by GordoGibbo » Tue Mar 26, 2013 4:15 am
Thanks, Jon, for posting the pics, and to Mike for his insight. I am re-posting what he sent to me, privately, here, along with my response to him, which effectively puts where I am with this into perspective. I'd love, over time, to restore this baby and time, is what I have. There's no hurry. It's knowledge and expertise that I don't have, and I'm going to try and bring in as much guidance at this end as I can in order to facilitate, provided I can come up with the parts, a full restoration or as close to it as I can get.
Here's Mike's comments to me:
Hi Gordon!
Looking through the pics, I see you have a lot of line input modules, just the transformer, which would have been used with tape machines, cart machines, turntables which already had amplifiers installed, remote lines etc.
The AT242s likely are configured as the microphone pre-amplifiers but also could be the booster or program amps as it was a pretty useful universal type amplifier.
There are quite a few mods visible in the photos, the switch you mentioned, the turntable start and the door button plus some breadboards inside that definitely are NOT McCurdy parts.
If you can find one of the Daven pots, the missing one should be easy to replace.
Just get one with the same values as the ones already in the board.
These sometimes show up on Ebay.
At least the wiring still is intact for that channel.
McCurdy still has the instructions and schematics available for this board but they will charge you for them.
Just send them the model number and serial number of the board and they may even have the original configuration of amps and modules as it was delivered.
This, however, is no guarantee as to the board's current set up.
I've never had any luck finding any manuals or schematics for free on the net.
Some other modules appear to be missing as well.
If you get the manual, you will be able to figure out how this particular board is configured and if you need to find any more modules.
Despite what others may say, if this board has been powered down for some time and has been in storage, replacing the power supply filter caps should be done before you fire it up.
I'll try to answer any other questions you may have but I haven't seen or worked on one of these since the late '60s.
And here's my response:
Hi Mike, and thanks so much for the insight. I have what appears to be a photocopied version a complete instruction manual that McCurdy supplied to Queens at the time of purchase. A couple of the fold-out schematic pages are faded a bit, but there’s probably enough here for an engineer to figure out what’s what. As a non-tech it’s all Greek to me.
I recall your comment early on about re-capping. I have not looked at the power supply (I wouldn’t even know where to look for it), but some of the capacitors I have noted in spots throughout the board are noticeably dried out, and the pseudo-tech friend who helped me pick it up said the same thing – that all the capacitors should be replaced from the get-go.
I’m going to try to assemble some help at this end, over the course of the next few months or years, to try to bring this baby up to speed. As a non-tech, I don’t even want to try to mess with it as I will blow something up. When I was 17 there was an errant wire hanging down from behind the dash in my old Rambler, and rather than cut it I tried to connect it where I thought it should go. When I hit the ignition, smoke and cracking ensued. I wound up taping up the darn thing and just left it loose. I can imagine I could do serious harm to myself and this board without hands-on guidance.
And I don’t want to get frustrated, gut the thing and turn it into a bar fridge (although wouldn’t that be a novel idea…)
I guess my primary goal right now is to get someone here to dig into it for me, figure out what’s missing by looking at the schematics and see if we can get the parts, or work around them in some expert fashion. My old chief tech in Lindsay is selling real estate now, but he’s quite conversant with these boards too, so I might contact him.
It’s really great to connect with you Mike…too bad you’re not in Ontario…and I value your insight. If you have any other thoughts, fire away.
It would be so much better if I could do this task on my own, but I would have to take a few years of electrical engineering to do it, and even then lack the practical experience that would be so valuable for a project such as this. And that’s the main reason why I’m hesitant to get electrical engineering students involved, say, at the college level. This could be a class project for them, but I could just imagine what they would do to it in the process…
Gord