Philips IC 2000

The Philips company in the Nederland have always been somewhat of innovators in modern electronics. This radio is designed to fool you into thinking it's a Philishaver, another one of it's ahead of the time products. Where this leaves the competition behind is that it was one of the first portable radios to use the new technology of the day, the integrated circuit or I/C. Two were employed inside here plus a couple of transistors too (see circuit), but the real break through was in fitting of a re-chargeable battery. This was 1966 remember, 50 years back!!!

Sadly as with all battery's they will die in the end, and in the case of this Philips IC 2000, it spilled out all it's corrosive fluids onto 20% of the printed circuit board and with time dissolved the copper completely.  To rectify this I ran single strands (about the thickness of a hair) of copper wire along the routes of the old print and even one bridge using a length of solder that many purists will frown upon, but sometimes the life skills gained in my working days for speed are still useful and as I would say to the boss, "It will always act as fuse wire in the event of a short."  The residue of print was removed with zinc wire brush and amberlube.
The thing about this radio that is not immediately obvious is that the round speaker is actually the whole radio, and these two photographs show it attached to it's charging cradle, cleaver eh?  The volume control is almost invisible until you twist it into the on/volume position and the tuning dial is at 10pm position.  Opening the disc shaped cabinet took me quite a while to figure out, it's sort of spring clipped with screws hiding under the logo fascia cover. Almost James Bond type construction here. The battery was constructed of 3 x 1.2 volt rechargeable cells, making a total of 3.6 volt. Still available and almost the same size for a few UK pounds. Around 4 capacitors needed replacing too as the acid had dissolved most of their wiring too.

Philips IC 2000 radio circuit diagram

The other nice things about this radio are; the black leather (beautifully made) carrying case & strap (Doubles-up as mains cable holder when in box,) and it's spring loaded, metal felt lined carrying case. This is the main reason the unit has survived almost mint looking after 50 years. Sadly the instruction book and cardboard box was missing, but miracles don't happen that often these days. I paid £18 + postage for it being faulty, hopefully it has gained some more value and extra life span now.

Even the ferrite aerial coil is made curved to fit-in

Many hours went into repairing the radio and anyone with a short temper is not advised to touch repairs like this one. Chances are if you see one for sale it will have the same problems as this one, so be prepared, use a small iron and high powered glasses to look at what you are doing. Another piece of good advise is to take plenty of photographs as you are dismantling, and if you need to see how it was before, just look at earlier snaps. If one wire on the component side is bent out of place, it wont go back together again, don't fit larger components than you found in it.