by Record-changer »
Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:38 am
I have repaired several. One version was the RCA AP-1
It was basically an RCA RP-190 mechanism with the drop mechanism inverted, with a 6-volt (or 12 volt) motor, and with a dynamically balanced arm. You pushed a stack of records upward under the dash onto the spindle. A spring-loaded ring pushed the records down onto the slicer-type record shelves. There was a turntable, but the records never touched it. The changer dropped the records after playing them. There were two padded rails under the changer the records dropped onto. The arm played the bottom surface of the records.
The controls were a speed switch for 16 and 45 (and center off - a power switch), and a spring centered automatic control. There were two directions the automatic control could be moved to, START and REJECT. REJECT caused the changer to drop the record and play the next one. START did the same thing, but did not drop the record. This was necessary to make the changer play the first record. You could also use START to restart play of the record already playing.
The changer stopped playing when there were no records left on the spindle. The arm raised above the spindle shelf when it did not contact a record, where a guide moved it outward. But you had to turn off the motor manually. A switch on the radio selected the phono instead of the radio.
Last edited by
Record-changer on Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:23 am, edited 1 time in total.