Recently Acquired Electrola

[Guest]

I picked up a Victor XVI Electrola tonight. I've never owned one before and would like advice from those who own them about servicing them and especially whether or not I should trust those original resistors to work. Should I just plug it in, or should I test the resistors first?

Damon

[Silvertone]

I have owned several Victrolas with this motor, and have never seen a resistor failure. On each of them, I have had to lubricate the motor and clean the commutator, however. If it were mine, I would clean and lubricate, then check the condition of the wiring, and if it looks intact, I would plug it in.

[Swing Band Heaven]

Reminds me of when I was a kid and used to buy old radiograms and electrical portable record players....I used a long extension lead, ran it to the top of the garden and plugged it in up there. If it went **bang** then I was at a nice distance back at the house

[scullylathe]

Do not EVER just plug in a vintage electronic device and take a chance on it going "bang". Not only is it dangerous, but if the device has selenium rectifiers you could get a nice dose of poisonous gas. You may also greatly increase the repair bill if it was something easy to repair like an interstage or filter cap. It's a good idea to try cleaning dust and cobwebs from as much of the chassis as you can and then use a Variac to SLOWLY power up the device. Put the Variac between the wall outlet and the device and SLOWLY bring up the power. Slowly turn the power up to full over 45 minutes to an hour, carefully nudging it about every 5 minutes. If there is ANY sign along the way of something overheating or other problem, STOP immediately, turn the power off, locate a schematic and start troubleshooting. Some vintage electronics power on with no problem, some if there are issues with old paper or oil caps they can "reform" if you slowly bring up the power, some if you just throw the power switch will go 'BOOM'. 1) Not worth the risk of injury and 2) you don't want to destroy another vintage set.

[chem_jv]

Variac tend to be rather large and expensive. I could borrow one from work and come by your place with it, if you are that concerned about it.

[Henry]

Not sure you need something that fancy. I rigged up a small GE variable transformer to use as a speed controller on my vintage Dremel tool. It's in a project box with an outlet, fused @2.5A. Something on that order should work, no?

[scullylathe]

You can pick up a 10 - 20 amp Variac on ebay for anywhere from about $10 and up, but under $100, so they're not that expensive, especially if you collect a lot of vintage electronics. 20 amp would be most desirable since 2.5A isn't enough to power something like an Electrola - you might cook the Variac in the process. If you don't want to purchase one, at least borrow one to prevent fireworks and possible poisoning. Selenium rectifiers when they fail and burn can cause severe burns to mucous membranes and severe respiratory tract, skin and eye irritation. It's a shame when someone comes across an old unit, plugs it in and burns it up then it just becomes a "showpiece" when if it were functional would be 100X more 'neato'

[Skihawx]

These old Victor universal motors with the resistor do not need
to be brought up on a variac. The resistor limits the inrush
current to safe levels. There are no capacitors or diodes. Even
if the motor was a direct short the resistor would dissipate a few
more watts and nothing would get damaged.

Those do have an interesting feature. There is an automatic shut
off that trips the off switch if run continuously for I don't know
5 or 6 minutes. The gear timer gets reset every time you work the
on off switch so it doesn't affect normal operation. But if you happen
to leave it on and forget it.. Or just change the record without turning
it off it will time out and shut off. I have also seen this gearing
disabled on one or two machines...

But if it is clean and oiled, plug it in and play it.. I would not recommend
using anything to drop the voltage and eliminate the resistors. They may
dissipate some heat but they limit the current on starting and also under
any fault condition should there ever be one.. About the only thing that could
happen is a brush fall out and possibly on that rare instance short across
the line. But the resistor will still limit the current!

[Guest]

OK, my bad; after re-reading the original post this is not an "Electrola". It's simply a Victrola with an electric motor. Electrola is a term used for later Victor instruments with a radio and some even had the capability to make recordings on pre-pressed "blanks". An Electrola would have additional electronics in it that would require a Variac to safely power it up.

[Silvertone]

Your original post was correct. Victor called the Victrolas with electric turntable motors Electrolas. When electric amplifiers were introduced, they called those instruments Electrolas also, but this was many years later.