Picked up a free USC1 Musical Bandshell - now to make it work...

Bullwinkle

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Picked up a free USC1 Musical Bandshell - now to make it work...

My brother asked me to stop at a friend's place to look at a pinball machine and once I had fixed that, the guy offered a free USC1 (cosmetically in very nice shape..inside looks good but has issues). Will be ordering the manuals from Tony Miller as I have a mechanism issue (doesn't scan) and a Black/Gray box issue, but hopefully it'll be up and running soon.

Just one question I guess to start with. On the back of the mechanism, there was a blown 1/2amp slowblow fuse (the fuse had leads but was a standard 1 1/4" x 1/4"). I replaced it with a fuse holder and a snap in new 1/2A slowblow fuse. The new fuse didnt blow, but it still doesnt scan. Any ideas what might have popped that fuse and any ideas on what I can check while waiting for my books?

I can enter a number for a selection (except for anything with a #1 as that button seems to be fubar), and it seems to accept it as there is a click at the relay in the top when I enter the 3rd digit, but then nothing happens.

Thanks in advance for any info. I'm extremely excited to get this thing going :)
 

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The late Tony Miller passed away in April of last year. His website has been running on autopilot and will be soon disappearing.

You can order his books from www.victoryglass.com or www.alwaysjukin.com

Oh snap. Thanks for the heads up, Ken. I'm sure it states that somewhere on KLOV but I missed it. I'm sure he is missed as he seemed to have a wealth of knowledge regarding Seeburg products.... that's what I get for reading an old post :/
 
I ordered my manuals from Victory Glass and was VERY pleased. All were bound and printed on heavy paper with a plastic cover. I hope you get it working, I am going to look at a USC2 firestar. w00t!
 
I ordered my manuals from Victory Glass and was VERY pleased. All were bound and printed on heavy paper with a plastic cover. I hope you get it working, I am going to look at a USC2 firestar. w00t!

I ordered mine from AlwaysJukin..so we'll see. As far as the USC1 vs USC2...I wonder how much different the two are mechanically. By the looks of it, it's mostly a cosmetic difference. Good luck with your potential find.
 
As far as scanning goes, can you get the mech to scan manually? When I moved my STD3 ( a little newer) I unloaded it and it would not scan. I pressed the detent lever and it started to scan. I had the same symptoms, press the 3 buttons, get a click, but nothing would happen. After I pressed the detent lever, all was better. Hope that helps. This USC2 I am looking at is said to have the same issue as yours. Hopefully nothing major. Keep us posted.
 
The mech seems locked in position. When I select a record or push the scan switch, there is a click, but nothing else. After a closer look, it appears that there is nothing going on down by the motor so when I select or attempt to scan, the motor doesn't make any noise and appears as though it is not getting any signal to do anything.

Will wait for the books to arrive. I'm not sure where the Detent lever is, but it is mentioned in the manual and I'll check into that. Thanks.
 
USC 1&2 are good looking,great sounding juke boxes!!! Def worth fixing up.
 
I need to order Tony Miller's books, but can not seem to locate them on either VG or Alwaysjukin's website. Does anyone have the part numbers for the black, grey, microlog and SHP amp books for either of those site?
 
As far as scanning goes, can you get the mech to scan manually? When I moved my STD3 ( a little newer) I unloaded it and it would not scan. I pressed the detent lever and it started to scan. I had the same symptoms, press the 3 buttons, get a click, but nothing would happen. After I pressed the detent lever, all was better.

I have what seems like the exact same problem on my STD3 and it happened after a move. Can you post a picture, or a description, of the "detent lever" you mentioned? I know nothing about Jukes. I plan to work on this (will need to purchase the manuals) but I have soooo many "project" vids and pins already that an easy fix would be a miracle.
 
The late Tony Miller passed away in April of last year. His website has been running on autopilot and will be soon disappearing.

You can order his books from www.victoryglass.com or www.alwaysjukin.com

I sure hope that his site ends up being archived or mirrored at some point. I'd hate to see all of that information gone :(
I checked in archive.org, and the last archived version they have is from back in 2006...
 
I don't think Tony Miller's wife Laurie is interested in maintaining the website. It will probably just expire and all that valuable information will be lost.
 
Alejandromad: I will try to take a picture today and post it for you.

Anyone else: I have web space that is already paid for with unlimited bandwidth. I could host/mirror Tony's site if there was interest. Would be happy to "give something back" to the juke community. Any ideas how I would contact Tony's wife to get the current files? Or should I just download all of it from the site?
 
Will get you your pic when I get to work tomorrow. Too busy today. I will accept your tempest cab as trade for the picture :)

Naw... I couldn't do that. I feel guilty of scamming you... sending you such a terribly boring and ugly game in exchange for such a critical piece of information. ;-)
 
If the motor doesn't turn on that is where you need to start.. does it spin by hand? you should be able to just spin the shaft, which will move the mech manually if the clutch is engaged. if it moves freely then you have a bad motor (probably rare) or an electrical issue.

I don't know the exact terminology used in the service manuals since I don't have any, but the clutch lever is just to the left of the solenoid --it has two positions you can set manually if necessary: up is play and down is scan. The motor is always connected to the turntable, and it will spin whenever the motor runs. The clutch engages the drive gear for scanning.

For those that want to save Miller's site: there are lots of tools out there that will back up a site for you. For those that use Firefox, grab the 'Scrapbook' add-on, and you can archive the entire site with a couple clicks.
 
If the motor doesn't turn on that is where you need to start.. does it spin by hand? you should be able to just spin the shaft, which will move the mech manually if the clutch is engaged. if it moves freely then you have a bad motor (probably rare) or an electrical issue.

I don't know the exact terminology used in the service manuals since I don't have any, but the clutch lever is just to the left of the solenoid --it has two positions you can set manually if necessary: up is play and down is scan. The motor is always connected to the turntable, and it will spin whenever the motor runs. The clutch engages the drive gear for scanning.

Thanks for the Info Pat9000. I know the exact lever you are referring to next to the solenoid. So, If I'm hearing you correctly, if I were to place that lever in the up position (play), I should be able to spin the turntable without the mech moving, however if I place it in the down position, the mech should travel by spinning the turntable?

In either case, I can't rotate the turntable which makes me wonder if the motor has seized (unless I'm not understanding what you said). My repair manuals "should" be here today. So hopefully I can make some progress. Wonder if these motors are available if I need to acquire one.
 
In either case, I can't rotate the turntable which makes me wonder if the motor has seized (unless I'm not understanding what you said). My repair manuals "should" be here today. So hopefully I can make some progress. Wonder if these motors are available if I need to acquire one.

On all the Seeburg Mechs I have (USC1, USC2, STD4), you can't turn the turntable itself. I'm not sure if it's a result of the gearing or what, but you have to actually turn the shaft connected to the motor. I mistakenly thought the motor or gears on my first mech were seized also, until I turned the shaft of the motor, and then everything moved smooth as butter.
 
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