My Allen 301B has a ghost in it!!

[Arden]

Powered up the new console tonight and all the amps and functions seem to work. But it appears that I have a ghost. After I turn it on, and it warms up for a few minutes, the tabs start changing on their own! I didn't watch closely enough to see if it was going to the same setting but they all reset, then selected one's are applied. When I was sorting out the speaker wires, I saw a black box on the left side that had a message about "removing a jumper to avoid draining the battery when the organ is unplugged for extensive periods." Have no idea how long it sat at Goodwill but it was long enough that they lowered the price three times. I'm leaving it plugged in overnight to see if the battery does recharge. In the event that it doesn't, is it something that is easy to replace? I'm going to try and post a picture of the box.
Thanks, in advance.

Arden

[tucsondave]

Those are 4 D size Ni-Cads in series and are easy to replace. If one has shorted or reverse charged then it will drag down the 5 volts supply to the capture board.
Try removing the jumper to see if the ghost vanishes. Take a volt reading across terminals 1 & 3 with the jumper disconnected. If it's not 5 volts then replace all 4 cells.

td

[Arden]

Thank you!!! This is the best board I've ever been on. Every question I've ever had has been answered in a very short time. Can't thank you enough!!!

Arden

[myorgan]

I'm going to try and post a picture of the box.[ATTACH=CONFIG]15826[/ATTACH]

Arden,

I'm full of useless tidbits of information, but I thought I'd note that in your picture, you'll find J79 stamped on the label of the power supply box. That means it--and perhaps your organ were manufactured in 1979. As you look around the console and find more of those stamps on the cards, etc., you'll get a better picture of when the organ was manufactured and placed into service. Any dates you see after that date are probably replacement parts, thereby providing a bit of a repair history. Look long enough, and the organ will tell you its story.

Michael