Rockola Troubleshooting

I have a Rockola 440 and I'm trying to diagnosis it. I bought it a few weeks ago and knew it had issue. In that time, I bought the manual from Victory Glass. Now to the issues.

I turn the power on. I press the key pad A5. It stays locked and doesn't do anything. When I turn the power off, the keypad is reset.

When I press the scan lever, the gripper mechanism moves a record to the turntable and stops. That's it. The tonearm never moves. No movement of the record magazine either.

I have never seen the write-in carriage or magazine rotate.

I can rotate the magazine and write-in carriage buy turning the motor manually.

Here's what I've done:
Taken all the motors out, degreased them and then either relubed. I then oiled or lubed all the places the manual recommends.

Replaced all fuses.

Any ideas on what coul be wrong?

Questions for you--Why, oh why, would you ever "change all fuses"--and what did you use ?
Did you check voltages ? When the keys are "locked down", did you check to see if the WI motor is getting power ?
Follow the TT motor schemo, and see what is "removing" power from the motor when the record is set down. Does moving the needle to the end of the record operate the "trip-off" function? Ron Rich

I'm at work on a break so bear with me.

>>Questions for you--Why, oh why, would you ever "change all fuses"--and what did you use ?

One of the fuses was blown. It was the mechanism fuse. I replaced it with a 1.5 slo-blo fuse even though the it says 1.6. I used slo-blo fuses for all of them. I replaced the credit fuse because it was missing. Two of the other fuses looked suspect to me so I replaced them. I had all but the 5 and 8 amp fuses.

>>Did you check voltages ? When the keys are "locked down", did you check to see if the WI motor is getting power ?

Not yet. When I get home I'll check them.

>>Does moving the needle to the end of the record operate the "trip-off" function?

The needle arm never moves to the record. It's locked in the rest position.

I don't know if I am understanding you ---I am assuming that the gripper lifts the record from the magazine to the turntable--Is that right ?--If so, how do you get the gripper (with record) back over the magazine ?
On the fuses--a smaller sized fuse is usually no problem--a sloblo fuse in a fastblo position is not a good idea---nor is a larger fuse ever to be used ! Ron Rich

Quick Question...

If the tone arm switch is bad, would that cause the magazine, write-in selector, and tonearm not to return? I noticed the tonarm switch was badly corroded. I messed with it a little bit and got the tone arm to move to the record. It doesn';t trigger the gripper to return to the magazine when I move the tone arm to the end of the record.

Is the Write-In motor DC or AC? With AC, on a 2 setting on my voltmeter, I was getting .472 v. When I would press a selection like B4, the voltage would not change. The voltage would spike when I would press scan or the credit switch.

>>---I am assuming that the gripper lifts the record from the magazine to the turntable--Is that right ?--

I put a record in the magazine since the magazine wouldn't rotate to get a record. I then hit the scan button and it gripped the record and put it on the turntable. That's where it stayed. Nothing would happen. Atleast not until I messed with the tone arm switch.

Okay...

I went into the Control Box and Manually tripped the Interlock Relay to allow the motor magazine to operate. I put the Control Box back and turned the power on. I then used the operate lever. The gripper started to move, but the tone arm was still in the way, so I gently moved it and the gripper return to the magazine and rotated. This is progress. I've never seen the magazine motor move since I bought it. It also proves the magazine is no longer gummed up. The scan still doesn't work.