Sams Schematics

[Faustina Bartsch]

Ouroriginal Quickfact manuals and Photofact manuals have been designed to provide reliable, consistent repair data for electronics repair technicians, antique electronics restorers, and hobbyist. SAMS Technical Publishing has been the gold standard in the repair industry for TVs, VCRs, Radios, etc. Why would you settle for anything less than the original? For those models and/or chassis not covered by SAMS Photofact manuals or Quickfact manuals, we have available OEM owners manuals and service manuals that can be ordered in both hard copy and electronic formats. Get started now by utilizing our newly enhanced search tool to locate your model and/or chassis.

SAMS Technical Publishing is located in Indianapolis, Indiana where we began our journey to becoming the world's largest provider of consumer electronics manuals. Founder Howard W. Sams saw an immediate need in the market for service technicians to have schematics and other service guidelines for products they were repairing, establishing an industry repair standard, which repair shops across the country have depended on for decades.

SAMS Technical Publishing continues that tradition today with the publication of new manuals every month, covering the latest in Televisions, including HDTV, Plasma and LCD monitors. Photofact is a flourishing brand that is more relevant now than it has ever been, helping the repair professional keep up with today's rapidly evolving and ever more complex technology. We believe that our new products as well as our extensive library of manuals are second to none and perfectly addresses the needs of professional repair shops, electronics enthusiasts, and do-it-yourselfers alike.

We thank you for visiting our website and trust that you will find what you are looking for! If we do not have repair data on the model you need, please use the request form and we will search our extensive list of suppliers and vendors to find you the information you are looking for.

To find and receive a given schematic was - and for many still is - quite a hassle when it is outside of for instance most Rider's. Much time and effort can be loosed and sometimes in vain. Often they cost also quite a substantial amount.

This was the reason why we made quite some financial efforts (mainly a 100% programmer since years) to organize the database in a way, that a given model page can be found easily - at least the ones we have created - in February 10, 2012 (now) it is 205 818 different models with 1 046 088 pictures incl. 466 900 printable schematic diagrams and 134 742 collector prices. Quite a number of members have made a big effort to get schematics, scan them, process and upload them to the model page. All together a model page is a dynamic and unique framework including direct links to the tubes involved etc.

In other words, the asset for a future of Radiomuseum.org (RMorg), without me paying all the time, lies not only in gathering together well organized data but also in the schematics, collector prices, pictures, articles etc.

We now get too many members which only want a schematic they can not find elsewhere - besides the hurdles built in to this process of getting a membership - and I have to offer a way that non members can buy schematics with a small payment. We want to keep a certain quality - for the benefit of all collectors and interested.

To find even more, we had created the "Schematic Finder" where one can see at least for the most used schematic collections some model information with date and availability of schematics - even if we have not yet uploaded. Thomas Albrecht keeps also a thread with other sources and suppliers of all sorts, also for schematics. You find there the biggest sites with schematics for free.

I collected all Rider's, Beitman's and SAMS Photofacts. But the Photofact sheets only up to the End of 1963 because we believe that from then on SAMS has copyrights in action. Unfortunately on the indexes of SAMS one can not find a date - and sometimes the date is of interest to date models. I therefore have at one time written down numbers and dates of Photofact sets to get this information roughly. What I have done yet, I list below.

Each set contains a number of schematic folders - each folder representing a model or many models with the same schematic. A photo of at least one of the cabinets is included (not always clear which one). Typically for a radio, a folder contains 4 to 6 pages, for TVs much more. One set, which is also an envelope, contains normally 10 to 20 different folders. Each set has its set number and as date a month and year. The numbering was different in 1946 and 1947, where the set number was not separated.

Depending on manufacturers delivery, the capacity at SAMS etc.,

the models could be from the same year - but also some years earlier!

The year indicates only when SAMS published.

It is interesting to see how SAMS got more and more to be the stronger source for schematics over the years and others had to give up. We do not offer schematics with copyright.

Members with SAMS from 1964 and later can legally only sell the original papers and should never upload here.

What we can do is to buy and scan/prepare schematics of this date from publications from the manufacturers or from original plans which went with the set etc. Offers for such material are welcome! You can use the bottom link "Contact" for such offers - to get the contact form.

But I would especially like to congratulate our member Dirk Taekels in Belgium for his extraordinarily strong cooperation. He has uploaded 186,341 circuit diagram pages, mostly SAMS, so far. That is an absolute record!

I gave him my originals in paper form. His scans are of excellent quality, and he actively looks for replacements where there are gaps. Unfortunately, there is still a very long way to go unless other members can be found who will help out - even if only sporadically. You can do this too as a free member.

For most recent as well as for older circuitry of radios and televisions we most often refer to SAMS Photofact. SAMS publishes repair manuals containing printed schematics and technical service data for different models and brand names covering a wide variety of consumer electronic equipment. A bound set of schematics for televisions, computers (computerfacts) and VCRs (VCRfacts) are available in the Library's Technical Reports and Standards Unit. Other titles / editions by Howard W. Sams & Co. can be found in the Library of Congress general collection. Users can find the Sams number by searching the Sams PHOTOFACT Repair Schematics website by brand names or model numbers to help identify and request schematics held in the Library.

SAMS Photofacts offers more than 200,000 schematics and wiring diagrams for TVs, radios, DVD players and VCRs. New manuals are published every month covering the latest in televisions, including HDTV, plasma and LCD monitors.

There were better options. Rider would grab data from all the consumer electronics they could find and they would publish all of it in huge volumes, sometimes a total of 2,000 pages a year. Many of these old volumes are available on the Internet.

Sams is still around and will still sell you their Photofacts, so they are harder to find online. However, there are some around if you look. You can also often buy used originals just like you buy a used book. Apparently, the copyright is out on a few of the older ones and there are third parties that will sell copies of those, too. You can sometimes find them at libraries, too.

These were akin to the car manuals people often buy for their vehicles. Most service shops would buy these up and save them in case a certain brand of set came in again or the same set needed service later.

Parts were probably easier to find, too. Now you have many proprietary chips and assemblies that are difficult to source and may not even be marked. Tubes, of course, were ubiquitous. For other parts, service shops often relied on distributors like ECG, which became NTE. They would take parts with wide applicability and package them. They also produced cross-reference books that would tell you what parts you could use to replace common consumer electronics parts.

RCA also provided a similar service with RCA SK transistors and Motorola had HEP as their brand name. Generally, these parts were very expensive compared to what a hobbyist might pay, but they were readily available and were known to fit, so they were often used in the service business. NTE is still around and you sometimes find a store with stock of ECG or SK parts, usually in hanging plastic bags or blister packages.

There is something appealing about repairing things instead of junking them. It should be good for the pocketbook and it is certainly good for the environment. However, the sad case today is that many things are made to be unrepairable. Even if there were parts and schematics, unless you can do it yourself like many of us can, paying someone to do the repair is probably infeasible. Times have changed. Unless, of course, you can find a Repair Caf.

No quite as old as you (just turned 60) but I worked in a CB & Car Stereo repair shop when I was in high school (I was the old kid in my electronics technology program to pass my 2d Class FCC license). Used Sams Photofacts quite a bit, but also learned how many electronics were repackaged under various names.

Yes, we had to solve problems creatively, with simple tools and simple components. A soldering iron, light bulbs, caps, resistors, a transformer, and some wire could create a lot of simple but cool circuits.

Today you can buy all those kinds of solution pre-packaged inside an IC, along with so much more. Those ICs have been tested, FCC certified, and optimized to the point where they can sip power off of a coin cell for a year or two. A device no bigger than a couple quarters can now locate your position on the planet to within centimeters, and for about $12 a company located on the other side of the planet will put one in your hands within a few days.

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