Post by Matt on May 3, 2019 16:44:42 GMT
Good afternoon, addicts!
This is my second post, and I'd like to mention what I've worked on (a labor of either love or insanity - I'm not sure which) the last year. Some of you from some of the various Fakebook groups might have seen this, and others might not.
First of all, I'd like to preface this with what I was faced with...
My wife and I had been wanting a jukebox for a little while, since we have well in excess of 1,000 45's that I inherited from my brother. I found what I thought might be a good "foot-in-the-door" Seeburg DS-100 from a fellow not but an hour or so to the left of us in the central part of North Carolina. Now, Larry is a great guy, has some very nice boxes (that it appears he's trying to sell off as of late), and perhaps he even visits this site from time to time, but had I been a little less eager, I might not have gone the route that I took had I known how bad off this machine was. Or at least would have talked him down to $50 instead of $100... just to make me feel a bit better about things.
In essence, this thing was a basket case wrapped in a freshly (kinda) restored wooden box. The wife and I went one rainy evening to retrieve it, and then brought it home. What I found after inspecting it in the garage was that the mech was locked almost solid. There was a fair amount of rust on some parts, a lot of goo on others, and quite literally nothing would move. It's as if it was lubed with glue. I set out to disassemble the mech, and removed the whole thing from the frame. I soaked it in a bucked filled with a citrus-based degreaser for a couple of days, and rinsed. After working some penetrating oil into all of the good bits, there was signs of motion. I decided to totally strip it all down as far as it could go, and ended up with a workbench full of various linkages, cams, followers, solenoids, contacts, motors, and what not. At least everything was all there, but I realized it would take some time to restore to my standards. After painstakingly sandblasting that which needed sandblasting, painting that which needed painting, and lubricating that which needed some lube, I was able to get the mech, selector switches, tormat, and all of those other miscellaneous parts that live above the top section cabinet divider board working properly and more or less clean, painted, and freely moving.
Long story longer, in the meantime, I realized that none of the electronics would be suitable - what little there was. There was the 33-1/3RPM (solid state) converter, a TSU-7 without the power transformer (it was a donor for one of Larry's boxes I guess?), and that's pretty much it. At least the phono cartridge was there, even though I realized I'd have to shell out $125+ on a set of stylii.
So the search was on for a power transformer to rebuild the TSU. No dice. Unobtanium. At least I could find a used TSU-7 on Ebay for $250+ without the vacuum tubes, guaranteed to be a TSU-7, but not guaranteed to actually have anything that was usable. No thanks. Time to go a different route and put some of my electronics and microcontroller knowledge to work.
I ended up prototyping and finalizing a decent solution. What I made is what I dubbed a, "TSU-8". It's a custom programmed Arduino microcontroller and all supporting circuitry to replace all of the control devices which used to run the credit and selection circuitry (sans the 33-1/3 RPM functions). It interfaces with the stock tormat unit, requiring only one simple modification which would be easy to change back to stock - the bypassing of a resistor inside the tormat. It retains all other functions and adds others which cost people money, such as free play mode and select latch solenoid timeout. Then I designed and sent off to have a custom manufactured circuit board made.
For the amplifier I ended up (for now) using an old compact Radio Shack stereo I had in the garage. It sounds good enough, but not excellent. I guess since it's missing the dog ears, it's hard to tell what sounds good and doesn't anyway. I have some Minimus 7 speakers I plan on slapping up there sometime, but haven't got a round tuit yet. :\
I continue to keep an eye out at hamfests and sales sites for a decently priced tube amp to utilize in this jukebox... one day I'll find it.
This project has really been a labor of love. I've taken basically a parts box and given it new life. I've also come up with a way that we can continue to enjoy these units when the inevitable day comes that all of the TSUs are gone and can no longer be repaired.
As for the future, in the meantime we stumbled across a DS160 for even less than we paid for the 100 which actually has all of it's parts, sans a couple of tubes in the SHFA 5. We've been letting it air out in the garage, and I plan on attacking it sometime this year. It will be nice to have an all-original DS and a "computerized" DS. I'll have to decide which to keep, or maybe we'll just have an "upstairs" jukebox and a "downstairs" jukebox
Anyway, if you are still reading, I'm sorry! LOL
Thanks, all! I'm looking forward to learning and also to helping as much as possible.
This is my second post, and I'd like to mention what I've worked on (a labor of either love or insanity - I'm not sure which) the last year. Some of you from some of the various Fakebook groups might have seen this, and others might not.
First of all, I'd like to preface this with what I was faced with...
My wife and I had been wanting a jukebox for a little while, since we have well in excess of 1,000 45's that I inherited from my brother. I found what I thought might be a good "foot-in-the-door" Seeburg DS-100 from a fellow not but an hour or so to the left of us in the central part of North Carolina. Now, Larry is a great guy, has some very nice boxes (that it appears he's trying to sell off as of late), and perhaps he even visits this site from time to time, but had I been a little less eager, I might not have gone the route that I took had I known how bad off this machine was. Or at least would have talked him down to $50 instead of $100... just to make me feel a bit better about things.
In essence, this thing was a basket case wrapped in a freshly (kinda) restored wooden box. The wife and I went one rainy evening to retrieve it, and then brought it home. What I found after inspecting it in the garage was that the mech was locked almost solid. There was a fair amount of rust on some parts, a lot of goo on others, and quite literally nothing would move. It's as if it was lubed with glue. I set out to disassemble the mech, and removed the whole thing from the frame. I soaked it in a bucked filled with a citrus-based degreaser for a couple of days, and rinsed. After working some penetrating oil into all of the good bits, there was signs of motion. I decided to totally strip it all down as far as it could go, and ended up with a workbench full of various linkages, cams, followers, solenoids, contacts, motors, and what not. At least everything was all there, but I realized it would take some time to restore to my standards. After painstakingly sandblasting that which needed sandblasting, painting that which needed painting, and lubricating that which needed some lube, I was able to get the mech, selector switches, tormat, and all of those other miscellaneous parts that live above the top section cabinet divider board working properly and more or less clean, painted, and freely moving.
Long story longer, in the meantime, I realized that none of the electronics would be suitable - what little there was. There was the 33-1/3RPM (solid state) converter, a TSU-7 without the power transformer (it was a donor for one of Larry's boxes I guess?), and that's pretty much it. At least the phono cartridge was there, even though I realized I'd have to shell out $125+ on a set of stylii.
So the search was on for a power transformer to rebuild the TSU. No dice. Unobtanium. At least I could find a used TSU-7 on Ebay for $250+ without the vacuum tubes, guaranteed to be a TSU-7, but not guaranteed to actually have anything that was usable. No thanks. Time to go a different route and put some of my electronics and microcontroller knowledge to work.
I ended up prototyping and finalizing a decent solution. What I made is what I dubbed a, "TSU-8". It's a custom programmed Arduino microcontroller and all supporting circuitry to replace all of the control devices which used to run the credit and selection circuitry (sans the 33-1/3 RPM functions). It interfaces with the stock tormat unit, requiring only one simple modification which would be easy to change back to stock - the bypassing of a resistor inside the tormat. It retains all other functions and adds others which cost people money, such as free play mode and select latch solenoid timeout. Then I designed and sent off to have a custom manufactured circuit board made.
For the amplifier I ended up (for now) using an old compact Radio Shack stereo I had in the garage. It sounds good enough, but not excellent. I guess since it's missing the dog ears, it's hard to tell what sounds good and doesn't anyway. I have some Minimus 7 speakers I plan on slapping up there sometime, but haven't got a round tuit yet. :\
I continue to keep an eye out at hamfests and sales sites for a decently priced tube amp to utilize in this jukebox... one day I'll find it.
This project has really been a labor of love. I've taken basically a parts box and given it new life. I've also come up with a way that we can continue to enjoy these units when the inevitable day comes that all of the TSUs are gone and can no longer be repaired.
As for the future, in the meantime we stumbled across a DS160 for even less than we paid for the 100 which actually has all of it's parts, sans a couple of tubes in the SHFA 5. We've been letting it air out in the garage, and I plan on attacking it sometime this year. It will be nice to have an all-original DS and a "computerized" DS. I'll have to decide which to keep, or maybe we'll just have an "upstairs" jukebox and a "downstairs" jukebox
Anyway, if you are still reading, I'm sorry! LOL
Thanks, all! I'm looking forward to learning and also to helping as much as possible.
