Beomaster 8000 From Canada: Packing for shipment home

The day finally arrived to ship the Beomaster 8000 from Canada back home. All tests have passed and loose end tasks completed.

This receiver is quite heavy. The packed shipping weight can be from 57 pounds to 65 pounds depending on packing materials. I was able to get this shipment prepared at 57 pounds in a 30 inch x 20.5 inch x 12 inch box.

I glue the bottom flaps of the cardboard box together with a common wood glue.
After that I lined the bottom and sides with 1 inch thick, 2.2 pound rated, polyethylene foam. Those pieces are attached using 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. Polyethylene foam has some give to it but is sturdy enough to resist puncture. A good material for the first line of defense.

The old type styrofoam and styrofoam peanuts are the absolute worst packing material ever devised. They should never be used!
They generate a lot of static electricity and small pieces get into everything...especially the audio component you are shipping.

Bubble wrap is not very good either. It is okay for small, light things but heavy shipments can puncture the bubble wrap leaving no protection at all.

For this Beomaster 8000 my first step in wrapping it up for placement in the shipping box is to place it inside a clear plastic bag. That will protect against any liquid and keep packing materials from rubbing directly against the Beomaster.

Next I use 1½ inch thick eggcrate foam to wrap the Beomaster providing another layer of padded protection. This foam has more cushion than the polyethylene outer foam. I do one wrap lengthwise and one wrap crosswise.

The eggcrate foam wraps are taped and everything is placed into the shipping box. I use extra blocks of the polyethylene foam to fill in any gaps.

The last rectangular piece of polyethylene foam is the lid followed by taping shut the cardboard box.

This Beomaster 8000 receiver is now on its journey back home and I hope to hear happy results from the owner after it arrives.

Beomaster 8000 From Canada: Taking care of some loose ends before shipping home

The Beomaster 8000 receiver from Canada that I blogged about here has been undergoing extensive testing in my listening room.  The input sources (FM, phono, tape 1 and tape 2) have been exercised for countless hours. This unit has performed great.

When it was time to unplug the Beomaster from my Beosystem 8000 listening room setup I got a surprise when I unplugged the Beogram 8000 cable. The Beomaster 8000 Phono DIN jack came out with. Part way anyways. The wires in the Beomaster source input connector box kept the DIN jack from getting too far.

I hadn't noticed any problem with the Phono DIN jack previously but now that is was out I could see that one tab (of two) that prevents the DIN jack from pressing into the connector box was broken and both side tabs, that keep the DIN jack from pulling out, were broken.

Here are the pictures.

Fortunately for this type of problem Beolover makes a 3D printed repair kit.

I had used the 3D printed parts for the top and bottom edges of the phono DIN jack on the Beomaster 8000 from Texas.  That DIN jack had intact side clips though so the top and bottom Beolover parts were all that were needed on that project.

This Beomaster 8000 phono DIN jack had its bottom tab intact but was missing the top one. In addition, both the left and right side clips were broken.

The next two pictures show the installation of the phono DIN jack left side stop piece. The original side clips were a flexible, spring like plastic tab. A replacement part that works as a spring clip isn't really an option. Beolover came up with side pieces that glue to the DIN jack housing in such a way that the DIN jack cannot be pulled out (the top and bottom replacement pieces are designed to not let the DIN jack press down into the connector box).

Note that just one side (the left side) was installed first. Since this DIN jack still had its original bottom tab I only needed one of the Beolover parts for that part of the assembly.

With the left side stop piece glued in place and the top Beolover replacement part installed I was able to push the phono DIN jack back into the source input box.

The final step was to glue in the right side stop piece.

The phono DIN jack was now securely mounted where it will no longer fall in or pull out of the source input box.

Here is the completed repair.

Now back to another round of listening tests before the packing up for shipment back to Canada.
That step cannot be skipped. Whenever working with the source input connectors it is really easy for one of the small wires to break.  I do not want to risk shipping this Beomaster back to Canada only to discover there is some problem I could have easily caught with a little more testing.

Canada Beomaster 8000: Checking out the reworked boards

In the last post on the Canada Beomaster 8000 I left off having completed the restored display board.  With that last board completed I can finally begin testing what this Beomaster can do.

Since it has been a week since I last checked this Beomaster restoration I decided to recheck all of the power supply voltages, the no-load current checks and the DC offset checks.

Naturally I tested the display board now that it is reinstalled.

Everything looks like it is working correctly so I test played an iPod Nano into the Beomaster Tape 2 source input. As usual I connected my Beovox S-55 speakers I keep in the lab.

The Beomaster sounds like a Beomaster 8000.

I wrapped up the day by preparing the Beomaster for some upcoming performance tests.
Here is my test setup.
I am applying a 1KHz sine wave of 1.0VRMS to the Tape 2 source input of the Beomaster. I will measure and monitor the voltage across the dummy 8Ω speaker loads as well as measure the output with a QuantAsylum QA401 Audio Analyzer.

The test setup is ready and I ran a couple of preliminary tests.

Later this evening I will start running the performance tests.

Texas Beomaster 8000: Final asembly

The happy day is finally here. The Beomaster 8000 from Texas is reassembled and into the playing test phase. I have said before that this is the best part.

To finish up I needed to put the push nuts onto the control panel in place of the temporary holding tape.

I also brushed on some rust eliminator on the other push nuts that hold the two control wheel assemblies.

I stole the flat metal spring that was under the center mounting post of the button panel for use with the press bar that opens the tone control panel lid. I used black hot glue under the two Beolover cables and on the blue wires for the optical sensors. The glue is removable but holds well. The purpose here is to prove strain relief on solder joints where the wires attach to the button panel.

To reinstall the filter & tone control panel lid I had to replace the broken lever for the lid damper assembly.

At last the final reassembly steps. I put the Beomaster cables back in place the way they were originally routed...well, close anyways. I have photos from all of my Beomaster 8000 projects as they first arrived and some of the cable routing was different. Some of that is probably from other people previously working on the units.

Here is the filter & tone control panel side.

Here is the microcomputer and display side.

...and here is everything back together and the Beomaster 8000 plugged in. I polished up the metal panels and this Beomaster 8000 is stunning again.

It will spend the next few days in one of my listening rooms just to make sure it is ready to return to its owner.  It is connected to a Beogram 8002, a Beocord 9000 and a couple of Beovox M100.2 speakers. This should be fun.

Texas Beomaster 8000: Testing the new phono DIN jack

The touch up paint is dry so I can test the phono DIN jack repair of this Beomaster 8000 unit.
There is just enough room on this workbench to fit a Beogram 5000 turntable to check out the phono input.

The phono cable DIN plug fit easily into the repaired DIN jack of the Beomaster.

Pressing the PH button on the Beomaster turned the Beogram 5000 on and it started to play. No problems...it plays wonderfully. I have to add that I am glad that Bang & Olufsen retained remote control functionality within their product lines.

Here are a couple of pictures playing the Beogram 5000 with the Beomaster 8000.

I believe it is time to start the final re-assembly of the Beomaster so it can be closed back up.

Texas Beomaster 8000: Input source panel repair

When I first received this Beomaster 8000 unit from its Texas owner I noticed that the input source panel had a rather crude repair.

Yuck! Actually I understand why this type of repair was done and it actually works. But it is just so unsightly that it makes it wrong.

Fortunately the there is a Beolover 3D printed part fix for this type of problem. Installing the 3D printed parts is quite easy but the preparation to apply them here took quite a bit of work.

The first step is to remove the epoxy glue. I used some heat from a heat gun and various size razor knives to remove the glue. To protect the plastic DIN jack housing I used tin foil.

The heat did most of the work and I got all of the glue removed.
Now to apply the Beolover 3D parts. They fit perfectly into slots already there on the DIN jack housing.  No glue is necessary.

I figured that all of the rough handling by the glue removal procedure might cause some DIN jack wiring to break and that was the case.

The resulting wire repair task wasn't too bad. I just had to be careful in removing old solder connections and rewiring the broken leads.

The wires all look correct again. I checked them against a known, good spare panel that I have.

I will touch up the scratches on the metal panel with some black paint then reinstall the source panel in the Beomaster.