Found a Leslie for my M3

[Live Short]

Hello all,</p>

I can't believe my luck. First an M3 then a co-worker tells me he knows someone with a Leslie for sale. I try it out and it works fine. It even has the 30 foot cable. It's a Leslie 120 but for the price it's found a new home. I have three Leslie "Main/Ensemble/Echo" switches and the 26-1 box. The 26-1 was originally in a Lowrey so it had a 9 pin plug and jack. I was able to rewire it using a six pin plug and a five pin jack I also have a five pin plug to run out to the M3. I'm assuming I can rewire one of the MEE switches for the tremolo.? I have the right jack to go into the tremolo plug on the 26-1 box. I'm wondering if anyone has a decent picture of the wiring inside the 26-1 box just so I can compare my wiring just to make sure. From what I've read here and the Captain Foldback pages, once I get this far I need to run the two AC wires to the gray and blue on the back of the amp then one to the speaker side of the wire I cut then one to the other side of the cut going to the amp. It's field coil so leave the coil intact and cut one of the wires going to the speakers voice coil. Then ground the black wire to the? Where do you usually do this? To the amp or the speaker? Thanks in advance for your help.
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[TheAdmiral]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Congratulations on the 120. I have two of them I like them so much. One of these days I'm going to add a horn to it and make it the smallest, loudest Leslie around. Here is a picture of my 26-1 box. The orange wire went to the fuse which was removed. If I remember right (and sometimes I don't!) the AC needs to go to the grey and brown wires otherwise the Leslie will be on all the time. The brown wire puts it in line with the run switch when it's on. You need to put an 8 ohm 20 watt resister between the speaker wires if you disconnect the speaker as the amp needs a load on it at all times. Of course, leave the field coil wires on the speaker. Any on-off switch to the tremolo plug will work it. Ground to the amp chassis. If you don't use the echo switch you will need a jumper wire across to complete the connection that would have normally been made at the rail switch.</p>

Good luck and happy playing!
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[Guest]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

There's one on Ebay at the moment. I was thinking of putting a high efficiency Altec Coaxial speaker in there (with a self built bi-amp)and turning it upside down. Good on you anyway for scoring one.

[Live Short]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Thanks Admiral,</p>

Looks like I got it correct.[:D] Now for the actual hook-up. I'm going to use the plan for the 27-9 wiring scheme with the five pin socket. My worry is using both speakers. That would put the load to 4 ohms? Hopefully the AO-29 can handle that. It's only one amp so it will always have a load on it, one or both speakers, so do you ever need the 8 ohm 20 watt resistor? I was going to use one MEE switch just soldering the outside lugs for the tremolo switch. Hopefully I'll try it today and report back. Thanks again.
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[toasterDude]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

[quote user="TheAdmiral"]


One of these days I'm going to add a horn to it and make it the smallest, loudest Leslie around. </P>


[/quote]</P>


I've heard about guys putting a coaxial type driver in these 120/125/130 Leslies and getting a lot better sound. You know, the kind with the little "whizzer" cone... apparently you get a lot more treble response which makes it sound more like a 145 etc. (I had a 120 for awhile, hooked up to an M3 and I hated the sound - very muddy/muffled or something.) But anyway,I just missed a free 125 last week that I was going to try the coaxial thingon...the nice thing is that you get rotated treble frequencies, without any additional mods. Something at leastworth looking into, when you compare all the labor involved in trying to mod the cabinet for a treble driver, motors and horns.</P>


TD</P>

[Live Short]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

Well guys, no luck yet. When I connected everything nothing from either speaker. I desoldered the green wire from the amp plug and put the red wire there. I connected the greens together but no sound. The Leslie did turn full speed. It didn't respond to switching to slow. I'm thinking the switches may be part of the problem but it's all frustrating knowing this is probably some thing minor that I'm just not seeing yet. I undid everything using the M3's speaker and it's working fine. You were right about the AC hookup Admiral, brown and grey otherwise the Leslie's on the whole time. I'm going to double check everything but if anyone has been down this road advise would be most appreciated.

[TheAdmiral]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

Did you use a jumper on the small 5 pin connector? If not, you're not getting a signal through to the Leslie. If you plugged the MEE in there then the problem is probably there in the switch wiring. You would do better to take the wire off the speaker than the plug. Does your 120 have a box in it with a relay?

[Live Short]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

Thank You Admiral, I'll check the connectors. Are you referring to the jumper between pin 4 to 5? That one is together. I'm going to look inside the MEE switch to see if it looks wired correctly. Seems strange to me that neither speaker would come on yet the Leslie motor turned. I'm sure I've overlooked some connection so now that I've went out and worked in the yard for awhile I'll start refreshed and see what I've done here.

[TheAdmiral]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



For a quick check, run a jumper from your green speaker wire on the organ to the green wire on the 6 pin connector in the 26-1 out to the Leslie. You may need to also jumper the black wire from the speaker to the connector. That should give you sound at the Leslie. </p>

If everything's working properly it should change speeds if you jumper the two pin tremolo connector. Be careful, that's 120 volts. Those are two independent systems.</p>

If that works then you have the basics to work from.
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[Live Short]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3

Perseverance pays off! She's up and running and sounds fantastic! As I mentioned earlier these switches came off a Lowrey and they had them wired a bit different. They had the 3 and 4 sockets attached on the speaker selector not the 1 and 2 needed for the 26-1 plan I was following. I couldn't see this obvious error but using the continuity checker on my meter solved it despite my eyes being wide open yet unable to see. The tremolo plug had the wires on different poles so once I rearranged them it was switching nicely. I love the slow speed effect. Very sad and full of emotion. A coaxial speaker might be worth a try but I'm not getting any muddiness at all with the Jensen currently in there. Anyways, thanks again for listening to my little challenge.I can say it was worth all the effort once things came together.

[bossbandbob]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Hey TD,
Fellow New Englander,</p>

I have a 130 and am in the process of either hooking up a coax to replace its 12" driver or making a jig so that the tweeter it came with fires into the lower rotor as well. There is a guy at HammondZone who has posted pictures of how he has done that and he likes the sound.</p>

I'm researching coaxial speakers now and trying to decide which way to go. The jig idea is way cheaper but more work. The Coax idea is way easier but more expensive. If I only knew the answer I'd go with whatever sounds best!</p>

I like the sound of the 130 on slow a lot with my clonewheel but not on high. It seems to sound duller on high speed. My leslie simulator actually sounds better when I move its mod wheel to high than the 130 does. It seems to have a better low tweeter or high midrange sound than the 130's tremeolo.</p>

Bob</p>

[toasterDude]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Hey BBB, yeah we're in the same general neck of the woods... I'm actually going to be teaching about 1/2 hour from where you are this coming fall.</P>


I saw that project on HammondZone too - thought it was super cool! From what I could see it might not have been worth the extra work to retain the original 130 tweeter - you know, how he had to build a spacer ring to keep the larger driver from hitting. I think the coax drivers should be the way to go -- some of them even have built-in crossovers! What could be easier than that?</P>


I'd be very interested to hear what you end up doing, and how you like it. I have a feeling something like a 125 could sound very, very good with a coax in there... definitely good enough for the L/M/T spinets of the world! Anyway please keep us posted on here with your progress.</P>


cheers,</P>


Scott</P>

[bossbandbob]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Hey Scott,</p>

We have more in common than you may think. First, I'm a teacher as well (art &amp; photo) and second, I just bought an M3! Picking it up Wed. and real excited about it-my first "real" Hammond! Where will you be teaching?</p>

As far as my 130 leslie is concerned, I found that the stock tweeter was actually dead on it but ordered a new one and a midrange from Parts express for 20$ for both.They got good reviews and both were in the usual Leslie tweeter driver range. I'm going to try each into the rotor under the woofer and see which I like best- if they ever get here. 5 days and waiting. I'm pretty handy with that kind of stuff. Someday I'm going to build an actual upper horn assembly from scratch but just gotta find some kind of low or adjustable rpm motor to do it with first so I figured I'd need an upper speaker for that anyway. The coax's I could find were either really old or really expensive and I had no idea what the old ones sounded like.</p>

Bob</p>

[bossbandbob]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



Scott check out this thread: http://organforum.com/forums/16/75064/ShowThread.aspx</p>

There are 2 guys who built their own Leslies or at least parts of them. Skippy made an upper rotor using a stereo amp, some kind of electric motor and pvc pipes for the horn and Brendon has fashioned a 2 piece unit from 2 internal Leslies.</p>

Bob</p>

[bossbandbob]

Re: Found a Leslie for my M3



I have made the following improvements on my 130:</p>



The new tweeter is now firing into the lower rotor wired in parallel with the new stationary

midrange that I installed up top sounds the best. My amp seems to be able to handle that
without any problem. They are all 8 ohm speakers. The tweeter most definitely pumps a higher tone
into the rotor. I also noticed that the Leslie rotor on tremolo was
rotating slower than my keyboard's Leslie simulator at it's highest setting. Adjusting the
drive belt seems to improve that. It may have been too tight.

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Leaving the back cover open a crack at the top also improves the sound, particularly the mid-highs and seems to retain the lows.</p>

I
have taken pictures of how I did this but can't seem to post any on
this forum. Will put them on Hammondzone when I get around to it. I actually did not need a jig as the tweeter is only 2 1/2" and I mounted it with one screw on the edge of the rotor hole. I put a single nut as a spacer under the woofer at the screw hole closest to where I installed the tweeter for clearance and wrapped some stick on foam weather stripping I had around the lifted edge. Total cost:about 20$
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I think it is now ready for my M3, which I'll be getting on Thursday.</p>

Bob</p>

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