I started testing the SMC2 with the new Gen2 computer. I went through the limit switch adjustments per the Seeburg manual. The count is one off from the left side so I moved the ramp a little to the left and count is good. Picked and played several records. Did a slight trip adjust. Once a jukebox is basically working then it’s a matter of fine-tuning while finding new problems and correcting them. Getting a jukebox basically working is a happy time. Basic in this case means picking up a selected record, playing it and scanning as it should.

More small essential jobs on the SMC2. The sheet of 1/8″ black plastic came in from Amazon so I measured and cut a piece to install as a block-off plate for the DBV or Dollar Bill Validator. It looks sharp. I pulled that heavy monster and laid it aside. Back in the Williford Music days I used to refurb the DBV’s. My curiosity gets the better of me most of the time so I laid this one aside. When I have time (!) I will see if I can still refurb one and get it working. They’re relatively simple but do have a few critical adjustments.

The upper lid has a small square plastic SEEBURG logo down low with a metal cover holding it in place. I took that apart. I sandblasted the metal cover and painted it flat black. The plastic piece got all the old gook cleaned off. I put those back together and have another small part looking as good as it can.

I turned my attention to the lamp in the upper lid that lights the titlestrip panel. It wouldn’t work and I fizzled around with starters and old 14 inch lamps trying to get it to work. I had one new lamp left and put it in. Faster than I can tell the tale it went way bright for a split second then out. I knew instantly what happened and felt like a chump. The ballast is bad and blew the new $10 lamp. I learned about this blowing up hard to find 30 inch lamps. These are the small two wire ballasts. I have a bunch of used ones that I tested at one time. I was determined to see if I could find a way to tell if a ballast was bad rather than sacrifice new lamps. I had measured the voltage across the lamp holder at one point and had 120 vac. That seems normal enough and doesn’t really tell me anything. I ohmmed the two wires. Interestingly the bad ballast measured 35 ohms. The other original two wire ballast meassured 5.3K ohms!!! The used good ballasts all measured 24 ohms so perhaps I’m on to something here. This will be ongoing in that from now on I’ll ohm the ballasts first to try and see if these differences hold water so to speak. I replaced both two wire ballasts and went inside and ordered half a dozen 14T8 lamps on ebay.

I finished sorting and testing the volume control cables and motor assemblies from more that I found here and there. I have a Good pile and a Bad pile. The heads I’m still trying to figure out just how many I’ll use for newer 70’s remotes and the older MSRVC1 units I’ll be reproducing. These will go on the 100Selects. I have laid of that particular project so long that a couple people actually beat me to it and started offering replacement remote volume controls for the older jukeboxes.

I picked out a nice working volume control cable and motor for the SMC2. Coupled them and tested on the STD4. It works great so I installed it on the SMC2. Next I selected a nice “head”, the unit with the up/down volume switch and the reject button. I gutted it and cleaned the gray plastic til it couldn’t get cleaner. With the insides installed I added about 12 feet of new five conductor cable to it, installed terminals on the other end, ran it into the SMC2 and screwed the wires down. It works flawlessly. One more item off the list.

The new Gen2 MCU board arrived. It does not need the onboard voltage regulators or batteries used on the original MCUs so that stuff got stripped out of a nice case and the new board installed. I’ll run it tomorrow.