Stude Delco radios

[ivorydan]

Anyone familiar with folks who do a good job repairing the later Stude Delco all transistor radios?
Thanks. Dan

[StudeRich]

We have TWO right here on the SDC Forum!

RadioRoy: https://forum.studebakerdriversclub....p?423-RadioRoy

and Bud: https://forum.studebakerdriversclub....r.php?3995-Bud

[ivorydan]

Thanks Rich. Already tried Radio Roy. He doesn't work on them,

but I'll try Bud.

Dan

[StudeRich]

Ok it's Tube Type only for Roy then, sorry.

[RadioRoy]

Ok it's Tube Type only for Roy then, sorry.

It's non-printed circuit board type for me. I promised myself 50 years ago that I would not repair old printed circuit boards and have kept my promise. I don't repair the technology in the hybrid models either. The newest Studebaker radio in which I will repair the original technology is 1957.

AM/FM conversions can be done on almost any radio with an analog dial, as the old circuit boards are removed and replaced with new ones.

[RadioRoy]

Two folks have attempted to contact me via email and have not gotten through. I have asked Clark to look to see if my profile is not set up correctly. Sorry about that.

[gordr]

Roy, just out of curiosity, what is your main objection to the old printed circuits and the hybrid radios? Myself, the old PCB's tend to delaminate, but one could run pieces of fine wire to "sister" the traces and make it work, albeit with a lot of work. But the space-charge 12 volt tubes simply don't have the sensitivity of the older "real" tubes, and the typical germanium power transistors for the audio output have a short life, and are prone to distortion.

[RadioRoy]

Roy, just out of curiosity, what is your main objection to the old printed circuits and the hybrid radios? Myself, the old PCB's tend to delaminate, but one could run pieces of fine wire to "sister" the traces and make it work, albeit with a lot of work. But the space-charge 12 volt tubes simply don't have the sensitivity of the older "real" tubes, and the typical germanium power transistors for the audio output have a short life, and are prone to distortion.

Gord,

In the old days, I was fixing cheap television sets with the tube sockets attached directly to the printed circuit board (PCB). The heat from the tubes cooked the resin out of the PC board and the tube socket was hanging on the traces. That was a mess to fix.

Then, later in my career, when attempting to remove components from PC boards, I usually managed to overheat the board and tear up the traces, or release them from the board.

Plus, the hybrid radio sets with 12 volt plate tubes for the signal section and transistor outputs never seemed to have the oomph that they should, somehow.

So I guess my main objection was that I was never able to become competent at removing and replacing components on PC boards. As hard as I am on others who are incompetent, I am MUCH harder on myself.

Hard to imagine, I know.

[Bud]

I don't have a big problem with printed circuit boards, but you have to be really careful and use the proper solder extraction tools to remove the solder and not damage the board. The problems I am now seeing in the hybrid and solid state Studebaker Delco radios is failing capacitors and germanium transistors which require removing the PC board from the chassis to get at the parts which adds a bunch of extra time to replace bad components on the board raising the repair cost. Bud

[gordr]

I wonder if the the big germanium power transistor could be replaced by an IC "amp on a chip"?

[Bud]

I would think that the output and driver transistors could be replaced with an IC if someone wanted to take the time to find one compatible with the rest of the circuit. The original DS501, DS503 output transistors do fail, but I've found that the failure is usually caused by connecting speakers of the wrong impedance to them which makes them to draw too much current which overheats the transistor causing it to fail along with the emitter resistor. As long as the speaker impedance is kept in the 8 to 10 range there shouldn't be a problem. Bud