I want to sell the SMC2 decked out with a remote volume control as well as a working wallbox. To that end I gathered up all the volume control cables, motors, gearboxes and pieces which made a considerable pile. These are for the 70’s boxes. have been gathering them for awhile with the idea of one day offering ready to install and use remote volume control sets. They are so handy. Seeburg put the on-box volume control in an awkward to reach place on most of their jukeboxes and the reject is usually in tandem with it. I use a remote volume control on the test juke. So much easier to deal with. Especially when testing black/gray boxes as I’ll make about a dozen selections at a time to check read out then reject. I’d go mad if I had to reach behind the box everytime I wanted to reject a record. The lid is usually down covering the service switches of which Reject is one. It makes a good bench.
I used the working remote on the STD4 to start testing the stuff in the pile to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s pretty straightforward but tedious as most testing is. I separated all volume control cables and tested them cleaning the dual pots with spray cleaner as I went. I had one bad pot and another cable assembly that had several wires just messed up. Cut, pulled. Dunno what someone was trying to accomplish with that one. I’ll rewire it if the pots are good. The rest of the units, once tested good, were placed in the sun to warm up. That gray plastic wire shield Seeburg uses almost seems to come from the factory with sticky crap already installed on the outside. Once warmed I’ll soak a rag with Oil Eater mixed with Mean Green and a wipe or two gets the sticky off easily.
The motor boards and gear boxes are a little more involved. I run the motor IN leads from the test juke to the board under test and then try it. If it doesn’t work I can switch the Motor Out leads to the motor under test. If the motor turns I have a bad board. I actually came up with only a couple bad boards. They are super easy to repair. For now everything not working just gets tossed into the Bad pile. Several motors did not work when this last test was done. Two screws and the motor is out and I’d try it again. About a half dozen that I initially thought had bad motors have a bad or should I say at this point non-working gearbox. I’m hoping when I get around to opening those up that the problem will be dried up grease keeping the very small motor from spinning up.
95 in the shade. Time to go inside. I tore down three each black and gray boxes to test and repair. The cases get put in a small tub to sit in the sun and soak in water for several days. This makes removal of old tape and stickers a lot easier. I try to clean the cases as well as possible. While they’re soaking I’ll inspect all the boards for anything obvious. I’ve found cracked corners on the lower circuit board, which are actually repairable, components so badly blown it shows, and many solder cracks around the interconnect pins. I’ll re-assemble these boards without the case and start testing in the STD4. Then it’s back to the bench for any repairs and tested again. Once case are done and I have good boards everything gets re-installed and tested once more. When they pass on go the security stickers and then they go into stock. The black boxes are a constant listing on ebay. The gray boxes are hard to come by. I sell them usually when someone asks about them. I snatch them up whenever I can find them reasonably priced. Thank you Mark K.
My Seeburg Life 