Tonewheel general hospital

Just got a lot of parts to rehab the studio organ and 2 x Leslie’s. What a great bunch of folks and super nice.  Plus they have Dr. Drawbar who will answer any question you may have just because he can.  I have used them before,  and highly recommend them....

I am interested to hear of your journey with this. I have been offered, as a barter trade for my electrical services, a B3 and two Leslie 22 (?) speakers.  The organ is beat up and in questionable working condition, and the Leslies are missing rotors, drivers and other various parts. There are no interconnect cables and I have no way of knowing whether or not it is all simply a futile endeavor to try to restore them - don't even know if the organ will turn on.

well, over the weekend we recapped the ao28 preamp in the hammond  b3 chop and boy did it really sing afterwards.  night and day difference.  We also recapped the the leslie 147 which still needs a speaker recone. next will be the other leslie, a 122. Hammond's are well build..  Watch you don't break the legs off a b-3 when you move it. I have taken some that had frozen tone wheels and gave them life.  check out thse promo video.  I would  go for it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ygP1T4LqfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GfvaA02i0s

Oh and I found this page.... going to diy this circuit in the future...

http://www.uneeda-audio.com/leslie/

Balanced line level into a Leslie, yes please.

o.k. folks, here is an update. For starters as mentioned the tone wheel general folks are awesome.  They also are now doing virtual house doctor visits so if by chance you have an issue, you can arrange video calls from Skype and such. way cool...

So as mentioned we did the ao-28 preamp two weeks ago and we were all in awe with how good it was sounding. It has original tubes in it still and it got all new lytics.

This past weekend we did the 122 rebuilt. Every cap was checked and replaced. It started with all the lytics and boy did that really have it singing.  Then we checked all the others and replaced what was needed. their rebuild kit comes with resistors and diodes but those were all in great shape.  We replaced some caps across the  speed switching relays to eliminate the relay poping. The relay became quiet as a church mouse.  Again it was another moment of" woa, that sounds awesome. " Now the only thing left here is a redone on the speakers. At lower volumes they sound fine but when you really get the volume up, they start to do the voice coil rub and distortion thing.

Nice. I'm going today to go over the B3 in question, take some pictures of the guts and check serial numbers so I can make a decision.

Spiritworks said:

Nice. I'm going today to go over the B3 in question, take some pictures of the guts and check serial numbers so I can make a decision.

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Well when you go check it out, it's best to know how to turn them on. The tone wheel requires a start up. So what you do is plug it in, and hold down the start switch for about 10 seconds. You will hear the motors start to spin up. Next you will hold down the run switch while still holding down the start switch for about 3-4 seconds. Then you will release the switches.  the run should stay latched and the start will go back. Lastly it will take another 5-10 seconds for any audio to be produced as the tubes are heating up and such.
In your case you will not hear anything  as your organ will not be connected. it's o.k. to do that just to see the how the wheels move.  are they smooth, do they need oil? are they running to speed or are they running slow? all important things. 

As for the 122's I don't know if it will be less money to rebuild them vs buying some on eBay but best to investigate that.  Also a good idea, premade Leslie cables. They are a pain to make.

pucho812 said:

As for the 122's I don't know if it will be less money to rebuild them vs buying some on eBay but best to investigate that.  Also a good idea, premade Leslie cables. They are a pain to make.

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I have very good results with no leslie cable at all. I separated the amp input, power inlet and relay control for the speed. The relays are modded with an opto coupled solid state relay and a low voltage generated from the tube heaters. No more worries about electrical safety as with the old silly cables, you can use any cheap footswith available, you can use any signal availble without a preamp. Some Leslies have a crazy electronically balanced input with tubes, some are unbalanced. I don't remember which model is which, but it is easy to figure out once you know what you're looking for. I would not want a leslie cable in my environment, it seems rather unsafe with the 230V mains here.

Michael

Michael Tibes said:

I have very good results with no leslie cable at all. I separated the amp input, power inlet and relay control for the speed. The relays are modded with an opto coupled solid state relay and a low voltage generated from the tube heaters. No more worries about electrical safety as with the old silly cables, you can use any cheap footswith available, you can use any signal availble without a preamp. Some Leslies have a crazy electronically balanced input with tubes, some are unbalanced. I don't remember which model is which, but it is easy to figure out once you know what you're looking for. I would not want a leslie cable in my environment, it seems rather unsafe with the 230V mains here.

Michael

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that's great but you can't do that on all Leslie';s. Some like the 122 do DC switching  for the speed, others like the 147 do ac switching for the speed.

122 & 147 update, new woofers are in. big difference... using eminance delta 15-b 16ohm. so nice....

now I need to do the horns except  the mounting adapters didn't arrive yet...  soon.