Beomaster 8000: Awesome Find on Ebay!

I often help customers to find a suitable Bang & Olufsen unit on ebay or craigslist, then restore it and then send it on to its new home. Almost like going back to the 70s with a time machine and buying it new at a B&O store...;-). Here the task was to find a Beomaster 8000 in nice cosmetic condition. I always recommend to start any restoration with a nice looking unit, since the value of the finished unit is largely determined by its looks...

Recently a very nice Beomaster came up on ebay including the Terminal remote and the original packaging. It was also sold by the initial owner - always a very good sign! I received the unit yesterday, and it was a happy moment. He had the original box double boxed by a mailing place, and so it arrived in a  huge box under a heap of styrofoam peanuts...not my favorite method - too messy when unboxing and more importantly, the inner box can shift around and individual sides of the inner box can end up dangerously close to the outer box, negating the purpose of the double box. In this case all went well, though.

Here are a few impressions:

As I said, a LOT of peanuts...;-). After I shoveled everything in several lawn bags, I extracted the original box:

then came the moment of truth!:

The original owner's manual! excellent! And then the Beomaster revealed itself:

In pristine condition as advertised! I love it when ebay sellers are honest! In this case it was a very pleasant experience from A to Z. Look at the veneer corners!:

Awesome! Almost like new! The best corners I have seen in some time! Lucky day! 

Beomaster 8000 Frequency Counter Feedback Issue - Dead Prescaler TEF U264B (?)

I was just about getting bored about Beomaster 8000 #4...it seemed it only had 'standard issues', which is nice as a soldering exercise, but nothing beats the 'detecting' if there is a new previously unknown problem! After fixing the displays and the output stages everything seemed great, until I turned on the tuner. While the frequency rotary encoder properly dialed in the desired frequency, the tuner itself did not really care about this setting. Basically, all I got was white noise no matter what frequency I selected. Oh well...a quick measurement of the tuning voltage yielded that it was either at the low end or at the high end but never in between...then after some playing around I noticed that when I set the freq close to 91.7 MHz I could hear some radio stations 'zooming' through.

Strange! Monitoring the tuning voltage showed that if I set the freq slightly above 91.7 the tuner would more slowly ramp the freq to 108 MHz, and when I set the freq slightly below 91.7 it would reverse course and go down to 87 MHz. In fact, after a while I was able to actually dial in stations with some stability by just very slightly changing the frequency above and below 91.7 and thereby driving the tuner slowly up or down.

Reading the "Product Description" about the tuning mechanism revealed that the microprocessor rams the tuning voltage up or down depending on whether the dialed in frequency is higher or lower than the actual tuner frequency. This is used to stabilize the tuner, but also to change the frequency. Such a mechanism requires feedback. In this case this feedback is provided from the tuner board via plug P84 to the u-controller board (#9). Here is the relevant circuit:

The orange tags are my measurement points (see below). After the transformer L2 the signal ( arrives at the preamplifier input of the prescaler chip U264B. I do not have a fast enough oscilloscope for a proper 100MHz measurement, but by 50MHz Rigol gave me a blurry 10mV sine wave at Pt.1. A better way to detect the presence of the signal was to use a signal analyzer. I hooked its 50 Ohm input up via a 10x oscilloscope probe to reduce the load on the signal. This is what I got:

The U264B chip is necessary to divide the 100MHz range tuning frequency down to something the slow 2 MHz microprocessor (IC4) can actually count. It also amplifies the signal with its preamplifier. After the 1/64 prescaler the frequency is in the 1.5MHz range. This signal comes out at pin 7 of the U264B (Pt.2). This signal now has a ~600mV amplitude, but a ~4.3V offset. Here is a oscilloscope shot measured on fully functioning Beomaster 8000 #2 (on the presently open Beomaster #4 this signal was absent suggesting that the U264B is fried. Judging from the above described behavior it also suggests that IC4 is programmed to 'think' that an absent frequency feedback signal represents 91.7 MHz):

The PNP transistor TR5 has its emitter hooked up to 5V, i.e. the 4.3 to 5V output signal of the U264B is able to turn this transistor on and off. This results in an amplification of the signal at the collector of TR5, and now we have a standard 5V square wave signal, perfect for the flipflop CD4013. Here is an oscilloscope shot from the collector:

This signal is fed into the flipflops in the CD4013, which are in series to affect a further 4x reduction of the frequency, i.e. now the signal is about 400kHz. This is how the CD4013 output looks like:

This is the signal that is sent to pin 21 of IC4, the frequency counter feedback input.
Now I am waiting for some NOS U264B chips from Germany where someone is selling off his hobby kit. Lucky me! I will report back once I put in a new chip. I hope this will fix it.

******************This post discusses the solution of the issue.**********************

Beomaster 8000 Display Repair

Another Beomaster 8000 display repair marathon. I must have soldered about 280 SMD LEDs by now into these displays (it takes about 70 LEDs and this is my fourth display...;-). I basically repeated what I described in: http://beolover.blogspot.com/2012/09/beomaster-8000-display-repair-hopefully.html
Here is a pic of the outcome. I put them into my display test breadboards and ran them at 2V (~0.53 Amp):

All segments are present. It is a good idea to do a mechanical test while the LEDs are out in the open. I give them a pretty good push and pull with a toothpick in all directions to make sure they have good contact. Since there is no solder mask the solder has a tendency to distribute on the pads, and it can be difficult to create a decent solder bump at the contact pads. Inspection with a magnifying glass is also a good idea to make sure they are aligned and centered precisely. If they are not it is difficult to get the bezels back on in a way that they block the light laterally (if the bezels are not set well and there are gaps, then light enters adjacent segments and in a dark room this can be seen...not acceptable for the beolover!). Now I will give them a 'burn in' over night and then mount the covers back on. this Beomaster 8000 is hopefully soon ready for a test in the living room!

Beomaster 8000 Display Issues

Today I looked into the display issue on Beomaster 8000 #4 (see http://beolover.blogspot.com/2013/09/beomaster-8000-first-inspection.html). The initial suspicion that there is something wrong with the communication between the microprocessors and the displays turned out to be wrong...the missing displays segments are just broken, like in most Beomaster 8000s when they come from ebay. I extracted the balance display and inserted it into my display test fixture and biased it with ~1.7V. Only four segments showed up for the party:

It is interesting to note that there are two 7 segment display decoders (IC1 and IC2 on the processor board (=#9)). IC1 addresses both balance and volume displays, while IC2 drives the frequency and the input displays. Which one of the two displays is on depends on the phase signal, which turns them on alternatingly at a frequency that is imperceptible by the human eye. It follows that the segment drivers are both o.k. if one of the two attached displays is showing a coherent data display (even with some display segments missing). The same is valid for the phase signals. Oh well: On to another display repair session (check out: http://beolover.blogspot.com/2012/09/beomaster-8000-display-repair-hopefully.html). I just ordered the SMD LEDs...for a consistent brightness across all four displays, I will have to do them all.

Beomaster 8000 - First Inspection

I bought a 4th Beomaster 8000 recently on ebay. It was listed with the usual "nothing happens when I plug it in, probably the fuse needs replacement" statements, which deterred many bidders, i.e. I got it fairly cheap. Externally it is pretty good, making it a worthwhile (my wife appears to have a different definition of 'worthwhile'...;-) project.

Today I finally got around to looking into it. A first look at the fuses on board 7 indeed revealed a blown 10A fuse (F2). F3 was o.k. This immediately suggested that probably one of the output stages burned out due to a non-contact quiet current trimmer.

I opened the Beomaster up and disconnected the power to the output amplifiers (red and black leads that connect to the boards via tabs) securing the plugs with some tape to prevent them from making accidental contact when the power is on. Then I replaced the fuse with the proper 10A quick acting type and plugged the Beomaster in. A good sign: the decimal point LED in the volume display came on, while nothing else happened.

Then I tapped one of the radio preset buttons. The Beomaster came alive, but showed strange displays:

The volume came on at 6.0, i.e. full throttle. I reset it to 2.0 with the volume store button, which seemed to work with the usual blinking of the display during the storing process. We will see if this fix is permanent or if there is some problem. The frequency display showed a local station, i.e. the radio might be o.k. Turning the rotary encoders showed that these two displays are o.k. w/o missing segments...a rarity. The other two displays showed garbage. Usually one would think that some segments are dead. However the perfect performance of the other two displays suggests that there is a deeper lying problem needing further investigation. Let the fun begin!

Beomaster 8000 Suddenly Cuts Output Stages Power

It has been some time that I had to post something noteworthy of my B&O efforts. I guess this means that all my Beos are in a happily restored state. However, like with classic cars, one needs at least two of each no matter how perfectly restored they are. This showed last night when we indulged in one of the new Longmire episodes and suddenly in the middle of the show the Beomaster 8000 output died. A quick on/off cycle indicated that the ramp up relays on the main transformer did not switch anymore: The Beomaster was quiet like a lamb, but still turned the display on and off in an orderly way. This suggested that there was an issue with the communication between the microcontrollers and the relays. I switched out the Beomaster with one of my other units and we continued watching.

Today I opened the Beomaster up. After plugging it in and turning it on, the relays clicked like never anything happened. An intermittent problem...don't we love them?? Well, on the other hand this suggested immediately that there was a simple contact issue somewhere in the path between the responsible microcontroller (IC4) and Relay 2 on board 7. I slightly bent the microcontroller board back and forth, and promptly the relays cut out again. I followed the path from the plug to the microcontroller with my multimeter (IC4 pin #16 should pull the line to the relays down to ground when the Beomaster 8000 is on). What I found was that the via that connects the trace from pin #16 through the board right above the pin of the microcontroller had become an intermittent contact. The photo shows the three vias (in the center of the pic between "9" and "C97"). Please, note that getting there requires removal of the bottom part of the shield can that limits the RF emissions from the processors - this can be done by carefully inserting a screw driver in various positions around the can and turning its blade, thereby prying the lid off without bending it.

I had a similar problem before with the first Beomaster 8000 I restored. That one would out of a sudden go into stand-by, and not wake up anymore. In that case the pin #14 via was the culprit. I think the lesson here is that a complete restoration of a Beomaster 8000 should include the preventive measure of resoldering these vias.

Fixing was quick: I put small dabs of flux paste on the vias and then simply heated them until liquid with my soldering iron (at 380C). This restored the Beomaster to its original reliability and it is now happily back in our living room.