Need Help with Regina Hexaphone 103

[rgordon939]

The belt on my Regina Hexaphone broke yesterday. I replaced the belt today but found that the spring ran down when the belt broke. When I put a coin in and wind it up it does not play through a cylinder. Does anyone know to wind up the spring up tighter?

Rich Gordon

[Trivalue]

Rich, The winding process turns the spring barrel until it reaches the stop point of the Geneva stop on the right of the spring barrel. The stop is graduated to turn once each revolution of the spring barrel. You need to loosen the Geneva stop wheel until it disengages then wind the spring to the desired strength and the re-attach the Geneva stop, making sure it is in the actual stop position so you can't keep winding the spring past that point.

[dyxshop]

I did not understand the cause of this failure at all, nor did I understand the solution. It felt like a very complicated operation.

[Shawn]

DyxShop/ Rich,

Since this happened in 2016, I certainly hope you've got it going by now!!!!

For the future,

This is a very common issue with Hexaphones, and it is not intuitive why it is happening. The good news, is that Regina made it easy to fix, just not obvious.

The issues is that the motor mechanism and the winding mechanism (refer to the picture for what I am talking about) are tightly coupled.

The winding mechanism controls the timing and play of the cylinder. It also, limits how much the spring is wound. So when your motor ran down, and you wound it to play it, it didn't have enough energy (only one cycle of the winding mechanism) to power through the cylinder and move all of the mechanical parts. I find that it requires 1 ½ winding mechanism cycles to power through a cylinder on a Hexaphone. So how do you get a half cycle?

Refer to picture below. There is a shaft on which a connecting gear resides the connects the motor mechanism and winding mechanism. The picture above and below are from a 103, so it should be just like yours. First, wind up your motor all the way, but secure the governor so it does not spin when the Hexaphone would normally start at the end of winding the machine. Now Loosen the set screw on the removable shaft and pull the shaft out until allows the connecting gear to be pulled free. That uncouples the winding mechanism from the motor mechanism.

Hope your still with me, I told you it wasn't intuitive!!!

With the connecting gear removed, the winding mechanism is free to turn. The 103 Hexaphone requires 6 turns of the crank to complete a cycle of the winding mechanism and start the machine. What I do is turn the crank 2 - 3 times which turns the timing mechanism only now. I then reinsert the connecting gear, reinstall the pin, and secure the set screw. The motor mechanism and winding mechanism are now coupled again. I then turn the crank to complete the remaining ½ cycle of the winding mechanism. Now coupled, this adds an additional ½ cycle of the winding mechanisms worth of power to the spring. I then unsecure the governor and let the machine go.

At the end of play, it should have ½ of a winding mechanism cycle of energy stored - 3 - 4 turns of the crank. So when you crank the machine next, and you complete the 6 turns of the crank to start the machine, the spring actually has 9 or 10 turns of the cranks worth of energy because of adding that ½ cycle of the timing mechanism.

Again, not intuitive. Coin-ops are absolutely wonderful, until they stop working! Then they are a pain. I've worked on most all of them. If you need help, just give me a call.

Shawn

[rgordon939]

Thanks for your post Shawn. This is exactly what I did back in 2016 when this was originally posted. Maybe it will help anyone else who has this problem.

Rich Gordon

[Shawn]

Yes, I figured (Hoped!!!!) you did!! But like you said, it will help someone else someday!

Be well.

Shawn

[dyxshop]

Although I still can’t understand from the picture because of my limited understanding of English, my intuition is that this is the key to solving the problem I’m currently experiencing. Thanks to Shawn and Richard，

[MTPhono]

Definitely printing and saving a copy of this thread with my Hexaphone! Thank you Shawn and Rich.