Mr Pudding

I am champing at the bit, but David from Norwich Organs has forbidden me from diving in with a knife and fork. Removal of components shall be done at a stately, unhurried pace. I am forbidden to remove the old manuals until he has explained his Big Idea to me on Monday. Fortunately I am very busy this weekend, so I shall not have to struggle with the urge to have at the console with my screwdriver.

This is what it looked like before I started:

It is a first-generation digital instrument, using the Bradford 5b 3-board system. It has eight speakers (including two 350W monsters), four of which are in a separate cabinet. Each set of four speakers is serviced by a Quad 405-2 amp. It looks like it was purchased in 1984, and received regular support and maintenance from Wyvern until 1997. There are several versions of the spec chips between these two dates, so presumably over the years the organist(s) had varying ideas of how it should sound in the church wherein it was installed. An instrument of this size will have pushed the Bradford system of the era to its limits. It looks as if it has not been played for several years, and as a consequence the battery has discharged and whizzed all over several of the circuit boards that comprise its brain. Restoration might be possible, with a great deal of effort, but really its day of doom has come.

David wants the speakers and amps, so I have carefully removed them ready for him to collect, and it now looks like this (note the pre-amp still in situ, on the right of the first photo):

I want to fiddle with the transformers, but that is Not Allowed either, until discussions have been had. It’s very frustrating, but I know the intention is to prevent me from removing something that I actually need – or that can be sold. I will be patient.

The old console goes a week tomorrow. By then I should have removed most of the innards of the new console, which will (I hope) make it somewhat easier to move into the centre of the lounge while it is being worked on. Eventually it will need to go next to the wall, but that is a problem for another month.

I am a gadfly. A flibbety-gibbet. A floosie. I have abandoned my old console in favour of a new model.

It wasn’t planned, but when it popped up on eBay, I knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up. This little beauty travelled all they way from Devonshire to Norfolk this week. It is extraordinarily heavy, and the movers did a sterling job (which, once again, involved taking the front door off).

Much as I love the old console, it was becoming increasingly apparent that it would not be easy to modify it to do the things I need it to do. The toe-pistons being the most obdurate sticking-point. You will observe that the new console has toe pistons in abundance (21, in fact). It also has drawstops. Yes, they are actual, genuine, functional Kimber Allen mini drawstops.

The old console has been sold, and will be collected sometime next week, but in the meantime I have started to do a little bit of stripping out. In actual fact, very little of the work that I have done so far will need to be re-done on the new console, apart from putting in the pedal reed switches again. Almost everything else that I have done has been confined to the manuals, which will be transferred into the new console.

I have started to put things on eBay, and hopefully I will recoup some of the cost (£637, including transport) by doing that. So far, the external speaker cabinet and two (!) Quad amps are up for sale. Mr Norwich Organs has been round, examined the console and pronounced it a good purchase, and has also put in claims on a few of the components. The manuals will hit eBay in a week or so, too.

The main thing I need to think about is how to put in the stops for the solo division. This will need to be a touchscreen. I have some ideas, but I need to think about it. That is for the future, though.

Developing (excitedly) as I type. More to come!

*does the happy dance*

I ordered a male/female pair of mini-DIN plugs, to make it easier to separate the pedalboard from the console.  These arrived today, and I’ll do some soldering tomorrow.  Watch this space.

Last week, I also bought a box of 3 1/2″ wood screws, to screw down the manuals.  Only, I can’t find it anywhere.  I feel that it may have inadvertently slipped through a rip in the space/time continuum, and is now sitting unloved on someone’s garage shelf in Guatemala.  I’m really quite cross.  There are only limited places where I could put a box of wood screws, and it isn’t in any of them.  Out of an abundance of caution I’ve also checked the fridge, and it’s not there either.

Grr.

Never mind busy, it’s just been far too hot to slave away over the pedalboard.  There has been some progress, however.  I have now completed the testing (and relocation where necessary) of the neodymium magnets.  As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, I’m not absolutely happy with all of them, but I need to actually use the pedalboard before I make any further adjustments.  Here is a progress photo.

You can see that the magnets are not linear.  This offends my sense of aesthetics, but I will just have to live with it.

I am currently looking for a 4-wire connector that I can insert into the long MIDI cable – as it is, both ends of it are rather inaccessible, and there is the risk of damage if the pedalboard is separated from the console.  Problem is, I can’t quite describe what it is I’m looking for, so I don’t know how to buy it from an internet shop.  “4-wire connector” is apparently not descriptive enough.  What I want is a… thing… that, you know, does… stuff.

Work has taken up much of my time this week, and there doesn’t look to be much improvement until the end of July at the earliest.  So the delay in starting work on the kneeboard, toe-pistons and expression pedals caused by various experts going on holiday is not actually going to inconvenience me.  This week I have continued work on the reed switches.  I have mounted all three banks of switches, and adjusted the magnet distance on the central bank.  Most were fine, but a couple needed raising by 2mm (four washers), and a couple more needed the magnet relocating  I’ll work on the remainder this week, if I get time.

I’ve no doubt that once I start using the pedals properly I will find a few which need additional fine tuning, but I’m happy with how things are going so far.

Where does the time go?

Last week I was mostly preoccupied by aligning the reed switches to the magnets.  There is still more work to do on this.  The challenge is getting all the magnets the correct distance from their switch.  I am waiting for some nylon washers to arrive, which will allow me to raise individual magnets by 0.5mm at a time until I get the correct distance, but I suspect that one or two of the pedals will need a fraction shaving off the end to increase the distance when in the ‘off’ position.  Hysteresis is a harsh mistress.

Expecting the toe pistons to arrive next week, but there is quite a bit of cabinetry to be done on the kneeboard, to make them fit.  This will probably turn out to be the most complex part of the build.  Fortunately I have expert help.