Of Mice and Hammonds (or How I Pulled My Hair Out Over A Mouse-Damaged H-182)

[bluetantra]

I need a fresh perspecitve on this project. I can't find the source of the dreaded "all tones at once" from the upper manual. I've almost finished this project, with completely refurbished pre-amps, re-capped main amp, repaired and serviced the pre-set mechanisms, cleaned the bussbars in the manuals and pedals of many years of mouse pee and grime. I've repaired every mouse-chewed wire between the manuals and the pre-set panel. The lower manual works fine, but the upper has a constant drone that gets somewhat louder as successive pre-set keys are depressed. I can't find any more bare wires or a loose ground.</P>


I have another manual from a 1972 H, but the key bushings are different (neoprene) from the felt used on this 1969 model. They have a decidedly different touch from the older felt bushings. What would you do? Change the manual for the newer, non-mouse-damaged one, chase down the problem with the old manual, live with the different feeling manuals or change all the key combs, keys and what-not?</P>

[bluetantra]

Re: Of Mice and Hammonds (or How I Pulled My Hair Out Over A Mouse-Damaged H-182)

I'm thinking this has to be a grounding or shielding problem. The rodent damage was not as bad as I originally thought and I've repaired and bandaged all the bad spots in the pre-set recorder panel wiring. In doing so, I unscrewed the preset recorder panel itself andnoticed that thenoise decreased significantly if I held the recorder panel up and away from the top of the generator. All the grounding points I can find seem fine, though. Another wrinkle in this is thatwith either A# or B preset selected, 8' and 4'tones (about 00 77000 000 00)remain constant - those drawbars seem to have no effect for either pre-set. Nine months ago when I got this organ home, I noticed this problem. I've fixed almost everything else on it, but these problems with the upper manual have me stumped. I haven't separated the drawbar assemblies from the tabrail yet (it's a real PITA) but that seems like the next logical place to look.