Baldwin C-811

[mum2upal]

I have a Baldwin organ and unfortunately it was left on overnight. Now all it does is make a buzzing sound when it's turned on. No sound when pressing keys or pedals.
Can anyone tell me what this might be and if it's not too expensive to fix. Thanks

[mum2upal]

Baldwin C-811

I have a Howard classical series by Baldwin and there is only a buzzing sound coming from it when turned on. It was left on overnight by accident.
Any idea what this could be or if its an inexpensive fix. Help is greatly appreciated as it was a gift from my parents.

[jbird604]

Sounds like a filter capacitor in the power supply went out. If you aren't somewhat tech savvy, you may have to call in a technician. If you are able, use a meter and measure the AC voltage across each large capacitor in the supply and replace any that show more than a few hundredths of a volt. Actually, if one of the primary caps has failed and you are getting a large buzz in the output, you may find many volts of AC on one of them. Also, you might have a failed diode in the rectifier circuit, so don't overlook that.

[mum2upal]

Where would you buy a capacitor

Where would you buy a capacitor from. I am in Kitchener,ON

Sounds like a filter capacitor in the power supply went out. If you aren't somewhat tech savvy, you may have to call in a technician. If you are able, use a meter and measure the AC voltage across each large capacitor in the supply and replace any that show more than a few hundredths of a volt. Actually, if one of the primary caps has failed and you are getting a large buzz in the output, you may find many volts of AC on one of them. Also, you might have a failed diode in the rectifier circuit, so don't overlook that.

[indianajo]

digikey.com of Minnesota reputedly has a convenient cross border truck that delivers by Royal Mail in CA. I believe farnell.com has a Canadian warehouse.
There are Canadian only electronics distributors, one in Vancouver I believe.
Do not request UPS or Fed Ex shipment across the border, both have a double digit "customs loan origination" fee. make sure you check mail shipment across the border, the RM will do COD for the customs routinely. At least it was that way a couple of years ago according to guys on diyaudio.com parts forum.
See this about replacing tall can caps, if you have any, with radial lead electrolytic capacitors on cinch 56a terminal strips under the chassis. This works for screw terminal caps, also. http://www.organforum.com/forums/sho...146#post280146
I like the caps rated for >3000 hours service life, as I had to replace the tall can cap in my tube amp 4 times since 1970. digikey and farnell have the hours service life listed in the selector table.
I don't test electrolytic caps, once the consumer electronic device has problems, I just shotgun replace them all. Two at a time then reassemble for testing. if you make a mistake and make it worse, then you know pretty well exactly where you made a wiring error or bad solder joint. Like tires, the seals in consumer grade caps are good for only a certain number of years before the seal cracks and the water can leak out if they warm up. 10000 hour caps have a better grade of seal, I believe. If you save the old caps for another day, your organ will always be broken. I don't know why all the pro techs on here focus so much on replacing only "the one that is bad". After 20-30 years, they are all bad, just some of them haven't shorted out yet. Once you have new caps in there, you can leave your device on 18 hours a day 350 days a year without damage, since it has no motors or moving parts. The incandescent light bulb in the pedal (if it has one) may not last that long. Buy two of those on the same shipment.
Good luck, happy Christmas.

[arie v]

Hi,

I must confess that I don't know anything about this model, other than it is an AGO console, that came to market around 1989.

Does anyone know who built this organ? Was it a Baldwin USA product, or Intercontinental Music (Viscount), or possibly GeneralMusic (Galanti).

Narrowing it down to the manufacturer would be of help in giving useful information.

Arie V

[jbird604]

Arie, it is a peculiar product. I have the schematics somewhere, but not with me right now. But I think it was built by Intercontinental for Baldwin. I don't believe it has an AGO pedalboard, but rather a flat 25 or 27-pedal unit. May have even been available with a simple 13-note pedal unit. The manuals are 56 keys instead of 61, as I recall. Simple rocker tabs for the stops, no combination action or presets of any kind.

Some quirky technology, less advanced than the more typical Viscount organs re-badged as Baldwin. I think I remember that it actually has for a transposer, a knob that selects among the 8 or 10 different pots connected to a master oscillator, so it "transposes" by changing the frequency of the clock. Each one of the different pots has to be separately tuned correctly, so that when you switch to another transposer position your notes won't go out of tune!

I believe it has a more or less hybrid analog/digital tone generator system consisting of a series of ICs, each of which generates a particular group of notes as square waves, followed by analog filters for the stops. Sort of like some of the solid state Hammonds of the 80's. I believe I was told one time that this particular technology was borrowed from Johannus, but I wouldn't swear to that.

I've seen several around here in small churches, one or two in homes. Perfectly decent little practice organ, as long it's not abused. Not what I'd call a heavy duty instrument, but OK for light usage.

[arie v]

John,

Come to think of it, I probably came across one of these in years gone by.

Thanks for the info. I agree it sunds like an Intercontinental Music product.

One other thing, an organ like this, would it get technical and parts support from Robert Spoon, or Norm N. at iscount Technical Services?
Or would a model like this not be supported at all now?

AV

[jbird604]

I suppose Norm would the person to call first. I'm pretty sure this was not built by Baldwin in the US, though I could be wrong. Might even have been built by Johannus, though if so it would be the only Baldwin-badged product to come from them. Much less substantial construction than the US-built Baldwin organs of the late 80's, and less substantial than the typical Viscount-built Baldwins too. I saw a for-sale ad somewhere that said their C-811 was purchased new in 1989, which sounds about right.

I poked around on the internet and found a picture of a C-811, and it is what I thought. Two 56-key manuals, very simple (and somewhat thin-feeling) plastic rocker tabs for the stops, no presets. The pic that I found showed spinet-style pedals, but I seem to remember that it was available with a larger pedalboard as well. Here's the pic I found:

http://saskatoon.yatbo.ca/forsale-a-...t-Church-Organ

I believe the location of the swell and great stops is reversed from the usual American arrangement, and that the overall balance is weighted toward the upper keyboard, more like theater style, though the stops carry church organ names. There are some general tabs to increase the tuning offset between the two manuals, celeste tuning, tremulants, etc. And the transposer, and some volume control knobs.

If I can think of it when I go to the shop later in the week, I'll try to find the schematic and see who built it.