ( and in this case crack). That is when they go intermittent. Best to change all the rounded end ones until the radio behaves properly. Not all resistors behave in this manner BTW. Glad you found this fault in yours since it could drive you crazy trying to find the bad component.
Fingers crossed you found the fault Don. I had a Kriesler which did a similar thing, the sound would fade off and come back when I touched anything with the meter probe, even scratching the antenna lead with a piece of metal would reset it. It turned out to be one of the super reliable mustard caps, I forget where it was in the circuit 🙂
Cheers David. It’s still working in the kitchen with no further sign of trouble (touch wood). There aren’t many original components left to change lol.
Nice job Don. Good spot on that cracked resistor. I like your pigtail method of attaching new caps - very neat, much better looking than J-hooking them and less stressful than completely unsoldering a tightly wrapped wire buried inside the chassis on a tag strip or tube base.
Cheers Terry. I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with Philips sets. Great electrical design and sound quality but the mechanical design can be a nightmare on some of them. I have another 2 Philips in the shed awaiting attention.
I have a 161B that's been on the bench for nearly a year, and it's been a nightmare! I got it cheap, because someone else had given up on it. So far, I've had about 8 intermittents, and counting. A carbon film resistor, almost every mica cap, and both I.F. transformers have been the culprits so far, and I'm still having trouble! I'm determined to fix it eventually, but it's been the most difficult radio I've ever tackled. Those mustard caps are not original, by the way. The radio would originally have used waxed paper caps in those positions.
Yes I think these mustard caps were used from the ‘70s or late ‘60s at the earliest. I think they’re usually pretty reliable, which I didn’t change them right away. Just work through yours bit by bit. You’ll get there in the end. I didn’t show it in the video but I also use a can of freeze to find intermittents. No good this time though as the set wouldn’t go wrong on the bench.
@@Donno308 The mustard caps were first used from around 1962 or so onwards, but paper caps were still being used until the early '70s. I've seen a Kriesler 11-81A made in 1972 that used them! Trouble is, I get tired of the thing and push it aside because I've got other projects to work on, but that just gives it more time to develop more faults. Only yesterday, the 6AN7 became intermittently noisy. I may have finally gotten on top of it now, as far as intermittents go, touch wood, but the gain is now well down. I suspect another I.F. transformer has lost its "Q", but I've run out of those Philips transformers.
@@hestheMaster One intermittent fault did turn out to be one of the original carbon composition resistors, discovered only when I noticed that I could rotate one of the leads in the resistor's body. I think that was the last carbon comp left in the set. I only left it in in the first place because, although reading a bit high, it was in a non-critical position in the circuit.
@@stuartirwin3779 I ran across a soldered joint where a resistor went through a soldered terminal joint but was not attached to the solder so I could move the lead in and out like a sewing needle! Reheating the joints may also be a possible fix in your case too!
@@Troupee-Lennon Hi Toupee. I checked out your channel and subscribed. I've always had a soft spot for cylinder phonographs. I haven't yet owned one but may do so in the future. Cheers
Excellent work, Don! Intermittent issues are always the toughest to find. But I must point out that “intermittent” is spelled incorrectly in the thumbnail. Or is that the commonwealth spelling? ;-)
Thanks Super Het! I probably wouldn't have seen it for a week! I could try to maintain that it's the "Commonwealth" spelling put I probably wouldn't get away with it for long. I fixed the thumbnail but unfortunately, fixing the spelling in the next 7 seconds of the video is another matter. I would have to pull down the video and upload another version, so when you click on the thumbnail, the spelling will revert to the "commonwealth" version lol.
Hi Don, have you tried measuring the mains? Over here it's often up around 248 volts. It's now supposed to be 230 v i.e. the European standard. They blame the high voltage on the Feed In from solar on peoples roofs. Pity the transformer doesn't have a 260 volt tap like some of them. Intermitent faults are always a pain in the backside. Nice radio, I'll have to lookout for one, I didn't realise they were Bakelite.
Hi. Yes, they came in brown or cream bakelite. Definitely not plastic. A nice little radio with surprisingly good sound quality. The mains over here are all over the place too. In peak periods it can drop below 230V and often goes over 240. Not much I we can do about it.
