NSM Prestige II problem

Hi, I picked up a NSM Prestige II ES160. I live in Florida in the US.

The carriage is stuck in the middle of the record tray and the turntable continues to spin. There's a loud humming sound also. If I hit the reject button on the back the sound stops but the turntable keeps spinning. When I let go of the button the hum returns. Is there a way to reset these? It seems like its stuck trying to play a record. Theres no record on the turntable. I'm not sure if it was removed. I'm including a picture of what the machine looks like.

Also the front window that you lift up to access everything won't stay up on its own. Does anyone know where I can get new struts? The ones on it must be faulty. Its very difficult to hold the window up and do anything inside the machine.

Can anyone help? Thank you

Can't help with the mechanism problem--but you might check above in the "announcements section--where to find"---struts are listed !
Ron Rich

I just got done repairing this same type of machine, with a similar problem. there may be a problem with the grease in the mechanism turing into tar. you must make sure that the arm that delivers the record to the tuntable is back into the plastic carrier at the bottom of the mechanism. move the carrier to a section that has no records in it. there are 2 release arms on either side of the mechanism near the bottom. one has a red plastic locking arm that you must flip out of the way. then lift up slightly and toward you and it should come totaly out. i found mine had siezed on a shaft that runs lateraly in the back near the cam. it runs through one metal and two plastic parts, one of them works with the clutch that is similar to seeburg design. i was able to clean with laquer thinner and a q-tip. i reoiled with sewing machine oil. the nsm manual does not give you a breakdown of the parts so i cannot tell you what they are called, and i don't speak German either. it is a hit and miss kind of search. i found other areas that needed cleaning so i would guess that the 30 year old grease will gum up on most of these machines.
the other area to check is the ribbon cable connections. mine had been repaired before, by using jumpers to bypass the connector plug, so these may be a weak area.
these machines are a total blast! they have the visable mechanism with the lights that will pulse to the music with what nsm calls a color organ. it is adjustable for diferent effects as well. all in a package that all solid state and microprocessor controlled. (using the same family of chips that the origional Apple 2 used). hope this helps. Mark

Thanks for the help. I unhooked the two struts and opened up the front glass all the way so that makes it a lot easier. I pulled out the carrier. Theres a big black plastic gear part that runs horizontally across the inside. That part won't move at all. There's a smaller grey horizontal plastic gear piece above that one that moves easily. Could that big part be the problem?

the gear you are looking at is the clutch shaft. as i mentioned before it is similar to seeburg design. Do you have a manual? if not, getting one will let you see the exploded view of the clutch. they are not the best and cover several models and are printed in 3 languages, on the same pages, but are better than nothing.
the largest of the gears is the worm drive. you can turn it by rotating the carriage drive motor. take the lower plastic cover off the carriage. it is held on by one thumbscrew. then you can see it clearly from the tonearm side of the carriage. there are only two motors the other one is the turntable drive.
by turning the worm drive from the motor you should be able to rotate it easily. i use a set of picks that look like dental tools. they are strong enough to move stuff around without too much pressure to break somthing. if that happens you will be in a fix. i have looked around and there are very few parts out there. hope this helps. Mark

Hi,

I don't have a manual.

I took the plastic pieces off the carrier and tried turning the gears. They all seem to turn. The clutch shaft (big black part) moves slightly if I turn one of the other gears but doesn't move if I push on it directly.

Is the carriage drive motor the small motor below the turntable motor? It has a plastic housing covering it with 3 screws?

I took that plastic piece off but I don't know how many volts the motor is supposed to be getting. It reads 1.5 - 2.0 volts when I put my meter on it. Could this motor be bad?

the motor that drives the carriage has the worm drive on it. the turntable motor ride directly on the rubber "tyre" that is part of the turntable. as far as i can see the schematic for the carriage shows there are no output voltages or test points to check. the rating on the motors is "2 12 v= 42v" with a tolerance of 20% ed. You could try manualy turning the worm drive while engaging the clutch to watch the cam turn and make sure the record load sequence is smooth. it is selected by turning the carriage upside down. you will see where the clutch shaft comes out the bottom. there is a plastic bellcrank that pushes an even smaller plastic shaft up in side the clutch shaft. as far as the motor is concerned i dont know short of removing it, too see if it is bad. there is a circuit board under the plastic cradle that the record flipper sets in. the 2 ribbon cables connect to it. check to see that all parts on it look good. no bloated caps. cooked resistors. cold solder joints. hope this helps. Mark

I took a look at the pcb that controls the carriage. this pic has the bottom side of the main connectors. There was a lot of corrosion especially around the small black wire thats connecting to the middle behind the main connector. There's also tape and jumpers on a couple of parts. I don't know where to start with this.

Here's a full pic of the board

Well,
That's not "corrosion", it's simply flux, which looks bad, but causes no problems.
Sorry, I can't help further-- Ron Rich

from the pics i don't see anything obvious. the components on the flip side are what need to be checked out. look for any dark spots on the board near the resistors. capacitors should not look bloated, like a bad can of mushrooms. you can gently move the componants and see if any seem to move easily, that could mean cold solder joints. i would still check all mechanical parts and clean clean clean. i looked in the top part of the forum for where you can get parts and manuals. Victory glass has them. there are also several sites listed in Europe where nsm is more popular. also look on google under NSM prestige 2. i found places that specialize in nsm service.. also there is one now on ebay. the description notes a tech in Nashville. hope this helps. Mark