Hammond E112 lost sound after being left on

[Randall]

I have an E112 with a small 25 Leslie. I accidentally left it on when I left for a couple hours. Came back inside, turned it off. Now there's very little sound thru Leslie or speaker in organ if any that when played. The tone wheel is turning and the Leslie is hooked up and responds to the fast and slow settings. Thanks in advance......

[Wes]

Something failed in the organ. It's not because you left it on, it was just its time. How long have you owned the organ, and when were the electronics last refreshed?

If the E112 is like the L100 (I think it is) you may be able to separate the preamp from the power amp by unplugging RCA cables. Then you can try with an amp and an iPod to figure out which half of the system went kablooey.

Wes

[indianajo]

One usually addresses these problems with a voltmeter and a schematic diagram. Hammond put the DC voltages on the schematic diagram. If they are way off, something is wrong.
One device that often goes wrong on old consumer electronics is the electrolytic capacitor. These are aluminum cans filled with water slime and sealed with cheap rubber. The rubber deteriorates after 20 years, and warm components leak water vapor until they quit. If your aluminum cans are sprague, aerovox, mallory, Hammond, they areprobably original and way past service life rating. The production dates on the old ones are YYWW where YY is 19YY and WW is the week from 01 to 53. E100's have about 40 electrolytic capacitors, you should look in there and see if you see oriental brand names or these bankrupt vendors. (Sprague still operates under Vishay, but is now has a blue wrapper instead of tan or orange).
Warning, before taking the cover off with the power on, read the following safety traning - and follow it.
Safety sticky thread:
When working with the power on, wear no jewelry, no necklace, no wedding ring, nothing metallic. Current at any voltage can burn your finger through metal to charcoal. Use only one hand at a time with the power on, current across your heart above 24 VDC can stop it. Many newbies put one hand in a pocket. Attach the meter negative to the chassis with a clip lead and use only one meter probe with the hand. Don't work alone. don't work with the power on while distracted by a cell phone, wired phone, entertainment device, or grandchild. Don't talk to anyone, focus on the job. Make sure any companion knows how to call the emergency service.
Before touching any metal under the chassis even with the power off, measure it as <24 VDC to ground before touching it. If anything is above 24 VDC, discharge it with the following tool: Take a 100 to 4700 ohm resistor with fixed terminals, like a 5 watt power resistor. Solder a 600 v rated probe lead to one end, usually from a dead DVM with a 600 v scale or something. Take some 600 V rated wire and solder to the other end, and solder an alligator clip lead to that. Attach the alligator clip to the chassis. Touch any metal with the probe tip, while holding the insulated probe handle. Then re-measure the metal you intend to touch at <24 VDC to chassis. Lower is better. the 4700 ohm resistor will take several seconds to discharge any energy.
Wear safety glasses while soldering or desoldering. Solder can splash and burn your eye.
Proper contact cleaner is flammable. While using, no smoking, open flame, electricity turned on or off, within 10 m. Set up a fan before spraying to dissipate the fumes. Flammable contact cleaners are sometimes marked aliphatic hydrocarbons, petroleum distillate, heptane, hexane, others.
Do not use brominated hydrocarbon non-flammable contact cleaner on organs. These professional contact cleaners are for factory use where the electricity cannot be turned off. These contact cleaners will dissolve PVC and styrene plastics used in consumer products like organs. Non-flammable brominated hydrocarbon contact cleaners cost about $25 a can and are not for sale at the lumberyard, typically.
Anyway, the whole re-e-cap should cost ~$75 for tools and <$100 in parts if you do it yourself. The E100 power amp can be removed and taken to a musical instrument repair if you really prefer to do it that way. More instructions are available if you want.
Have fun.

[Randall]

Reply to Wes

Ive owned the Hammond for 3-4 months. Not sure the history, bought it from someone that bought it at an auction. It seemed like it had been losing a little volume over the last couple months. The tubes in the organ are new. Caps haven't been replaced.

Something failed in the organ. It's not because you left it on, it was just its time. How long have you owned the organ, and when were the electronics last refreshed?

If the E112 is like the L100 (I think it is) you may be able to separate the preamp from the power amp by unplugging RCA cables. Then you can try with an amp and an iPod to figure out which half of the system went kablooey.

Wes

[indianajo]

I've got four tube Hammond organs built from from 1964 to 1968, and 81 of 83 tubes are original. The best sounding one, all the tubes are original, and 71 of 189 electrolytic capacitors are new. The 116 old capacitors are in the harp sustain circuit, which only works at about half its original sustain time. Another one, the second owner back had 118 of 189 electrolytic capacitors replaced, 116 of them in the harp circuit. The harp works fine but the motor capacitor would have exploded the second time I turned it on if I hadn't heard the pitch drop and turned it off. Big bulge in the motor capacitor, no safety vents were installed in 1967. Read and heed.

[Twiggybush]

Hmmm, Wes is correct. Have you determined if the problem lays in the preamp or power amps? Have you wiggled all them cords? My first thought was tubes, but you said they are new. For starters I'd plug a line level device (drum machine,keyboard etc) into the white rca jack on the power amp. That will tell you if it's a problem with the pre or power amps. If it's the power amp, it would be funny that both the main and reverbs died together. That leaves me suspecting the preamp and cords. I would not eliminate the tubes having a problem. If you suspect the power amp, it's simple to remove the mount screws and tilt it back for an inspection of the chassis interior. E's also have diodes that fail. Happened to me. Cost me a new pair of power tubes. Not cheap. You could take the white RCA plug and plug it into another amp to determine if the preamps working. It is also possible the swell pedal is at fault. Eliminate it by tracing it's input to the preamp and testing from that point. I'm a big fan of 'E's. I'm sure you'll have her up and running in no time. Welcome to the forum.

[enor]

It is VERY RARE that a tube fails in a Hammond - they live their entire life at "near idle" conditions. Guitar amps (which is what most people compare with/draw their experience from) are a very different story. I've been working on Hammonds for about 20 years now and so far only had to replace one failed tube, ever - the rectifier in an L-100.

[Jorgen]

I had a similar problem with my B3. Turned out to be a bad pin connection on 12ax7(new), lost almost all output.
So as Twiggybush thought; check the tubes/sockets, EVEN they are new.
Even possible dendrites on RCA plugs, which were the case of silence when I "digged" out my L-122 for practice drawbar-cleaning.

I agree with the other gentlemen and as enor say; original tubes seems not to wear out. I guess it's for ones satisfaction/completing you want to put in new tubes, some of them anyway:-)

[indianajo]

The two tubes I had to replace were kept by the previous owner, or stolen off the floor of Salvation Army. The back on my A100 did not cover the power amp, and somebody salvaged the 6BQ5's for a guitar amp, I suppose. Hammond ran the tubes in the linear part of the curve, they left the overdrive abuse to Mr. Leslie.

[Randall]

Thanks

Thanks, I'll check er out a lil more when I have time.

Hmmm, Wes is correct. Have you determined if the problem lays in the preamp or power amps? Have you wiggled all them cords? My first thought was tubes, but you said they are new. For starters I'd plug a line level device (drum machine,keyboard etc) into the white rca jack on the power amp. That will tell you if it's a problem with the pre or power amps. If it's the power amp, it would be funny that both the main and reverbs died together. That leaves me suspecting the preamp and cords. I would not eliminate the tubes having a problem. If you suspect the power amp, it's simple to remove the mount screws and tilt it back for an inspection of the chassis interior. E's also have diodes that fail. Happened to me. Cost me a new pair of power tubes. Not cheap. You could take the white RCA plug and plug it into another amp to determine if the preamps working. It is also possible the swell pedal is at fault. Eliminate it by tracing it's input to the preamp and testing from that point. I'm a big fan of 'E's. I'm sure you'll have her up and running in no time. Welcome to the forum.

[Randall]

Update

Started the Hammond up this morning. Made sure it was warmed up and laid a weight on a couple keys. Then I took the back off to see where my problem was at. The tubes were mostly lit up with the exception of the EF/86 6267's in the preamp. After a lil wiggling and removing them and replacing I got sound!! Seems like the EF/86 on the left has the problem. It doesn't effect anything. The one on the right stops the sound when removed. I switched the tubes around and got the same result. I'm thinking the left EF/86 socket is bad or a wire has come off................

[T-200]

One EF/86 is for non-vibrato channel and the other one for vibrato channel. If you don't have vibrato on, removing the other tube doesn't affect anything. Turn the vibrato on and then try removing the left tube, that should stop the vibrato sound...

Jussi