Find of the week

[BrianB]

Dirty ole' Pinbank! The contact plate contacts should be shiny silver not sooty black!

[BrianB]

More of the nasty Pinbank:

[BryanH]

Holy crap  '> how hard is it to fix those things.  With all the chatter here, I've realized that I've had a long time latent need to have one of these machines... but the sight of the mechanics and especially the old electrical parts in this thread has me wondering if buying one would be a good idea.

How much electrical experience is required to make heads or tails out of these things?

[coke_and_stuff]

I have hardly any electrical experience, with the two in my garage its been a nightmare!!!!


Joey

[David D]

Brian,

Thanks for the information and photo's, I'll send you a note if I have additional questions.  Just cleaned the pin bank tonight, took a bit of patience to put it back together '> .   The contacts were really dirty, so hopefully this will resove the selection issue.   I still need to re-cap and then test and hope this machine comes back to life.

Many thanks-
David

[BrianB]

No problem, David. I'm more than happy to answer any questions that I can.

Bryan, to answer your question, it helps a LOT to have a basic working knowledge of electricity and troubleshooting techniques. Some folks are all self taught with no formal schooling and you'd never be able to tell the difference between them and a professionally trained technician.

There are books available online that deal specifically with basic electronics and electricity. If you can suffer through the reading (it's dry to me!) you can stand to learn a lot. Or, there are some hobbyist books out there that have a really good primer and basic intro to troubleshooting and understanding electrical theory. I picked up an Antique Radio repair book at Borders and three quarters of it is theory and troubleshooting for the layman, really handy and reall well layed out.

At least on a jukebox, the most complicated portion electrically is the amp's, selection reciever, pinbank and selection mech. All of the other wiring in the 40's and 50's boxes are all general power, kinda like a soda pop machine. If you need to replace a cord or a switch, replace it wire for wire. That way you can get exact lengths and you also know exactly where each wire goes.

The great thing about jukeboxes is there are a ton of books/videos that almost completely remove the need for any advanced troubleshooting/electonics knowledge. Like I said before, it's really helpfull, but not always necessary.

[BryanH]

Well you never know until you try... so next step is determine what I should be looking for. If anyone has any recommendations please post in this thread.

[bcharlton]

Brian and Duchon:

What is the best way to clean the pinbanks.  Vern Tinsdale told my to take engine cleaner and spray in down then take windex and spray it down and then hose it off with water.  Any other ideas?

BrianC

[David D]

Brian C

I totally disassembled the pin bank and then cleaned the contacts with contact cleaner from radio shack and some very fine grit paper for the real dirty areas.   The contact section of the pin bank was easy to clean, the section with pins was difficult to re-assemble.   A little trick I used on the pin side was to place a wooden dowel between the two banks of pins to hold them in place while putting the covers back into place.  

Not sure about spraying this part down with water, with all of the electrical components and moving parts in the pin bank I wouldn’t think water would be a good mix.  But maybe it’s ok if you set it dry for a couple weeks…

Thanks,
David

[BrianB]

When it comes to the selection mech itself, using engine degreaser and a pressure washer is ok. You just need to make sure that you de-solder and reomve the mech motor and use plastic sandwich bags to cover up and exposed solenoids. After you get done rinsing the mech, you should used compressed air to remove any residual water. The most critical thing is making sure that RIGHT AFTER you get done drying it, you have to oil/lube the mech! If you don't, it will rust right before your eyes. If your juke didn't come with a lubrication chart, you need to get one. Another reason to get a manual for your juke.

When it comes to Pinbank. DO NOT USE WATER! the pinbank should be removed from the record rack and the contact blocks and the 100 individual contacts should be cleaned using TARNX or any other silver cleaner. If you've never done this before I HIGHLY recommend using a book or an instructional video.

If you remove the pinbank from the record rack and you don't use a scribe to mark the EXACT location/mounting position of the pinbank in relation to the record rack, you are setting yourself up for failure. The alignment between the two has to be dead on for the mech to work correctly.

To keep the actual pins steady and in their correct location during cleaning, I used the Mike Zucarro method. He takes a business card and folds it in half length wise and sticks it in the end between the pins prior to removing the contact blocks. This keeps the pins seperated and prevents them from falling out or becoming misaligned during the cleaning process. I took it one step further and took an old manila folder and cut a long strip that was the same dimensions of a business card only longer and used that. Instead of having to use multiple cards and having to worry about one getting stuck I just used one long strip and that took care of it no fuss, no muss.