I have R9 as 100 ohms and R7 as 680K. Before I tried R9 with 10 ohms also... I will check reducing R7 value whether it helps...
Also I have tried removing Z2 and Base gets 11v.. but no luck.
In all aspects the circuit gets DC voltage only and no AC identified after C5.
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You are right. I get 8.2v across Z2 as I use 8v2 and 0.5v across Z1.
I tried adding 280K in parallel across R7 with no effect. To my view the transistor is good, I get ~500ohms across B-E and B-C. T1 and T2 behaves complete -ve and T3 and T4 complete +ve. The bulb glows perfectly between T1/T2 and T3/T4 and not between T3 and T4 which should happen while transistor switching.
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The components that are blown while the circuit is faulty are Z2 and the transistor.
After that I have replaced
Transistor - 13001 8AV
Z2 - 8v2
R5/R9 - 33 ohms
C4 - 220uf / 25v
Items that were checked by
R7 - 680k (added 280k in parallel)
Z1 - 1N4001 (unpinned 1N4001 and added 1N4148)
C5 - verified discharge happens (also tried adding new cap)
R6/R10/D3 - verified bulb is glowing at collector to emitter
Transformer - getting output when manually scratch collector and emitter with bulb.
Transistor - getting ~500ohms across B-E and B-C and tried replacing 2 times.
With all these actions tried already I am not sure what else remains