Bought a 1985 Zenith BT044S -- Bravo Tango Zero Four Four Sierra -- off eBay, back in late May... had to set it aside because IRL Drama
just had a chance to power it on aaaaand...
Yep, magic smoke
listing said "TV powers on and has sound". Well! I certainly made a sound when I saw the smoke coming out of the vent... I don't think that counts, though. /sigh
I only powered it off the external barrel jack. I don't have the four "C" cells it requires to run it on battery power, and although I've a 6v lantern battery I've not got alligator (int'l: crocodile clip) leads, and I'm not about to put 2/3 of an amp at 6vDC through a couple wire twists 'round the battery springs!
Alas, although I see which component has failed, and I can describe it well -- I can find no schematics, nor can I properly identify the component itself. It is marked Q502, and is a four-pin part. It looks like an early SOT223 style package. It has two markings, one at either end, each two characters long -- "GP" at one end, "56" at the other. I can verify that there is no component in that spot on the other side, and that there is a scorch mark on the other side as well as on the "X-Radiation Warning" paper on the inside of the lid (!!).
My smartphone is at a repair shop until tomorrow (Wednesday) sometime, having taken a momentary sojourn into the indoor birdbath wearing the wrong color bikini (lol) -- the first time I've ever managed that, and I've had a cell phone of my own since the early 2000s :-/ but I managed to dig up an old Nikon S70 digital camera which hopefully has sufficient picture quality to help here. The photo it produced is attached.
Can anyone identify this component? Even better, can anyone suggest a modern replacement?