Old video of GEC UK manufacturing 405 line TVs - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Fleetz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2019, 10:19:07 pm
content: This maybe of interest to us “olds” here on the forum. A You Tube Video from 1960 of how GEC in Conventry UK manufactured their 405 line black and white TV.I would think it was quite advanced for the time.https://youtu.be/uGzu7vpowHYHope some find it of interest.....

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2019, 05:09:02 pm
content: Those thin legs on the 405 line sets always were a problem as the sets were too easy to knock over. Fortunately when I did it I was able to catch the falling set and lower it gently to the floor (where I broke off all the tuning buttons).As for the factory itself I was surprised how dark it was, nothing like a modern production line which would be brightly lit. Working in a place like that would make me lose my love of electronics very quickly, faced with an endless parade of faulty TV sets all of which probably had one of a dozen or so faults. I wonder how many of the folk in the picture are still alive today?Fast forward to the early 1980's and I'm at the Sony factory in deepest Wales doing a service call. I walked past the point where they did the final reliability check on the completed TVs and there were three women beating the crap out of each set with rubber mallets as it rolled down the production line. That was when Sony were good.

author: Retep
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2019, 06:28:38 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on December 29, 2019, 05:09:02 pmProbably the factory was brighter to the human eye than it appeared on film. I noticed also with other other documentaries about factories from this era and before that the indoor shots often appear to be extremely dark, which I assume can at least partly explained by the poor sensitivity of film of those days.QuoteConsidering that it was shot about 60 years ago people in their twenties back then would now be in their eighties, I expect not that many to be around anymore.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2019, 06:36:31 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on December 29, 2019, 05:09:02 pmThin legs were the in thing in the late 50s and 60s in Europe, often with rather flimsy mounting to the table, TV or whatever they were attached to.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2019, 02:10:09 am
content: Fit Birds.. You wont see that on a line now..Steve

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2019, 10:48:47 am
content: I wonder when the factory closed?Some might say it's a shame all those jobs went, but I doubt most English people would so such repetitive jobs any more. Nowadays eastern European workers are recruited to do the menial jobs people here don't want to do and is why Brexit has already had a negative impact on some businesses.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2019, 01:51:18 pm
content: Can't remember if I said it once before on this Forum?? (sorry)...An even older than me, mate, years ago, was a supervisor in a TV manufacturing place, backaround the same era here in Australia. They started getting failures at regular intervals.They traced these failures, (to do with the HV deflection coils, I think), to serial numbers beingworked on by specific women, at specific times. It seems that they were not using gloves then,and when they were on their 'period', the acidity of their hands was much greater, resulting ina final break down of the windings!!

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2019, 04:00:29 pm
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on December 31, 2019, 01:51:18 pmIf you have a large production area with toilets directly accessed from that area, you'll often find higher failures in the things which were worked on near the toilets. You can get enough urine vapour in the air to affect soldering, crimping and other connection making.