Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107

[Guest]

Hi everyone, I just found this site today and already have dug through a wealth of information that I didn't even know was out there, so first off thanks to everyone for takin the time on a site like this. So I have a Hammond Concorde (I'm pretty sure) model number 2107. A great organ that I really love, so many possibilities of sounds to come out of this baby.</p>

Problem is I was transferring it into the basement of my new house, but to get it down the stairway i had to disassemble it a little. I took off the side panels, the top section with the drums, and detached the plugs and removed the fold-out panel in the back with all the upper and lower manual synthesis boards. I marked all of it so that I would know where to plug each one back in, and it went pretty smoothly except that now I get no sound out of the upper drawbar or preset keyboard. I can hear the faint faint drone, all of the percussion settings work and sound normal. I just got finished cleanin all the contacts and plugs that i could with Deoxit as I read on here, but the upper organ tones are still missing. Everything else on the organ works great (whew) and there don't seem to be any loose wires that I can find, but I could use some advice on where to look for a problem. If anyone has any advice on a situation like this or knows what section of the organ controls the upper keyboard organ tones, I could use some help :) Thanks guys</p>

Chris
</p>

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107

Chris... I know nothing of Concorde organs *I'm a Hammond lunatic*... but I was reading your story and I salute you... to the best of your skills in bringing your toy back to life/actionhams up a dainty sip of his coffee cup;) :))))

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107

You may have to clean *all* the contacts, not just the ones you removed. It seems these early circuit board hammonds do not like being moved. My experience with a Hammond LSI spinet was that some of the multiwire plugs could be plugged in reverse as well as the correct way. On that spinet each key board had its own full length mother board which slid into place like a giant PCI card or something (if you ever had your PC apart). Wiggling it, or pulling it out and pushing it in worked when one of the manuals went dead, which happened a lot. This organ finally ended up at the local recycling center, as it was always causing problems, and I had acquired an M3. Much better. May advice,Keep playing with it but look around for an older better built model then get rid of it .

[back52887]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



On my Concorde, the general cure is to take each board out gently, even those that I don't even suspect, and just as gently clean and reinsert. Have fun!![&lt;:o)][D][^][B]</P>


Lee</P>

[W4KSR]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



I hope it's not any of the LSI chips. One of those break, and that's it for the organ. It sounds like a connector on the upper manual motherboard. If it were a single note (like an A) throughout the whole organ (every A wouldn't sound), I would say the daughterboard for that note. Check also for a loose/broken wire at the connector end. </P>


Mark</P>

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



hey guys, thanks for all the replies and advice. Still workin on it, I cleaned the connectors on the upper manual motherboard that are under the keys, ive gotta get back in and clean the ones on the lower manual motherboard, i think those are the only ones i havent done other than the actual boards on the daughterboards. Is it safe to pull those all out and clean em? I think that's what you were suggesting Lee. I have noticed a significant quieting of the noise though, which is really exciting, it was pretty crackly before, and the drawbars are quieter. I talked to a technician and he said its 125-160 bucks to make a house call, have you guys had any luck with technicians or does it tend to get pretty pricy?</p>

chris
</p>

[geoelectro]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107

[quote user="airjordanlives"]

I talked to a technician and he said its 125-160 bucks to make a house call, have you guys had any luck with technicians or does it tend to get pretty pricy?</p>

chris
</p>

[/quote]</p>

Since I've been an Organ Technician for over thirty years, I'd have to say sure, if you get a good one. Just like any other industry, there are the good and bad. Hopefully, the bad ones won't make it and the good ones survive. A good tech is fast and usually charges a fair price. Get a recommendation if you can.</p>

George
</p>

[OrgansR4Me]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



I had a similar experience with the reverb on an Aurora theater model. I was trying to leave the reverb connection on while moving some of the chassis around for cleaning. The clip connections weren't very strong and when I got done the wires were loose and I couldn't see exactly how to fit them back on. Had to let the reverb go and never got back to it before I gave the organ away.</P>


The thought occurs to me that perhaps your connection point wasn't clear and the keyboard really isn't connected yet. Check around a little if you can do that without having something else come apart. I'm not a great fan of the LSI Hammond construction. I'll take an organ that is built on pivoting panels and has nothing to dismantle any day! Hope you get your sound back.</P>


I actually like the Concorde very much and bought one late in 2007 but wasn't able to complete the amplifier restoration it neededbecause of a family emergency. I gave it back to the charity store and it sold again within a few weeks.</P>

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



I have the very same problem with my Aurora. It just happened today for no apparent reason. It started out with just F# through B and only on the top half of the upper manual. I've dealt with other keyboards and I know they do split things up like this but this is my first Hammond and this is my 2nd day of ownership. Anyways, it just kept getting progressively worse and eventually the upper just went out completely except for (just like yours) all the percussion presets, they all sound fine. I've been messing around with it for 3 hours and finally decided to check online. There's not much documentation out there, thank god for sites like this or we would all be completely lost!I've seen about 5 forum articles etc. with people complaining about the very same issue and I have not seen a single solution. I've got my DVM out and have already eliminated a few possibilities and am now focusing on a board that seems to supply the drawbars. I'm in the middle of tearing out some stuff that's in the way so I can get down in there and see what's going on. I have seen several people on several sites saying they would check the connectors. I really don't think connectors are the issue at all. All that's happening when you re-seat your connectors is you're basically resetting something. There may be a charge that's not dissipating fast enough or any number of things that could becured just by re-seating those connectors but it's only a short term fix. If your organ is constructed like mine you have two boards side by side mounted vertically on the backsides upper support. They are the same exact boards. Each one supplies one half of each manual with current (in a common supply, it runs through the thin metal rod that your key contacts hit when you push a key down) and then sorts out the keys before everything runs down to the large mainboards. It looks like those large mainboards are where processing begins and notes and octaves are first generated andassigned to their respective keys. I am pretty much 100% sure that neither one of these boards are the problem. If they were then the percussion would not be working. It looks like the drawbars are supplied by a board all the way to the left hand side pretty much right behind the location of the actual bars. There's another smaller board just to the right of this.I don't know what your organ is like on the inside but mine has a lot of usefull labels on the boards. The smaller board is labeled "MDD top octave generator". I'm really suspecting one of these two boards. I haven't got around to checking them out too much yet but as soon as I do I will leave another post to be sure to keep you updated. I was really disappointed to get online today and find that there is a huge shortage of information on these organs. You can't even download a manual! Some guy has got a website and he's charging forty to fifty dollars just to send you a PDF file of the manual! I'm sure there are many more out there that either have this problem or have experienced it so now I'm on a mission to find a fix and let it be known! </P>

[geoelectro]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



You must clean all the circuit board edge connectors! It's not a reset, they have very bad connections. It's chronic! You can't troubleshoot until you reasonably know the mechanical connections are good. Do that first. It fixes 90% of Concord problems. After that, if you still have problems, then troubleshoot it. When I clean these connectors, I remove the circuit board. I burnish the edge connections with an erasure. Until they are shiny. Then, I very carefully bend the contacts in the actual connector so it will press harder onto the circuit board. I use a jewelers screwdriver. Pay special attention to the mixer boards, power supply regulator board, and amplifiers.</p>

I also check the voltages on the regulator board. There are four adjustable voltages. They are printed right on the board. Make sure their right.</p>

You have a circuit board cage for upper, lower, and percussion. These are the keyers. 12 keyer boards in each. The motherboard has connections around the perimeter. Be sure to check the one for the upper manual keyers since your upper manual is out.</p>

Since notes went out in groups, check the flute filter boards on the rear. They handle the notes in half octave groups. Check those connectors!</p>

Lastly, check the leslie upper and lower switch. Any bad connections here can kill the whole manual.</p>

I believe Jerry Welch still has hard copy manuals you can buy. </p>

http://www.mitatechs.com/hammond.html</p>

Good luck!</p>

George
</p>

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



I think I will check the Leslie upper and lower switches as I'm running out of ideas :) i cleaned all the board contacts and it didn't get the sound back, although it did quiet the noise down some. the lower manual keeps spattering in and out as i've had the organ apart, seems there's some loose connection or so in there cause when i jiggle the wires a little or flip the surrounding switchs it will kick back in, and i've had problems before with that group of switches before now that i think of it, the leslie upper, lower, celeste, chorus, and vibratos. hopefully somethin will work, but at least ive still got the rest of the sounds to get me by for a while if i have to get a new organ. Ive got the row of switches for an old Aurora i used to have so i'll give it a shot, wish me luck! and thanks for bein on top of these things everyone!
</p>

[fredy2]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



I don't know what type of cable connections you have. I WILL give a warning about ribbon cables.</P>


People often pull these off and stretch the wires at the very edge by lifting off with the cable rather than the sometimes near impossible connector!</P>


When the edge wires are pulled, they often break or come out of the little insulation displacment forks that contact the strands within each wire.</P>


If this happens, the end wires don't make contact with the pins in the connector.</P>


Another thing is sometimes due to the forces necessary to seperate the connections, sometimes the soldered connection of the mating connector on the circuit board is broken and very hard to see...</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[Guest]

Re: Help with Upper Manual on Concorde 2107



It took me a while but I finally got my Aurora working good. When I cleaned all the contacts I unplugged every connector in the top end of the organ (obviously), cleaned everything, plugged everything back in, turned it on and tried it and it still did not work. I unplugged everything again but this time I turned it on without anything plugged back in. I left it on for about 30 seconds, turned it off and plugged in one random connector and then turned it back on for another 30 seconds trying both manuals and presets to see what was working. After that I turned it off and repeated this with every connector and as mentioned above turned it on and went through everything to see what was working after plugging in any one connector. After doing all of this and eventually getting everything plugged back in it started working. I was really hoping to get the problem isolated and pinpoint the issue but it just didn't go that way. My Aurora seemed to have the same symptoms as your Concorde so I'm sure it's more or less the same issue. Hopefully this helps you with yours and you can get back to playing. Good luck!</P>


-Jake</P>