Problem with Rockola 460 "Selection Now Playing" lights.

I'm having some issues with the Selection Now Playing lamps on my Rockola 460.

There are two lamp assemblies (Part 47191-A p.25 of the Parts Cat.) and each of them displays a set of numbers:

1 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Normally when a selection such as "192" is made the following lamps light up: (In Bold Red)

1 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The left set of lamps light up just fine when selecting a record. The right side seems to have an intermittent problem if anything between 1-5 is selected but it seems to be most common if the last digit is "2." For example if I press 192, lamps for 1 and 9 light up fine but the 2 doesn't. Instead I get a dimly lit 2 and 5. (See attached photos.)





My Troubleshooting:

• The Selection Now Playing lamps for my Rockola 460 are all good. (#53)
• I've swapped the Lite PCB Assemblies (Part number 47191-A) and the symptoms are the same.
• I've re-seated the cable that connects to the PCB Riv. Assembly (Part number 46359-1A p.25 of the Parts Catalog.) to the Selection Now Playing lamps.
• I tried to clean the contacts where that connector connects to the assembly but I had some difficulty due to its poor location. Could this be my issue? Or a weak connector?
• Scratched my head.

Hi
The usual problem with this is a bad connection between the plugs and the edge connecters at the lamp board and wiper assembly, or could be that the PC lite board wipers are out of adjustment and also check transistor Q1, diodes and fuse-should be located just beside the tone arm
clones

Well, I mayn't have expounded on the previous post about swapping the contacts on the two sets of light assemblies but the behavior simply switched from one side to the other when I switched them. So I can reasonbly assume that it's not the lamp connectors.

Yesterday I took the front door completely off and got in there and cleaned the contacts at the other end of that cable... the end that connects to the wiper assembly. No change.

So do I need to adjust the screw on the side of the wiper? That seems to be completely counter-intuitive. I could use any advice in adjusting it to make my "2" light up properly.

Does the service manual give you an idea of how to do this?

FIXED

After consulting page 63 of the Service Manual and also page 41... specifically the section marked "Selection Indicator Lite Adjustment" I finally stumbled on the cause. It was in fact the connector that connects to the P.C. Lite board on the outside left side of the record carriage. While I was fiddling with the adjustment screw to attempt to get the lites working, I jiggled the cable to see if it was still connected properly. It wasn't an adjustment problem at all. When I applied a little pressure to one side of the connector the lamps began operating properly. I pulled the connector and examined it one more time.

The connector had bowed outward... like a canoe.

I took a paint stick, snapped it in two, a pliers and my heat gun. 5 minutes later I had heated up the connector enough to make it somewhat malleable--I was careful not to melt it. I sandwiched the connector between the two pieces of paint-stick I previously mentioned and clamped down hard with the pliers in the middle. I then used a can of air to slowly cool the connector. After it was sufficiently cooled, I Snapped it back in place, and voila! My Selection Now Playing lites function as designed.

Thanks for this posting--curious ? Was this a "black plastic" long (10 or more pins) connector ?
Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:Thanks for this posting--curious ? Was this a "black plastic" long (10 or more pins) connector ?
Ron Rich

It sure was.

Just as I thunked--them thar black plastic AM-P plugs were famous for having that problem---(if you look carefully at the plug, I think you will see tiny "spits" at one, or more of the corners)
Seeburg started using them in the USC-2 production run(1972)-- I changed "thousands" of them to white Molex brand plugs, as the AM-P brand faild in a very short amount of time---Gotta cut out each wire and re-pin it--I had sore hands for weeks !
Ron Rich

That's good to know. I think the only reason it hadn't been a problem before is because the main trunk of wire it was attached to was zip-tied to something else providing the necessary pressure to maintain contact. Once I rewired the machine to put in my new switch and clean things up--that's when the connection was likely loosened to produce this problem.