Phonoland

I was playing my Seeburg B for about 45 minutes while doing cosmetic work on the unit. I noticed that it wanted to replay the same record a few times. All of a sudden there was a loud "pop" and smoke drifted out from under the mech cover. I immediately cut power to the unit. The 3 amp fuse is blown in the WSR5-L6 Wired Receiver. Before I replace the fuse I would welcome any suggestions as to what the likely component(s) are that failed?

Best
Darrell

Hi Darrell,
Motor cap--motor ? Reversing switch--OR, if still there, the small cap across the motor terminals ( just eliminate this one -- should have been done years ago !) ? Ron Rich

Hi Ron

Blew the top off the .1 mfd 600 volt cap Is this due to age or is there another problem I need to hunt down?

Best
Darrell

ALL.......... ALL those old cylindrical capacitors need to be ripped out and replaced BEFORE any use of vintage equipment.
The "Bumblebees" are the worst - exploding into fragments.
The ceramic bodies types also leak DC and cook tubes.
Replacing with 630V mylars is smart to do.
And then there's out-of-tolerance resistors to contend with, naturally along with old crusty lube, ect.
It's never an easy job.

Humor me, I thought the small .1 mfd cap protected the reversing switch. Why should I not replace the old one with a new mylar cap? It seems to work fine without the .1mfd cap, so why was it there if not needed?

Best
Darrell

Some capacitors are used for "squelching" the sparking of relay or leaf / microswitch switch contacts when they open or close.
Of course this prevents premature failure of said contacts.
This has already been discussed elsewhere on this and other forums. (search feature is a handy thing)

MattTech wrote:Some capacitors are used for "squelching" the sparking of relay or leaf / microswitch switch contacts when they open or close.
Of course this prevents premature failure of said contacts.
This has already been discussed elsewhere on this and other forums. (search feature is a handy thing)

For record, these were used on older pins, as well, on flipper switches (+50v / +70v), to prevent sparking from pitting the switch pads. Never seen one blow like this before, but I would replace it, yeah.

Ron Rich wrote:Hi Darrell,
Motor cap--motor ? Reversing switch--OR, if still there, the small cap across the motor terminals ( just eliminate this one -- should have been done years ago !) ? Ron Rich

Ron

Why should I not replace the old one with a modern mylar cap to protect the reverse switch contacts from pitting?

Best
Darrell

Hi Darell,
You can if you like--however, Seeburg engineering determined that there was no value in this position, as long as the reversing switches were adjusted correctly. They discontinued them, advised that they should be removed on older mechs, and made mechanisms with out them, for about 40 more years--no problem-- I've removed "dozens" of them without having any problem---Ron Rich