HARD RUBBISH FINDS

I'm a bit of a sucker for free stuff on the side of the road.
99% of the time I resist the temptation and besides most of the time my wife is sitting next to me shaking her head saying Noooooooooooooooooooooo
But this time I was let loose on my own and come across this beautiful MIDWEST radio, apart from a few dings it's in pretty good shape.How could I leave it
As I was once a collector of these doesn't necessarily mean I understood the electrics of them, "a basic understanding"
The wiring to the plug is unusual as it appears to have a separate earth coming out of the back to the 3 pinned plug.
Maybe Adrian with all his wisdom may have seen this before, if not I'll be joining a radio forum to find out.


cheers    moredeep

Nice find if you can get it going.
Some of these early radios had a separate earth connection going to the antenna cct.

Thanks for that Adrian, I'll give it a whirl and put a whole new lead on it.
The old cord is hard and brittle, connecting the ground lead to the [earth pin] shouldn't be an issue.
I'm guessing here and in America during the early days of electricity many electrical items had a separate earth/ground lead or none at all
Some bright spark obviously come up with the idea of incorporating the separate earth into the plug, which is where the 3 pin plug evolved from?

cheers moredeep

I'm thinking the cooper braid wire is the earth ,but to be doubly sure I'll connect both to earth pin for starters.


cheers moredeep

The earth pin of the power plug should connect to the chassis. The screen around the earth wire possibly connects to the antenna cct and be separate from the chassis. Connect an ohm meter to the screen and see if it is not connected directly to the frame. May be some resistance but not a complete short cct.
I am only guessing a bit here. Also BEFORE YOU PLUG HER IN  check that there is not a complete short across the power plug active and neutral when you turn the power switch on....When you plug her in .Be ready to switch off fast if you hear a bang or fizzing sounds or smell smoke.  

Good luck.

So far so good, copper braid was connected to the frame inside the unit so I made that go to the earth pin.
No bangs or pops, no capacitor fizzed, dial light comes on.
One valve appeared to be dead although it still get very hot.
I'll go through my collection of valves and hopefully will have one.
Thanks again for the advice and I didn't kill myself


cheers moredeep

Midwest had a habit of bunging more valves in their radios than what was actually required, Some lit up but did nothing. Just so they could advertise it as a 10 valve set or even 16 valve set.That cct diagram is fairly typical. Anyhoo if you need any tubes let me know and I will see what I have here...Got a few. Checked them all a couple of years ago and most are still good.

sounds like advertising hasn't changed one little bit
Thanks for the valve offer, I might take you up on that if I cannot find one.
How does one post a valve? A ton of bubble wrap may see it survive an Australian post journey


cheers moredeep

Happy freaking new year, I took the dog's for a early morning walk and on the way in the car I spotted this. The house it came from was sold some weeks back, and this was on the roadside.
Basically a brand new hardly used 150amp welder works like a charm.
I've only got a MIG and this will be a good back up for heavier stuff.
That's a way to start anew year



cheers moredeep

Hmmmmmm! Have you got a out of hours hobby yez have not told us about.?

I was once an arty farty many moons ago and did sculptural iron work but found out there is no money in it
So I got a real job and got a hobby that paid in gold
My old arc welder died many years ago and I had been looking out for another one and hey presto it appeared



cheers moredeep

I used to do house calls to repair radio's back in the days of valve radio.
Most were too large to fit in my little work shop. The type with a record player and multi band radio in a big wooded console that was part of the owners house furniture. Now I fix up one now and again that I have picked on the cheap at a flea market. The speaker systems and console of these old sets were tuned to match each other and produced far better sound quality than what we listen to today.

They certainly do have a beautiful honey tone sound.
As I haven't seen this before can you please tell what the little globe does? does it act like a fuse?? it's has 3.5v on the side.



cheers   moredeep

The large tube looks like  a duo diode rectifier. Used in an AC radio power supply to create direct current & voltage.
Is it 4 pin or two pin? Has it got a number still visible on the glass or possibly on the base?
 
The small globe could serve a number of purposes so am unsure of what that particular globe is used for and is also something I never encountered mounted in such a position.
Some of these old radios had a "Station Call Light" that was bright when between stations and would dim when a station was tuned in

The 3.5v is likely the filament voltage.

Thanks for that Adrian ,it's a 4 pinned 5z3 valve, I may have a 5y3 here somewhere to try out in the mean time??
I'll hunt around for a small globe and try it out,
Station dial light is working ok.
On one of the schematics diagrams I've got it refers to a small globe as being a pilot light, not sure what that does?
I'll keep plugging away at it.


cheers moredeep

The 5Z3 uses the same base and pin out as the type 80 tube, so it is
actually possible to put a 5Z3 in a type 80 socket. Normally this should
be avoided though, the 5Z3 uses a 3amp heater whereas a type 80 tube uses
a 2amp heater. Putting a 5Z3 in a 5Y3 circuit will likely cause the power
transformer to overheat and fail.

Am not so sure that the 5Y3 will work well in place of the high power 5Z3. I cannot remember if the base connections are the same.
I guess make sure that the Plates don't start glowing.

Pilot lights generally just illuminate something like the tuning dial and it was not uncommon to find 5 + pilot lights of some colour, often red, lighting up the dial.

No worries ,I'll try and source a valve which is similar.
Thanks a lot for the advice,it's much appreciated



cheers moredeep