Beomaster 8000: Visit of an Old Acquaintance - Restoration of the Control Panel Lid and a Redesigned Lid Linkage Replacement Part

Oh well...Beoloving can be a bit experimental. When new parts are developed occasional failures need to be anticipated. So it was the case with the part that I designed last year to repair a control panel lid spring retainer when I restored a Beomaster 8000. This part failed during return shipment, maybe due to the package getting a bit hot and my plastic part a bit soft, which let the spring 'escape'. This is how it looked when I received this unit again about a week ago:

To finally cure this issue for good, we decided to purchase a Beomaster unit from ebay. A unit with a badly damaged heat sink became available:

Seems a fork lift drove through it or a similar disaster happened. Miraculously the control panel lid was still intact without any damages. While convenient for the issue at hand, it always hurts to see a Beomaster 8000 go down like this due to carelessness or poor packing for shipment.

Some more parts from this unit turned out to be useful to cure some more cosmetic issues with this unit like the scratched 'Monitor' button

and the broken off control panel lid lock that I replaced with a 3D printed part last year. I took the opportunity to replace both with original parts from the ebay unit:

Beautiful again!

When I put the unit back together after these repairs, it occurred to me that the lid made an ungainly clonking noise when opening. It turned out that the control panel lid linkage that connects it to the motion damper was shifting abruptly from one side to the other in the fixture that connects it to the lid during the opening sequence. I took this as an invitation to improve my 3D printed replacement linkage by making the upper end a bit thicker, so that it fits precisely into the allotted gap, preventing the shifting issue:

I installed it (shown a prototype printed in red for more detail):

After verifying that this cured the issue I replaced it with a black 'production' part since the upper end can be seen when the control panel lid is open:

This linkage, like all my parts, is available to other enthusiasts. Just send me an email or use the contact form on the sidebar.  There is also a video on my YouTube Beomaster 8000 playlist that demonstrates the installation of the linkage.

All good now in the control panel section of this Beomaster! Time for a little test-drive before shipping it back!