The jukebox gods hate me... (Rowe MM-6 Rebuild)

That appears to be a"standard Ice Cube Relay". If so, any place that has those for sale, will also have the sockets for them. I suggest you purchase a socket to solder to----not that hard--transfer one wire, at a time-- Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:That appears to be a"standard Ice Cube Relay". If so, any place that has those for sale, will also have the sockets for them. I suggest you purchase a socket to solder to----not that hard--transfer one wire, at a time-- Ron Rich

That's going to be my plan, if I have to replace it. At the moment, I'm not 100% sure.

Plugged search unit back in, and the latching issue remained. (However, due to making adjustments, it runs a LOT smoother and quieter now, so that's a good thing!)

While testing it, I poked at the wires that extend from the small bottom edige connector (right next to relay) and go to the K1 relay (Number sprag latch) and the ice-cube relay. When I do that, the sprag relay released, and continued with the selection. Ah-ha I think! Disassemble search unit again, get to relay. Don't see any obvious cold-solder on the relay, but touch a few that look shifty.

Plug search unit back in - now it locks up 100% of the time. Touching the wires don't help at ALL. D'oh!

So, next step - check the relay itself. I take the plastic cover off, and manually press the relay closed, and voila! It works! So at this moment, while I'm waiting for dinner to cook, I'm tracing the schematics so that I know where to test to make sure: (1) The relay is getting voltage, and (2) if not, back-trace the feed to the relay. I already checked the leaf switch continuity on the sprag relay, so I know those are good.

I love this stuff.

Edit to add: If I do end up replacing the relay, and getting a socket, I'm going to have to figure out a way to mount it. Looked at the parts diagram, and yes - the later models had a relay plug, and the metal plate had a cut out for it. My metal search-unit plate has no cut out for the socket, so I'll need to find a presentable way to mount the socket/relay up there.

A down and dirty mounting procedure--use Velcro, on the plastic cover-- Ron Rich

Interesting things I found while scanning the schematics -
Some of my search unit's wire colors don't match the wiring diagram - likely because of the age of my search unit. This, in itself, isn't that big of an item.

However, on the selector harness edge connector, I have a red/blue wire going to position #2. ... My search unit has no connection there! The wire basically dead-ends there. The wire is connected to +30vdc via a leaf switch (R1) in the selector. It seems just to be a power feed that's not used

Ah, I love changes like this.

Ron Rich wrote:A down and dirty mounting procedure--use Velcro, on the plastic cover-- Ron Rich

Yeah, that's probably the cleanest way to take care of it. Thanks!

If you have ordered a standard "KH" relay I would just pop it into the original cube enclosure.

BTW: That IS an old search unit. The good point is the lack of belts.

Rob

Rob-NYC wrote:If you have ordered a standard "KH" relay I would just pop it into the original cube enclosure.
BTW: That IS an old search unit. The good point is the lack of belts.

I would do this - except that during my dissassembly this morning, the screw stud that is attached to a small metal plate riveted to the plastic case, sheared off. (I swear, I did not ever tighten the nut that much..!)

I went to measure voltage across the coil of the relay, and while I had the VM clamps attached, the issue never occurred.

Turns out the resistor (1.8k) wasn't cold-soldered, but the leads into the casing had deteriorated. Out of my pile of resistors, I found a replacement, soldered it in, and we're good!

So, next up (likely start on it later this evening) is the stop gear

On another note, I went to bed last night and forgot to turn the jukebox off. So it was on for about.. 10 hours. The amp did NOT explode - I was somewhat please about that.

Rob-NYC wrote:BTW: That IS an old search unit. The good point is the lack of belts.

That would explain why the search unit seems to be a little louder than I remember when a record is playing. It seems to work great once I tightened up the gears - however, it's evident that one of the idler gears is cut unevenly, as there's a very slight unevenness as the gears spin. Because of that, I had to loosen up the gears a little more than I wanted, otherwise it wouldn't run as smoothly.

Quick update -
Took the stop assembly out, and holy cr@p, it was filthy and covered in sprayed oil/grease. I'm honestly surprised the machine worked at all.

I actually put the whole unit into the supersonic cleaner, and had to change the mix/water afterwards. Then I adjusted it per the manual, and of course, some things didn't match up to the manual again. (However, what didn't match up was easy to figure out.)

Right now, the stop gear is back off, as I need to adjust the stop pawl on the magazine. I also got a replacement turntable in, and that will be going in this week. The current one - the one that WAS frozen - spins very easily now (oil loosened it back up). However, it runs slow - 42.5rpm - and the spindle on the current motor is uneven. So this replacement motor will go in.

After that above is done, two main things remain -
(1) Cleaning and adjusting the selector. Buttons don't always catch, and
(2) Transfer arm - it's horribly dirty and needs adjusting.

Cheers all -
Mike

Last night I cleaned the A/B selector and scan-stop assembly. This wasn't as bad as the stop switch assembly! These parts (stop switch assembly, selector, and the scan-stop assembly I'm leaving off, as the next step is getting to the transfer arm to clean it up.

The new turntable motor was installed. Interestingly, the replacement has no oil tube! Was this a later or earlier model, and does it not need to be oiled then? The motor works very well (it's still a *tad* slow - I counted 44rpm) and I like it a lot better. The speed bothers me a little, but there may be a few things I can do with that later.

some of those motors had two oil tubes, others had one, and still others had none--HOWEVER ALL of them need to be oiled on BOTH ends !
If no tube, there is usually at least one, very small hole, on the outside "end plates" for oil. Inside these plates, there is an oil wick---fill, re-fill, these oil holes several times, with 20 wt. motor oil, till the felt is saturated.
Is the turntable shaft oiled--is the shaft, and linkage, for the idler wheel oiled ? Is the idler wheel clean, as well as contact area, on the turntable ? Ron Rich

Ron Rich wrote:some of those motors had two oil tubes, others had one, and still others had none--HOWEVER ALL of them need to be oiled on BOTH ends !

Hah! Nope!
The motor's casing is *identical* to the one I took out, except for one difference -
On the one I took out, there's a small hole on the bottom, one corner away from where the wires come out. Out of this hole comes the oil wick tube, brass.
The one replacement? No hole in the corner. (And therefore, no oil wick tube..) The rest of the casing is identical. I oiled the top side of the spindle before putting it in - didn't think about the bottom. D'oh - I'll take it out tonight once I get home and get that oiled tonight.

I will also check the idler wheel and turntable spindle - they may need a drop of oil after I cleaned 'em. (And once I do, we'll see how it affects speed..!)

The motor works very well (it's still a *tad* slow - I counted 44rpm) and I like it a lot better.

Normally, these 1100-1200 changers run grotesquely fast. To slow them down The Gepettos stretch the spring on the idler so that it slips a bit. This is classic Gepetto work and it causes wow -especially when quarter has been placed on the tonearm because they were too stupid to set it up properly.

So check the spring and while at it pull the motor shaft up and down to force to oil into the bearings and straighten the bearing.

Rob

Hi Rob,
Himmmmm, very interesting---West coast "Gepettos", seem to cut, three or more turns off that spring ??
I do not recall ever seeing one stretched here--seen a "million" or so cut ! Ron Rich

Rob-NYC wrote:Normally, these 1100-1200 changers run grotesquely fast. To slow them down The Gepettos stretch the spring on the idler so that it slips a bit. This is classic Gepetto work and it causes wow -especially when quarter has been placed on the tonearm because they were too stupid to set it up properly.

So check the spring and while at it pull the motor shaft up and down to force to oil into the bearings and straighten the bearing.

Fast? Really? Huh! I'll be! My idler spring's not stretched, I got to see it a few times last night close-up.

I went ahead and took the (new) motor out again to look at it. Then, in my infinite stupidity, I took it and my 'old' motors apart:

The bottom panel on the 'new' motor did not have any room or holes drilled for the oil wick, while the 'old' one did. Since I had them this far apart, I went ahead and put the 'old' bottom on the 'new' motor. (I went ahead and oiled everything else in there while I was at it.) Interestingly, while this motor (originally) ran better than the old one, the spindle magnets were slightly rusted. (The 'old' one was not..!) So I cleaned that up.

Put the motor back in, and at first it ran MUCH slower - but after a full 45 being played, it sped back up to it's 44rpm. I was able to get it a little faster (unmeasured by my scientific means..!) by putting a single layer of electrical tape around the inside rim of the tunrtable for the idler wheel. I was pleased after that.

So last night, after attacking the motors, I jumped onto disassembling the transfer arm. This was amazingly difficult, and I'm not finished..

One gear on the transfer arm shaft has the tiniest hex set-screw, and I didn't have one small enough. The parts I DID remove, however, were cleaned and put in the sonic cleaner, and look fantastic now. There was an *incredible* about of gunk and grease on there, it was disgusting.

That "trick" of lining the platter with "tape" is SUCH a lame azzed fix, and people who do that should be horsewhipped.
Do the job right, or let a pro do it.

I'd had to scrape dried old duct tape off platter rims because of that practice, and cursed up a storm doing it.
It's not a "fix" - it's crap.