Beogram 4002 (Type 5504): Installation of Commander Remote Control Module

This post discusses the installation of a Beolover Commander Remote Control Module in a Beogram 4002 (Type 5504) that I recently restored for a customer in Australia. This unit also already received an internal Beolover RIAA phono pre-amplifier.

This shows the commander Remote Module before installation:

The black three-wire appendage at the bottom is the IR receiver that gets fed through in-between the plinth and the enclosure of the Beogram (see pic at the end of the post) so the IR signal can reach the Commander Module. The narrow adapter board on the right is used to break the keypad contacts out for the Commander, that it can take over control of the turntable. The white wire harness makes the connection from this adapter to the Commander board. The red wired appendage on top is the auto-repeat indicator that gets bolted in with the keypad screw underneath the RPM adjustment panel.

Let's do the installation! This shows the keypad and the adjacent area of the main PCB where the Commander will be installed:

After removal of the keypad, the keypad PCB needs to be slid out of the keypad assembly. This reveals the solder terminals where the main PCB connects to the keypad:

For installing the narrow adapter board part of the solder needs to be removed to generate a smooth and flat 'landing strip' for soldering the adapter in. This is shown here:

I used a de-solder pump to remove the solder.

The next step is to place the adapter on this cleared area and solder it to two of the pads, preferably on either end: 

Tacked on like this the adapter pad can still be aligned and oriented properly.

***Note added in proof: After having installed this component a few times, I realized that it is best to solder the adapter into a position where the white plug socket is flush with the board edge. There are some keypads where the plastic part underneath the keypad is in a position that is a bit further to the left than normal, and it can interfere with the adapter if it is soldered too far inside the board perimeter).*****

Once it is in place (i.e. orthogonal to the solder pads, the solder pads match up well with the pads on the keypad PCB and the adapter sits flat on the pads with only minor gaps), then the remaining pads can be soldered:

At this point it is a good idea to plug the white wiring harness into the jack on the adapter board (support the PCB on the back of the jack while pushing the plug in):

If you do this at home, be careful to put the plug in in the right orientation. It is easy to bend the contact terminals in the jacks due to the miniature size of these connectors. This concludes the keypad modification. From here on it is plug-and-play. The next step is bolting in the auto-repeat indicator under the RPM indicator panel:

The red wiring harness is supposed to 'leave' the keypad via the cutout for the RPM panel wiring on the left. Now it is time to bolt in the Commander board. It simply bolts to the PCB screw that is next to the keypad with the included longer screw that replaces the original screw the Beogram came with.

Once the Commander has been bolted in it is time to make the wire connections. This shows the plug of the white harness. The way it needs to align is like shown here, with the connecting terminals on the upper end of the plug. Another indicator of proper alignment is that the white wiring goes 'flat' from the keypad adapter to the Commander board. If it is twisted, the orientation is probably 180deg off.

Once it has been carefully plugged in, the red harness of the auto-repeat indicator gets plugged in. Then the IR received needs to be threaded through the gap between plinth and Beogram enclosure:

There is a gap between the metal parts that are glued to the plinth, and that is where the IR wiring should go through. If done properly, the IR receiver will stick out like this from underneath the plinth:

And that is it. Now the Beogram can be powered up and the remote control should allow starting the Beogram with the "start/arm lift" button. This is a summary of the commands that are available: