ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
So beguiled by Peters Beolab that when I spotted this on ebay I had to enter into a two day long haggle with the vendor.....he was a hard man but we reached an accord and the deal was struck (not as good a deal as I was hoping, but a fair price judging by the quality of Peters machine).
Vendor advised his father acquired this in 1970 and was the sole owner, naturally he had no speakers or means to test but felt there was every chance it was fully functional, the red power lamp glows when powered up, therefore was sold as spares or repair.....I cant resist a challenge. The front face text has all but worn away but cosmetically is doesn't look like it has been in the wars, screw heads look untouched.
Dragooned the variac back into service and slowly put some power to her....no runaway current or nasty smells (and the lamp started to glow) so pretty good so far.
Plugged in my Ipad and a couple of speakers, PHONO set to HIGH, and had a listen......mixed result. lots of snap, crackle and silences as I played with the volume slider and various front switches....but overall I think its all there, Powered down and took the top off.
Massive amounts of dust...….
Little wonder the switches and sliders are a little twitchy......
A good cleaning is in order before any work can be done
Some of the transistor cans have started to oxidise quite visibly..I suspect they will have to go
Jacques
I think Frede could possibly help with the front panel. He has arranged to get them etched rather than the original transfer type. I don't know if your ever saw his black Beolab 5000 system!
Peter
Here my new front panel from Frede, the sliders are the old ones, but Frede has with sliders too, recommended. There is a difference left to right in the pic because of light from a right side window,
Collecting Vintage B&O is not a hobby, its a lifestyle.
I have had some correspondence with Frede regarding refurbisnment of the front panels and it looks like he provides an excellent service, quite costly however...and should I run into difficulties that render the project terminal I would feel agrieved, so I will progress the restoration first and providing all goes well sort out the front panel cosmetics. I may even be able to pick up a complete unit with a decent front in the meantime for a similar cost.
Heres a curious thing, when I lifted the circuit board up (and this had never been lifted before, i'm quite sure) the corner fell off along with the retaining screw......as can be seen from this picture, left hand side corner, the same board on Peters machine has also suffered the same damage, it has bee epoxy glued back in place (Frede I would think) so I will repair it in the same way....theres a theme here....anyone else had this?
Here the cost and time table for my first one. Jacques both my units has the thump. Turn off speakers, volume in "0" turn on power, leave for 2 min, turn on speakers and volume, no thump
That's an impressive list Soren......and five months of your life, what better way to spend it! I was fortunate enough to be on a worksite today and charmed the Instrument technicians into letting me use a compressed air line in there workshop, looks a lot better with most of the compacted dead skin and mummified flies and spiders blown away...
Still a long way to go however...…..
Lifted the transformer out and using a wire wheel on my Dremel removed all the rust, will need to paint it before it goes back, thought perhaps silver Hamerite ?
I cleaned off more rust on mine, down to bare steel, grounded with an anti oxid grounder and then sprayed with light gray hammered (spray can)
soren
Most of the pictures on your thread have disappeared.....(Beolab 5000), is it possible to get them back up?......I will remove the transformer completely and get down to bare metal and do as you suggest with primer first 😉
will try o get them back up
There....will be a lot easier to deal with now its removed...
Ok.....down to bare metal, almost tempted to put it back like this ;¬)
And a coat of primer....
Whilst waiting for the primer to dry I have taken out the power supply smoothing caps, big old boys...new ones will be much smaller. Bit more room to work in now, the bottom panel will have to come out for a good clean too
These fellows turned out to be well out of spec....
Craig: These fellows turned out to be well out of spec....
They always are - and yet keep going! I replaced those on almost all my B&O (or Quad, Revox...) vintage gear and they are always bad-ish but keep doing what they were intended for.
Finished article.....looks better than when it was new ;¬)
When new it was just tinned. It could be done with tin paste I guess.
Yours looks like Søren’s !
Starting to look a little scary seeing everything scattered across my work table...good job I have Peters machine to hand in case I get lost!
Craig: Finished article.....looks better than when it was new ;¬)
Nearly better than mine
Craig: Starting to look a little scary seeing everything scattered across my work table...good job I have Peters machine to hand in case I get lost!
Working on the pics in my thread, will finish tomorrow, 3 hours today. Checking where missing, finding them in my PC, uploading to my files one by one, then in the thread posting in edit, which means click film strip, click Soren Mexico files, click this again, click BL 5000, click subfile, find pic, double click, check if right, and that for every friggin pic, its really a PIB
That's great Soren...appreciate you taking the time to do so, I don't suppose you kept a record of the transistor equivalents you purchased did you?
At the time I didn’t quite get why anyone would replace perfectly good semiconductors.
No funny noises, no hiss? Why change?
I’ve read the same thing about QUAD when I restored my 33/303/FM3. I left the transistors alone and it all sounds perfectly good and completely silent.
Here some remarks from Martin, I mostly used BC546-550B and BC546-560B and when no match there I vent here and got the closest i could get, used Mouser a lot, also for the caps, in my second one I used radial caps where I could and only axial where needed mostly Nichicon and panasonic.
Martin:
BC550A (low HFe range)BC550B (medium HFe range)BC550C (high HFe range)All other parameters are basically the same.
Regarding noise-levels:BC107, BC108, BC109 are in reverse order of noise-level. (They will also have the last A,B or C attached for HFe range identification).Same goes for BC546, BC547, BC548, BC549, BC550 - largely speaking.
SE8002 can be replaced by BC141BC109 can be replaced by BC550
When replacing the "vintage" transistor types, I like to use HFe range B transistors.Using C's instead will not necessarily improve anything.
Here a list for caps, but check the ones in yours first, there are differences one unit to the other
1
Pcs
Here one order from Mouser
Soren
Thank you for the info...I realise this has probably increased your time spent on your Beolab thread by another man week ;¬)
I have cleaned and wire brushed all the debri from the base plate.
Coat of primer.....
And finally a coat of Matt black to finish, spent a bit of time on miscellaneous brackets and clamps.