Beginner Hammond owner - some help and advice needed please!

[Saab_pilot]

Hi all,

I'm new on this forum but hope to be making an appearance more often as I'm now the proud owner of a Hammond TTR100 spinet. I've not owned any Organ before let alone an older mechanical one so hoping for some pointers to help make the most of the instrument.

I've found it surprisingly hard to find documentation online on how to properly maintain the T100 - are there specific instructions anywhere on how to oil it correctly? I'm assuming I need to treat it a bit like a car and assume the previous owner may not have done it recently. What type of oil is needed and are there any UK suppliers of Hammond tonewheel oil (i keep seeing it from the US on eBay but it's fairly pricey!) How frequently does this need to be done and are there any other things to service regularly?

It's lovely to play but I've noticed that occasionally at higher volumes the quality degrades - if I play at high volume while using the vibrato setting on the organ over time it develops what sounds like a "whooping" high pitched sound occasionally. i then reduce volume and turn off vibrato which cures it but I have noticed on occasion after this has happened there is a much reduced or even silent audio output from the organ when the vibrato switch is selected. Does anybody have any thoughts as to what could be causing this and how to go about solving it? I confess I do not fully understand the workings yet but I gather there is a scanner that controls vibrato, i thought perhaps there could be a fault here? It seems to work fine at lower volumes.

Finally I'd like to modify the output to be able to use it with a Leslie effects pedal (I don't have the space for the real thing unfortunately!) doing my research it looks like 2 pins on the leslie output from the organ are signal and ground - is it safe to just wire these to a quarter inch jack and connect from there or will there be issues with level? There are two plugs on the base of the organ - one with 7 round pins (one is a fixed stud), and one with 6 square holes.

Sorry for all the questions - hope somebody who knows a bit more about these than me can point me in the right direction!

Many thanks
Alex

[ChristopherDB113]

Only use tone wheel generator oil. One expensive bottle will last you close to a decade.

Once a year you open the rear panel. I own and RT3 and have never seen inside a TTR100 but have to assume the oiling system is similar. Near the center and up high there should be two small metal 'cups' with copper tubes coming out their bottoms going to different locations. You fill the cups about 2/3 (?) full. There should be a label by them to say how full. It's either 2/3 or 3/4 and I have to read the label every year. This will use up about a shot glass full of oil, so you can see why that bottle will last a while.

The oil will immediately start to drain out through the tubes, but don't sweat it. Don't try to maintain any oil level in the cups. It will drain and be soaked up by wicks, the strings you will see woven through the tone generator to all the important parts. Close the back and don't fool with the oil until next year. Put the oil bottle some place you won't lose it, like a shelf in your music room, as opposed to under the kitchen sink.

Don't worry if a previous owner neglected the oil so long as the tone generator turns as it should.

Can't help with the other questions.

[andyg]

Congrats on the TTR - great looking organ - and welcome to the forum's "T Club".

You have issues with the vibrato circuitry, for sure. The vibrato switch doesn't actually switch on the vibrato but instead routes the organ audio through the scanner, line box and recovery amp, before mixing everything back together for the main amp. So the problem lies somewhere in that chain. But there's nothing in there that can't be fixed, it's all just 1960s technology. I'll let our T series experts like Brendon advise you.

The output from the pins on the leslie socket is at speaker level, enough to send an effects pedal into orbit! The best way of doing things is to use the effects pedal as an insert unit before the main amp. Again, I'm sure out experts will be able to tell you where. If you're planning running the output from the pedal into an external amp, you could always just take the signal from the headphones socket and pad it down a little. I did that with my old T402 and a Ventilator.
But you already know that you will want that 145 at some point, a little furniture moving...... :) I speak from experience of saying that I couldn't ever fit a console organ into this lounge. It fitted, eventually!

[enor]

Only use tone wheel generator oil. One expensive bottle will last you close to a decade.

Once a year you open the rear panel. I own and RT3 and have never seen inside a TTR100 but have to assume the oiling system is similar. Near the center and up high there should be two small metal 'cups' with copper tubes coming out their bottoms going to different locations. You fill the cups about 2/3 (?) full. There should be a label by them to say how full. It's either 2/3 or 3/4 and I have to read the label every year. This will use up about a shot glass full of oil, so you can see why that bottle will last a while.

The oil will immediately start to drain out through the tubes, but don't sweat it. Don't try to maintain any oil level in the cups. It will drain and be soaked up by wicks, the strings you will see woven through the tone generator to all the important parts. Close the back and don't fool with the oil until next year. Put the oil bottle some place you won't lose it, like a shelf in your music room, as opposed to under the kitchen sink.

Don't worry if a previous owner neglected the oil so long as the tone generator turns as it should.

Can't help with the other questions.

2 things to add:

* On the T-series there are also two small oil cups on either end of the motor. Lift the lids and add a couple of drops to each.

* On the RT-3: You're not forgetting to oil the motor/scanner, are you?

[ChristopherDB113]

No. There is either a copper tube or wicks going to that pan, and the sponge material in there has always been saturated with oil so I've never put any directly on it.

[enor]

No. There is either a copper tube or wicks going to that pan, and the sponge material in there has always been saturated with oil so I've never put any directly on it.

Oh, your RT-3 is old enough to have the central oiling system! Missed that in your original post. That disappeared from the -3 series organs quite early on in the production run, and isn't present in any subsequent tonewheel model.

[Saab_pilot]

Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum and your helpful advice so far!

I'll order a bottle of the oil - it's not the oil so much that's expensive but shipping and customs! Glad to hear it lasts a long time. I had a look at the back of the organ - I can see two white funnels over the tonewheel generator which I assume are the cups you've mentioned?

I discovered while I was in there that there is already a 1/4 inch jack - not sure if this is a modification from a previous owner? I plugged it in and I get a fairly noisy but usable output, I'm guessing this is designed for headphones? I've ordered myself a DI box with some attenuation to pad it out and feed to the Ventilator - like you say I can see myself finding room eventually for the real deal but I'm very impressed with the Neo vent 2!

Cheers
Alex

[Papus]

Congratulations on scoring the King of Spinets and the model most easily converted to B3-like specifications: the mighty T Series!!
The Hammond TTR100 is particularly cool looking, like a mini chopped C3.


You might want to do a Naptha flush just to be sure your tone wheel generator is in the best possible condition.
Search this forum for the details, and make sure you pay attention to the safety requirements!

Also: DO NOT TURN ON THE ORGAN UNTIL YOU HAVE REPLACED THE MOTOR RUN CAPACITOR!!!!!

It is the oval-shaped vertical tin can in front of the motor.
Your cap is probably at least 50 years old. Those old caps are filled with LETHAL carcinogenic PCB oil.
As the caps age, they are prone to bulging and eventually EXPLODING, sending toxic gases and PCB-soaked burnt paper everywhere.
Tell-tale signs that it's about to blow are:

• Organ won't play in tune, usually a drop in pitch
• Wavering or wobbly tuning
• Motor needs physical assistance to get it turning up to speed
• Motor won't turn at all, despite TWG being demonstrably well lubricated and free-turning

My T202 recently started showing signs of playing about 20 cents flat. I have not turned it on since, I'm awaiting delivery of a brand new motor run cap. My TWG runs clean and silent, so I know its not dragging due to excessive friction.

Even if your T appears to be behaving itself at the moment, do not use it until you've changed the motor run cap. It's just not worth the risk.
Any cap of that age is a liability at this point.
If you're proficient with a soldering iron, and understand the safety procedures, then now would be a good time to change the caps in the power supply as well. This should help with any 50Hz mains hum.

Whilst you're poking around in your T, you might as well explore the many mods which will help convert the humble T into a fire-breathing, key-click spitting baby B3:

https://www.keyboardpartner.de/hammond/t-mods.htm

The easiest mod is Skill 1. All you need to do is snip one of the legs of the Miller capicitors, you don't even need a soldering iron!
More advanced mods will give your T a more B3-like EQ curve, and proper single-trigger percussion and percussion presets.

For line out, the headphone jack is the easiest place to access a signal. Running it through a transformer isolated DI Box with inbuilt pad is the best way.
Be aware that the headphone jack has an inbuilt treble roll-off which will kill some of the key-click, but it is easily bypassed - search the forum.
There is also a "Tone Cab Output" available on the amplifier board, I forget which pin number but it's easy to find on the schematics. This signal is a very high line level (about 2-3v from memory), you'll need to pad it down with a DI box or just built your own simple resistor dividing network. I find the Tone Cab signal is a bit cleaner than the headphone signal, and a bit brighter.

You can also install an effects loop quite easily on the recovery board, I think it's pin 6 but don't quote me on that. Simply break the signal at pin 6, run it out to some guitar pedals or whatever - it's already at a good line level compatible with modern gear. I have a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor on pin 6 of my recovery amp as the T's can be a bit noisy if there are ANY grounding issues - and there are ALWAYS grounding issues with T's! Be aware that pin 6 on the recovery board is PRE-EXPRESSION pedal - this is a good spot to take a very clean line level signal to run through your own volume pedal - although it won't have any vibrato/chorus on it as that gets mixed in AFTER pin 6.
A cool idea might be to place a Boss EQ pedal in the effects loop to counteract the horrible key-click filters in the T, that way you don't have to do any risky soldering on the T's boards. I haven't tried it myself but a second hand EQ pedal will be less than $100 for an experiment. You can always use the pedal post-line out instead, or sell it to a guitarist!

It's always prudent to use a transformer isolator and/or a buffer when running signals in and out of a T as the grounding scheme is weird. All Boss guitar pedals have inbuilt buffers.
I run my T202 through a Korg A5 guitar multi-effects unit, mainly for the parametric EQ which is configured to accent the key click and fatten up the bottom end before it hits my Leslie 122.

Regarding your intermittent vibrato/chorus issue, it's worth remembering that the T-Series boards use pin/post connectors - these are prone to oxidization and failure over time.
Try simply removing, cleaning and reinserting each pin on your vibrato board. It's worth doing this will ALL pins on the entire organ, if you are experiencing other sources of unwanted noise/sputtering, etc.
Bad earth noise is quite common on T's, and manifests itself by a sputtering white noise type of sound.

BE VERY CAREFUL when messing with the boards, they are easily damaged on the edges and can easily snap in half!

The other common spinet mod which is not specifically mentioned on any T-Series sites is Lower Manual Bass Foldback.
This mod lowers the lower manual by one octave.
It is easily done with basic soldering skills - but there are hundreds of terminals and wires to detach, move and re-solder!
Patience is a must-have item for this mod!
It took me about three nights of 3-4 hours each to complete the mod and tidy up the cabling.
Search the forum and YouTube for how to do it - you'll find plenty of videos showing how it's done on L's and M's. The principle is the same for T's.
I didn't bother hacking into the woodwork to free up sufficient length on the lower manual cable harness to allow it to move in the right direction - I just added short lengths of similar gauged cable to each terminal, and heat-shrinked the joins.
This mod adds so much beef to the T-Series, I would rank it as almost as important as removing the key-click filters.

Brendon and Kon are the resident T experts here, I'm sure they'll chime in any minute now.

Welcome to the T Club!

[enor]

Congratulations on scoring the King of Spinets and the model most easily converted to B3-like specifications: the mighty T Series!!

While I do like the T-series, the above is highly debatable. The M-series is MUCH closer to being "B3-like" already from the factory and much easier to convert. But the T-series in my opinion is the 2nd best, much better than the L-100s because they have scanner vibrato/chorus.

[Papus]

While I do like the T-series, the above is highly debatable. The M-series is MUCH closer to being "B3-like" already from the factory and much easier to convert. But the T-series in my opinion is the 2nd best, much better than the L-100s because they have scanner vibrato/chorus.

You're absolutely correct - I completely forgot the mighty M3, the true "Baby B3"!
But the M's and L's are much more dangerous to work on, by virtue of the high tension valve circuits inside.
T's are much safer for common tinkerers and hacks

[enor]

Agreed! Much less prone to killing you (although not completely "safe") :)