For those who have kindly shown an interest in my jukebox..

"If you don't want to know the score......."




I thought a few who are similarly mechanically minded, but are unfamiliar with them might like to know a bit about them, I know mine has interested visiting adults and surprisingly particularly teenagers, the latter only ever having seen one in a film or on TV programme.

Half the interest in them for me and fellow enthusiasts is the workings.

This one is from 1977.

The “silver age” vinyl ones as they are known of the fifties and sixties all chrome and lights, with visible mechanisms, were steadily replaced by more modern machines. Valve amplifiers giving way to transistorised systems and the mechanisms disappearing from view, as the number of titles available for selection increased over time, from 40 in the early fifties to 200. There was no longer room for all the titles and a view of the mechanism.
Although we were well into the computer age by the time this was built, it used a tried and tested system which had been going since the sixties. It was the same for the other main manufacturers, Ami-Rowe, Wurlitzer and Seeburg.

The ones with the visible mechanisms from the late fifties are the most desirable.. A restored one of the most popular designs would set you back £5,000. Mine isn’t popular being large and bulky, it cost only a fraction of that. It had been in private hands for over 20yrs and the coin counter indicates it has only had an average of 13 plays a day in its lifetime. That’s minimal usage for a jukebox. I can remember seeing one of these in the lounge of a big local Victorian hotel in the late seventies. The place is long gone and has been replaced by a block of flats. This machine came originally from the west Midlands, via Warrington, to me. Well.. it started life in Minnesota. The name Rock-Ola comes from the founder of the company David Rockola. He died in 1993 aged 96.

This one was marketed for posh bars and hotel foyers, here’s a copy of an original “flyer.” It’s all simulated wood and weighs in at 315lb, about the average weight of a full-size jukebox.. The graphic is copy of;

Claude Monet's "Sous les peupliers, effet de soleil," (Sunlight effect, under the poplars).



Later versions went back to “chrome” and plastic mouldings.

and some were very psychedelic




After that they became more compact and then in came the CD versions and “touch screen” types. (spit!)

Jukebox manufacture at one time, was a huge industry with new jukes with mostly cosmetic changes coming out each year and sometimes more than one model.
To give you an idea, nearly 4,000 of mine were produced in that one year, when jukebox interest was already declining.

I think they are a marvel of mechanical ingenuity; it’s all switches, motors and relays.
Now replaced by a “mouse click” on a computer or a button on an i-pod.


The entire mechanical bits are on a chassis with springs at each corner.

The coin mechanism is mechanical; all levers and magnets, it can physically be altered to take any size of coin.
The first box is the one that determines how many plays you get for a combination of coins, which can be altered by swapping tags about. It also energises the button bank.
This next box is the 200watt amplifier; connected to two eight inch and two twelve inch speakers, it has controls for bass and treble for each channel and a button for the scratch filter. There’s an AVC, (automatic volume control) feature, to keep the volume level. The rest of the boxes are for the power and several safety systems and cut out switches to stop it overloading, with lots of fuses everywhere.
These were designed to play 12 hours a day, seven days a week so are “well over engineered.” Maintenance is just an occasional oiling of the mechanics with 3 in 1.
The electrics are quite robust. I’ve had the grommets that house the support pins for the turntable motor replaced as it was causing a slight vibration which was being picked up by the cartridge and causing some background noise..now cured.
A new 50p piece unnoticed by the previous owner was removed from the coin mechanism which he told me had “stopped working.” He just used the “free play” facility. (it'll only take the big old 10ps or 2/- pieces and I've collected about fifty of those.) The final box is a credit unit. I can add, subtract, or cancel credits. If I don’t want to use coins I can just pump the credit switch a few times.

The small wheel at the front is a “mechanical popularity meter” it is synchronised with the carousel. As each record is selected a little arm pushes out one of those little tags a notch, there’s 80 of them. The more often a record is played the further out goes the tag. In this way the owners could tell which records were played the least and change them for something else. A button in the middle pressed will zero the counts.

A combination of buttons pressed starts the wiper arm motor on the selection plate. The thing with all the little pins. Two for each record, “A” and “B” sides.
It also starts the turntable motor..
When it finds the right record it stops and moves the pin which hinges in the middle of the plate and the other end moves in the opposite direction.
This triggers the carousel motor to start, a second wiper on the other side of the selection plate moves in unison with it. They are both on opposite ends of a long spindle which travels through the one for the selector wiper. When this second wiper meets the pin ,it stops, returns it to neutral and energises the gripper arm motor.
This makes the gripper pick up a record and place it on the already rotating turntable. It “knows” which way to turn for either an A or B side because of of the top or bottom pin selected by the wiper on the selector plate.
This also engages the tone arm mechanism which comes across and sets down on the record after a little mechanical brush has dusted the needle and the popularity meets gets its “click”
On completion of the record the tone arm activates the gripper arm mechanism and the record is removed and replaced in the carousel , at the same time the needle gets another dust and the system moves on to play the next record or returns the carousel to the neutral position.
It ain’t that bright, if there isn’t a record in the particular carousel slot it’ll still try to pick it up and play it. There’s a remote control on a lead which controls the volume for each channel and a button to remove the record presently playing.

The labels for the records I get from a jukebox spares site. You can choose the colour of the label, type face and style. It’s a case of just typing into separate boxes, the system centres the words and it comes down as a pdf file which I print off and cut up with a guillotine, I can do 20 at a time and the facility is free.

I hope you enjoy the video and the choice of music.


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg79BiRHxLM"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia]


Then of course I can dream can’t I?……

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DeiqA-gwj4"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia]

 

thanks for sharing Doghouse :gnthb:

 

Great bit of history on the good old jukebox. When I first found an interest in rock n roll in the late fifties and early sixties, the jukebox was the only medium for listening to what I wanted to hear time and time again. Thanks for the memory, doghouse...

 

I'm in a "dangerous mood" I'm toying with the idea of attempting to snipe another jukebox on eBay. I've room in the tea-house for it.
I mentioned it to my wife, whose response was;
"Why?"
"'cos I just fancy this one."
"Fair enough."
It's nice when your other half supports your hobbies.

There's some silly prices paid on ebay. People can get caught up in "the moment" as you can at any auction.

This one recently went for £1,470, £1,000 less than it could have done. The buyer was just lucky I guess.



Two bidders got into a ****ing contest over this one and the winner paid £921, the best part of £500 more than I think it's worth.

There's always "another one along in a minute."
After a while you get to know what's a good 'un from the photos if they are detailed enough, particularly of the mechanics. If the photos aren't much cop, I stay well away.



It may come to nothing, as I won't pay silly prices for these things as they can be expensive to repair if they go wrong and mine only gets occasional use. "So much to do. So little time" (not today, obviously!).

 

I used to have two Rock-Olas and one Seeberg in my house but I sold them a good few years ago as I was was getting complaints from the boss that they were taking up too much room.

I regret selling them to this day.

The mechanicals on the Rock-Olas were awesome, so simple yet so strong. Just like earlier Rolls Royce cars.

 

I can sympathise with you. Fortunately, I've my tea-house, there's no way I'd attempt to have one in the house, as even now in the front room she has to vac round two saxophones on their stands and my leccy piano and stool.
You're so right about "build quality" they were designed for 12 hours a day use seven days a week. As the experts tell me, the best preventitive maintenance is a bit of 3-1 oil now and again on the gears and frequent use.
On one of the message boards, an engineer said that the usual instructions for commercial use was a srevice every six months. But for domestic use, he said you can leave it for five years, but I'm not too sure myself.
The most common fault through lack of maintenance is the gripper arms seize up, then they start blowing fuses.

 

The box I was tracking has been sold, it went for £820, which in the circumstances was more than I was willing to pay considering there would have been a 500 mile round trip to collect it, plus the expense of hiring a van, fuel and an over-night stay in a travel lodge for two, would have pushed the cost up to over £1,000.

Shame, because it was very tidy. A 1969/70 Rock-Ola 442. Very little oxydisation of the upper speaker grills and the mechanics looked very clean, though there was no picture of the amplifier.




Digressing a bit here, that wire you can see is from the pick up to the amplifier, its three-core in a woven metal earth sheath, the wires are unbelievably thin.



He had another make, up at the same time, now they have both gone a third make has appeared, he must have had a collection.

I'm tracking five others, one in particular, quite close to home.