Seeburg 147S trashcan

foose

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Donor 2015, 2024
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Hello all!

well, i went and got myself this little gem the other day...i have never worked on a jukebox before, but im very good with EM pinball machines so i figured id just go ahead and jump right in....obviously there is significant cosmetic damage, some of it i will be able to fix, some of it i will have to find parts for....the plastics in particular all need replaced and i just sent an email to a guy in germany who apparently has them....not sure how that one is going to pan out.

ive got a manual on the way, which will be a huge help, because right now not much seems to be functional. though many of the lights did come on when i plugged it in, and the speaker started to make an impressive humming noise, so im gathering that at least SOMETHING is going on in the amp tubes, which i take to be all positive signs. the machine came with no records inside it, which is fine, it shouldnt be tough to get some 45's to try it out once i start to get things to move again.

so i guess i dont have many questions right now, im basically just introducing myself, though i wonder if anyone has a source for parts for this machine? ebay seems to have quite a few things, but certainly not everything i anticipate needing. and until i get the manual, i guess my only other question is if theres anything i should definitely NOT start poking around inside of? as a guy who has restored several old motorcycles, pinballs, and arcade games, im all too familiar with what i call a "sproing" moment....where you remove some benign looking cover and a ten foot spring comes flying out across the shop....and id like to avoid that on this thing if at all possible. thanks in advance for your help! im sure ill be back on in a day or two with a pile of questions!

Brian Foose

oh, ps....that nice german fellow already got back to me....apparently i need to talk to denny or steve at victory glass inc. in iowa....doing that now...
 

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1. That plastic isn't cheap.
2. Rebuild the amp and selector before you plug it back in.
3. Those normally had 78RPM records and not 45's unless it's been converted.
 
so....this is awkward, but i guess i just literally dont know. and it should be a good indicator of where im at on the curve. and until i get that service manual i ordered for it, its not going to slope much i think. but that hasnt ever stopped me in the past, so by selector you mean the array of buttons on the top, right? and as far as rebuilding the amp, are there specific things i should go after? im assuming caps are number one, probably tubes next, after that i dont even know what. as far as the plastic, its definitely the last thing on the list. though i did shine up everything yesterday and it really did clean up pretty well...im getting pretty excited about it. thanks again for your help, you have to assume ill be back in two days with a pile of questions.
 
upon further inspection, it has to be 45's.....no way a 78 would fit, and theres actually a dust line in the matting on one of the disc things with a perfect line of a 45 on it. so i guess ill just chock that up to another mystery.... like this one....this picture is what i assume to be the motor housing for the thing that selects the discs, and in sharpie they wrote "will not play boxes" on it. any idea what they mean by that?
 

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so heres what ive got:

the "will not play boxes" thing i am assuming means that this juke will not play from remote selector boxes....and it wouldnt, its a 147S which means it never did....only the M and W models did, from what im reading.

i have acquired new tubes for both the selector and the master amp. new cap kits for both, and i am in the process of installing the caps in the master amp....the selection reciever will come next.

in this, ive come up with some issues, and its all a bit technical and specific....more than id like to launch into right here and now.

so if anyone has experience rebuilding these or similar amps, i have some questions.....youll find out theyre mostly stupid ones, but not stupid if youre just a novice which i am. so theres that.

thanks in advance if anyone can help....i will no doubt figure it out one way or another, but guidance is always appreciated.

Brian
 
Where did you buy the tubes? I just picked up a 148 and it's missing the tubes. I am getting the manuals soon and will be tearing into mine. Looking forward to seeing your progress!
 
victory glass has just about everything you need, though i got my tubes off of ebay.

im in the middle of installing the capacitor kits i got from victory glass, and the master amp went pretty well. i mean, i havent put power to it yet, but everything made logical sense when i put it in there, so im somewhat confident on my work there.

right now im slogging my way through the MSR1-L6 master selection reciever, and let me tell you its a pain in the butt. all you get with this one is a schematic, and its up to you to trace everything out and its just not obvious how theyre doing things sometimes.

take this photo for example....i believe i have identified this cap as C-6....which in the revised version of the MSR1-L6 is a lytic capacitor, meaning its polarized, and in the photo you can clearly see the positive and negative ends of the cap marked on the cap itself....so someone PLEASE correct me if im wrong, but doesnt the negative end go to ground? because this cap is not....the positive side terminates on terminal two of the tube socket above...terminal two is tied to terminal one, which is ground. so this cap is wired in backwards, if i understand everything correctly. WHAT!?!?!?! that means that this cap has been wired in backward for this jukes entire life?! because the cap just about has to be original...or if it was replaced, it has to be 50 years ago. and sure enough, if you take your meter from the positive side of the cap to the chassis frame, you get .3 ohms so thats definitely ground.

so my question to everyone out there is, firstly, am i nuts? secondly, when i go to put in my new cap, which is a lytic cap, do i put it in correctly or seemingly backwards as the original was? any hellp you guys can give is totally appreciated....it takes a village to raise a village idiot, after all.
 

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The cap is wired correctly IF it is filtering a negative voltage.
For example say the voltage is -50. The positive of the cap would go to ground and the negative would go to the -50v line. This puts the positive of the cap at a higher potential than the negative lead.
 
and thats exactly whats going on here! BRILLIANT! i guess thats what happens when you arent really paying attention to voltages as you go around identifying things! makes me wonder if i missed anything like that on the master amp.....id better go back and check, i know i put all those electrolytics in with negative to ground and now im questioning that logic.

you guys are the best! helpful as always! thanks a million!
 
heres a curiosity.....the manual i have refers to a "diode meter" which is used to tune the 3 RF filters on the selection receiver.....they *should* be tuned from the factory and not need adjustment, and lets be honest, I'm a long, long way from being able to tell if they even need adjusted. my question is much more basic: what in the heck is a diode meter? i have absolutely never heard of that before, and the manual really doesn't say much.....it says at some point you want to tune the RF filter so you get a reading of 300.....but it doesnt say 300 what...i mean, what units of measurement are we talking about here? 300 miles per hour? what is this thing measuring, exactly?!

like i said, I'm not going to fool with things i don't have any idea about, and i hope they're just fine and don't need any adjustment, but for my own educations sake, I'd like to know more about it.
 
for anyone who might want to rebuild their MSR1-L6, i believe i have identified all the caps in the picture below...this version is the revised version of the schematic, for what that is worth. i should say that im nearly sure this is right, but i could be wrong about some minor things, like c12 and 14 might be flip flopped technically, but theyre both the same sized caps and not polarity sensitive so it really doesnt matter. hopefully someone can find this diagram useful, as i found it to be a pain in the butt to trace out all this stuff the hard way. as discussed above, note the "reversed" polarity on c6; c9 and c7a/b are also lytic, but negative goes to ground (or to negative voltage, in the case of c7a/b) like normal.

GOOD LUCK!
 

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I have a trashcan I got a couple of years ago but haven't gotten into it yet. This will be a help when I do. Can't wait to see how yours turns out.
 
so i had some break through moments with the reciever yesterday, and suddenly everything fell together, and i got the old girl to run complete cycles ALL BY ITSELF!!!!!!

shes selecting the proper records, going through the cycle with almost no issues (theres this spring-pawl thing that disengages the transmission that doesnt travel as far as it should, so ive just been reaching in there and setting the lever manually for now)

the biggest issue left is the obvious one: no sound. not a hum, crackle, or pop.

the muting switch is operating correctly, and fuses are good in both the MSR and the MA, so ive basically narrowed it down to being possibly the pick up in the tone arm, or possibly ive messed something up in the MA....i have not looked at that yet but im moderately confident i did a good job there, so ive already ordered a new crystal, which comes with a needle so thats nice i guess. i also havent tested the volume control, though id expect to get SOMETHING out of the speaker, even on the lowest volume.

then i saw this while i was looking at the troubleshooting section for no sound....

"remove the grid clip from the 6J7 tube and touch it with the volume up. if you hear a humming or howling, the trouble is probably in the pick up circuit"

sooooo....do they seriously want me to touch this thing with my hand? i mean ill do it....ill just have to wait for some friends to come around so someone can tell the authorities how the electrocution occurred, but im pretty uneasy about the idea....according to the block diagram, the 6J7 is right after the pick up so i cant imagine there being a whole ton of voltage coming in, but still...pretty uneasy about that one....im just not well versed in tubes, and touching live circuits where there are potentially hundreds of volts seems like a really stupid idea, even if the manual says its ok. maybe they meant touch it with a screwdriver while wearing a 3 mil thick body condom?

tips, tricks, and thoughts appreciated as always. thanks guys.

any thoughts?
 
hi everyone, its been a while!

ive been mired in various other projects, but eventually came back to the seeburg master amplifier problem....ive tested all the passive electronics, theyre basically good....the three resistors on the treble control are a little high but not super far out of tolerance. i had been corresponding with a group of seeburg enthusiasts on a yahoo group and one of them said something odd, and im probably going to look like an idiot asking this but id like it if someone could clarify anyhow...

he was talking about how new plugs for your main line in, (the 120 VAC plug from the wall) are keyed so you cant put them in either way...its got the fat one and the skinny one and of course ground. and the old ones obviously werent keyed that way...heck, they didnt even have ground connections at that point. so he said to make sure i have it plugged in correctly.....and this is where im confused. it was my understanding that it shouldnt really matter...the current coming in is alternating current, so there is no polarity, right? you should be able to plug in the old plugs one way or the other and its the same either way, it still gets 120 AC.... or does it? like i said, this feels like a newb question, but this guy said it and now im questioning everything ive always held as true.
 
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