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Wollensak R2R Rides Again
I picked up this old Wollensak 1500SS reel-to-reel tape recorder at my local Habitat Re-store about a week and a half ago. Note on recorder said "Bad Motor." It was being discounted to only $7.50US, so I decided to give it a go. I like to see if I can get old stuff like this working again. Attached is a PDF repair manual I put together detailing the repair. Got it working like new again. Total parts cost: 59 US cents! That's less than a cup of coffee 20 years ago!
Before repair:
After repair, everything works good again:
Comments
Nice job! I would have bet the belts were done. Hopefully the write up will help someone out someday👍🏻
What's it's future plans?
Great save, Bill!!
I remember those from grade school. They must be built like tanks to survive a classroom of 8 year olds.
Thanks Eric & Tom. Future plan will be to put together a classic monaural HiFi system from the late 40's, 50's and 60's era. This era consisted of recordings that were mainly monophonic. Audiophiles of the day were "monophiles," not "stereophiles." The tipping point between mono and stereo occurred in about 1968, when the sale of stereo recordings exceeded monaural recordings for the very first time. By 1970, mono was pretty much dead. Many younger people today are putting together classic HiFi stereo systems from the 1970's to 1980's. But my plan will be to put together a classic 40s to 60's monoaural HiFi system. The Wollensak 1500SS tape recorder will serve as the HiFi mono front end.
The 807 tube amp that I got from Ken will serve as the integrated amplifier. This amp uses the classic Williamson push pull circuit that was popular in the late 1940's and early 1950's. With the big power and output transformers used, it should be able to produce a clean 25 watts of monophonic power. I currently have it on the bench for a complete rebuild operation.
I made a passive "stereo to mono" converter box. It consists of a small aluminum bud box, two 1k 1/4W resistors, and three RCA jacks. Most of my record collection is stereo, so I will need to mix down to mono. The Wollensak is a mono recorder using half-track record/playback heads.
When done, I took a picture of the inside of the box, printed it small, and then pasted it to the top of the box. I also made a small black label to go on the side.
Finished line level stereo to mono mixer:
Neat idea!
what is the screw with the negative wire for?
Case ground shielding. Looks like those RCA's are isolated from case. Bill did it the right way.
Ground loop prevention.
Craig and Eric got it right. Grounding and isolation. The three RCA jacks are isolated from the case with inner and outer nylon type insulating washers. One of the two nylon washers is a bushing type that centers the RCA jack by snapping into the three 1/4" diameter holes that I drilled into the case. The idea here is to force all the audio ground return electrons to flow ONLY in the black wire and not to allow the electrons to divide and flow through both the wire AND the case. Whenever you allow electrons to divide and take two paths to reach their destination, a ground loop can form. With this arrangement, the case only acts as an electrostatic shield against hum or RF pickup.
Thanks Billfor the explanation.