Refreshing The Fisher XP-9C Speakers Part I

Picked up these 2 speakers from the curb just a couple of days before the city came through.

 

On this one, someone tried to fix the cracks in the surrounds with RTV.

 The backs of the speakers.

 To get the speakers out, we tipped it over face down on the table, and smacked the Cabinet. The speaker dropped out.

 The Second speaker had to be pried out as it was glued in place. Both speakers had their sides cut to fit in the cabinets, not sure if this is factory or someone had worked on them previously and this was the only way to get them out Since the edge of the speakers would have been under the moldings.

On this speaker I removed the old surround, as suggested by the instructions from the Surround manufacturer. I found that putting Rubbing Alcohol on the old surround stained the speaker. I carefully scraped and cut out the old surround.

 On this one I ignored the instructions and did it dry. This one turned out better. I had to use razor blades and a chisel to get the remainder of the old glue off.

 In order to get the speakers properly centered while glueing them in place I elected to hook up a Signal generator set to about 400hz at medium low volume. This kept the coil moving and centered, and helped to center the surrounds. 

Here are both Speakers with the new surrounds.

 I installed them upside down like the previous ones were, as installing them the more common way would result in the surrounds rubbing against the speaker grill.

I tested the crossover and other speakers with my signal generator. It appears that the "fried egg" tweeters still work and that the crossover is still working. I will be replacing the capacitors on them anyways as they are possibly 50 years old. I have ordered the capacitors.

Removing stuck batteries from a 2 AA Maglite

I had recently replaced the batteries in one of my Maglite's (about a year ago), well as usual the batteries swelled up and started to leak, of course due to the crappy design of these flashlights it is near impossible to remove the batteries in this situation.

I tried dropping the flashlight open side down on to a throw rug on tile. While it did move the batteries down to the end of the battery It bent the very soft aluminum. I then tried to pry the batteries out but that just bent the flashlight the other way. 

I did some googleing and did not find much information on getting the batteries out. I did find that Maglite's attitude is "too bad for you". But I did manage to get the batteries out. Here is how:

First remove the lens assembly.

 Remove the light bulb.

 Remove the plastic part labeled "DO NOT REMOVE". It just pulls right off.

 using a thin screw driver placed in one or both of the holes you see above. Push down or if needed lightly hammer the batteries out. DO NOT hammer directly on the plastic switch. The switch assembly will push all the way through the tube. Once you get the batteries out (if you get them out). You will need to clean out the tube. Use a small file, a hone, brass bottle brush, or whatever you can find that will work. Rinse out the tube and thoroughly dry it. Check that the silver tab is clean, then push the switch assembly back in place as you see it above. Replace the part marked "DO NOT REMOVE". Install the bulb and clean it off with alcohol. Reassemble the rest of the flashlight with new batteries.

 VOILA!

Blonder Tongue FM only R-20

Got this off of the shopgoodwill auction site. It is FM only and the design is like a Granco 620U I have, but the speaker is WAY smaller and on the back of the radio.

Here it is, as I got it, quite dirty.

 

And after I recapped it, replaced the failing Selenium Rectifier with a silicon diode, and cleaned it up.

Here is the Schematic

Heathkit V-7A VTVM

Another Goodwill find. 2 VTVM's, a heatkit tube, and a Bell and Howell transistorized.

The Bell and Howell had major problems. A blown High tolerance resistor and one of the selectors was broken, so I parted it out. The Heatkit, however is fixable, it needs new capacitors and that is all.

Nikko STA-5010

This is a Nikko STA-5010 from goodwill.

This is a tricky unit to get sound out of on the goodwill test bench. I tried getting it working in store but no luck. However I took a chance for the low price and bought it. Instead of having to just get the speakers selected right, you have to do the following to get sound out of it:
hook up your speakers
Select your speakers
set the Tape selector to Source
and then! on the back of the unit change the switch that reads "Pre & Main" to "Connect".
This is very likely the reason it was still there when I got to the store, since I saw at least 2 flippers prowling the aisles.

All Lights work.
This stereo sounds great and I am not sure why it was donated. It is clean, a little dusty inside, I used deoxit on the volume control before turning it on so I am not sure if was scratchy. Oh well mine now! I will not be doing any replacing of parts on this unless it develops a problem.

Heathkit GR-11

From Shopgoodwill.com. Needed a recap, and the 17c9 tube replaced. While cleaning it with denatured alcohol I accidentally removed the Heathkit silk screening from the front.

 Picture taken before the recap.

The unit needs an antenna but gets really good reception. Speaker is a little small. I may put it in a new cabinet later and give it a better speaker. All the plastic standoffs were broken, but I found them inside the radio and epoxied them back on.

That's some mighty fine police work, Lou

Got a call this morning at 6:15am. Unknown number. I answer and a man asks to speak with ****. I'm like "there's no **** here". He says "This number does not belong to an older woman with a walker?"

Wait what?

So somehow when the police report was made they put my number for the number that was on the note. So I gave the "detective" the correct number and we will see what happens.