Saturday, March 31, 2018

Dismounting all mechanics

Today I worked the whole day with dismounting the record magazing and the Gripper machanism. The Gripper was almost impossible to remove as it was faulty engaged and it was stuck on its center shaft as the grease hard like glue.
But with my heat gun and WD40 I was able to "melt" the frozen grease so the outer green cogwheel came loose.

Mechanics are so dirty and rusty so I wounder if I ever will get this piece of crap to work....?


The Record Magazine needs a major cleaning/painting and the 30 tabs/springs on the outside of the magazine will not be so funny to refurbish.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Trying to get the amplifier to work

I started to connect the power supply to the amplifier and activated the two relays with to thin pieces of paper. To get some music I used my Iphone, and wired up the three speakers in the 1458 cabinet.
But silence was everything I could hear.

I got some help from my friend Göran who told me that the volume control also must be connected. The volume control with it's cable was found but unfortunate the potentiometer was broken, anyway I soldered it as a qiuck fix. I have to order a new one asap.
Great! Now I have sound but the base is very thin and there is an extreemly disturbing hum from the amplifier, not good at all!

So next step is to get the signal from old ceramic cartridge so I can have a similar setting as original.
As my turntable is in a really bad shape I borrowed an -66 turntable from my wife and connected it to the 1458.
The cartridge is a Ronette 105 crystal and to my suprise the sound was better then I expected it to be. The base tones was maby a bit on the low side but except from that the sound was great.


I thought the humming came from the PEC or near the first tube as the noice followed the volume control. But it was a bad grounding soldering under the new electrolyt set that caused the hum. As soon as I resoldered it the hum was gone.





Got the BADGE !!!!

Finely after three years searching everywhere for the grille Badge, I saw on facebook marketplace that  Michael  R in US parted out an RO 1...