RCA Victor RE-154

[metalmoto]

Hi Everyone, I thought I would post some pictures of my RE-154 since it seems to be a rare model. And hopefully someone can help me start restoring it.

[celticguitar666]

Interesting Cabinet! I have a RE45 radiola and it looks like it has the same guts: phonograph and radio/ The cabinet looks in good shape maybe just a good cleaning? The electronics usually need to gone through replacing capacitors, realigning the radio. and having the magnetic pickup rebuilt and the magnet recharged. Then it will sing. George Epple is the man for the pickup rebuild [email protected] He rebuilt mine and wow it sounds great also look at the surround on the speaker to see if that needs to be replaced mine was fine. The fidelity of these machines is fantastic! I play my 78's on it all the time acoustic and electric except for the really late ones. This is a pic of what mine looks like from the web mine is in the same condidtion
Enjoy!
Dwight

[ChuckA]

The RE154 is a rare piece, they were put together from leftover 9-54 cabinets and the Victor Micro-Synchronous radios. RCA also did the same with the RE156 which was made from leftover 9-56 cabinets, using the same electronics. You won't have any problems finding electronic parts for it as they were used in R-32, & R-52 radios and RE45 & RE75 radio/phonographs.

The radio is pretty much bullet proof, the main weakness is the large wirewound voltage divider resistor in the amplifier that will most likely be open. The speaker cone is made of a canvas like material and other than one that somebody poked holes in it, are never ratty. They are OK sounding units for the limited bandwidth they were designed as, upper limit drops off at around 5KHz, low end down to around 100Hz.

The RAE68 was another re-badged Victor, built using leftover 10-69 cabinets, and used the magazine changer used in all the RAE machines of 1930/31.

You'll have more problems finding the original albums for it, as they weren't well made and most have fallen apart.


Nice find

Chuck

[Victrola-Monkey]

Hey Metalmoto,

I just aquired on eBay a very nice but not operational RE-154. Sorry to those few others that put up a good fight for it. To me, it's worth double from what I paid.

Perhaps after getting it home in a couple weeks, we could compare serial numbers. This my most rare VTMC machine and I feel very lucky to own it.

Enjoy yours...

[OrthoSean]

Ahhh, so now we know who bought the one in the Pittsburgh area! Congrats! It looked like a nice one.

Sean

[FloridaClay]

Congrats. Should be a nice unit when restored.

I am finding it harder and harder to find a competent radio repairman here in my area. Have a Radiola 28 in my VV 9-15 that has been sitting awaiting a lot of work for a couple of years now.

Clay

[metalmoto]

I purchased this radio about 20 years ago. But didn't attempt to restore it. Because I was fairly new to the hobby back then. And there was no internet to research these things. Since then, my radio collection grew to over 100 radios at one point. I learned to repair/restore many of them. Unfortunately I ran into financial problems when my spouse fell sick, and she died about a year later.
I lost interest in my radios, and sold 90% of them, except for my favorites. One of which was the RE-154. I regret selling my collection of radios, but if you can imagine living in a one bedroom apartment with 100 radios, it was a total mess.
Anyway, I have since re-married, and moved into a much larger house, and now have the time and space to restore what radios I have left.

From what I remember, from the early preliminary tests of the 154. I've found that the engineers actually installed a fuse holder in the main chassis. The previous owner, evidently installed a 20 amp fuse, trying to make his radio play again. I found a completely overheated and black tar leaking power transformer. Obviously with open secondaries. Some open sections in the large green tapped power resistor(as somebody already mentioned) and an open field coil in the speaker. Does anyone know of somebody that can repair, rebuild, rewind the open field coil of this speaker? I found one person, but he doesn't believe he can rebuild it. I know there is a way around it. But I was hoping to keep it as original as possible.
Several years ago I was lucky to find and original exact replacement for the power transformer. It was expensive, still in the original box from the 1930's.
Other that the large green tapped power resistor, which should be easily repaired/replaced with a few modern resistors. I should be on my way to hearing it play once again. Oh, my turntable motor is still working, but I imagine the cartridge has to be rebuilt. It actually came with a another, a little different, possibly a replacement or reproduction. As the stamping (his master's voice logo) and the paint are slightly different.

Any help or advice would be gladly appreciated. And I will gladly help anyone and contribute to this community as much as I can.
I will update my progress as time permits me.

Thank you all in advance.

[Uncle Vanya]

Why go to all of the trouble of rewinding burnt components? The Victor Micro-Synchronous Radio was one of the best selling product lines of 1929. Parts are easily available. The SPU/amplifier and radio chassis in your rare RE-154 are shared with those in some of the most common of the 1929 models, including the Victor R-32 (188,000 produced) the Victor R-52 (35,000 produced, and those have delicate legs which are prone to amputation), and the Victor RE-45 (106,000 produced),

[Phototone]

Burnt out power transformers and field coils speak to shorted capacitors in the power supply. Those will have to be replaced also.

[metalmoto]

Burnt out power transformers and field coils speak to shorted capacitors in the power supply. Those will have to be replaced also.

I read somewhere, that there are none or very few electrolytic caps in this radio. Otherwise, all or most of the caps are contained inside of large metal boxes or "cans". If you even seen a picture of the chassis, you will understand what I mean. The schematics I've found are blurry are hard to read, even when enlarged. A burned or melted transformer could also be from a shorted rectifier tube. The chassis is in two parts, connected by two jones plugs. I have yet to tackle this. It will take some time to check everything with an ohmmeter. I'm sure to find some shorts. The power transformer alone has about 10-15 connectors as I remember. It will take me some time to isolate the problem with this radio.
If anyone has a clear, better resolution schematic, I be happy to have a copy.
Thanks for everyone's help on this.