Telefunken TW501

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

This is the changer that came with the 1960 Sylvania
Golden Shield 960 suitcase stereo.

Though this changer has characteristics of a V-M 950, the
German designers made some changes in the speed control,
and other items.

I did a few hours worth of searches and came up with a Telefunken
service manual in German, but complete.

I also found 2 videos in German that will be very helpful.

I will have to create a merged pdf file for the jpg files of
the manual pages.
I'll upload that at some point into the "Changers and Turntables"
section.

And I'll post the video links, also.

Wish me luck !

[William]

Good luck, Mr. Mogul, and how is your German?

Bill

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Good luck, Mr. Mogul, and how is your German?

Bill

Bill, ixnay spreche Deutsch.

BUT, I can use the good photos in the service file.

I'm going to try the yoo-boob translator on the
German made videos.
Sometimes it works very well.

No matter, the video is sharp and I really do not
need the commentary.

Yesterday, I removed the motor and cleaned it.
An easy process w/o any manual.

[William]

Is the motor European voltages and does it just look funny compared to American motors?

Bill

[electra225]

To these untrained eyes, the mechanism of that changer looks substantially like a VM....

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Is the motor European voltages and does it just look funny compared to American motors?

Bill

This is a U.S. Sylvania stereo. Telefunken Motor is 120 VAC.
You can see the motor in the photo.
The windings are more exposed, but all else the same.

Telefunken, Perp-Ebner changers were also used in export models
of Grundig and Telefunken consoles to U.S. with dual 120/240 VAC.

I watched the German video again today, and took screen shots
to help me with the dis-assembly.

It's looking like it will be a straight forward process.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

It's looking like it will be a straight forward process.

I should never had said those words.

The cycling gear and the pickup arm shaft/lever were
immovable because of old dried grease.

The amount of grease removed after hours of heating and
such was very small.

Amazing how that grease can bind.

Starting the re-assembly tonight, and I even
found where an extra small C-clip went.

There was a connector the previous servicer had used
a small piece of wire to secure.

He/she must had lost the tiny C-clip inside the mechanism,
because it had to fall out of the trip link mechanism
I removed for cleaning.

I saw in the parts pan there were now 2 clips when I had
only placed one in there from the idler wheel mount.

Take the small victories, ha ha !

[electra225]

Optimism is good, but should be tempered with pragmatism. We've all done that, Mr. Mogul. Sounds like you are making progress. Good luck!

[William]

Yes, never say this looks easy or this looks straight forward, it gets me into trouble every time. Great job, Mr. Mogul.

Bill

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

I got the cycling mech back together and so far, so good
on those functions.

New wrinkle.

The stereo cartridge yoke came apart, so I was going to
remove the old cart for replacement.
It appears someone (same dang guy ?) glued in the
cartridge.

There is a lever in the plastic tonearm that should release the
cart, but it did not work.
Then I saw some traces of what looks like glue on
one side of the cart/tonearm.

Question :
I have a dremel tool. I think I will have
to attempt to cut the cart in half for safe removal.

For hard plastic like a phono cartridge, what
dremel speed will work best ?

My instinct is to use a low speed.


will work best

[electra225]

I would certainly start on a lower speed. Too low of a speed and you may find you break the cutting wheel too frequently. They cut better at a higher speed. Have you considered giving the cartridge a bit of heat with a hair dryer, then maybe a good pry with a long-blade, thin screwdriver? Sometimes a little heat will release the glue. You could also use an eye dropper and squirt some alcohol to see if that softens the glue.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Greg,
I tried your suggestions, no results.

I finally decided I had to carve off parts of the
old cartridge with a new sharp single edge razor blade.

This enabled the glued side to be better accessed
using the same blade to cut through the glue.

Appears to be an acrylic type glue used with a piece
of clear plastic (dark color by me) to mount the cart.


The original Telefunken mount has a threaded hole near the
tonearm head.

I took a Pfanstiehl P-226 cart to see if its
plastic mount would fit over the hole.

BINGO ! It will fit. I have to enlarge the
mount hole in the P-226 mount,
but it is looking good again.

Whew !

p.s. I uploaded the German manual.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Another problem presented itself.

Tonearm drops at end of last record, will come to rest,
then lift and travel back to start of record.

This is the control shaft assembly partially sticking
due to old grease.
Common in the V-M changers.

So, this means I'll take off the complete cycling
mech to access that part for cleaning.

At least all the other cycling parts are clean and
lubed.

Below is the V-M 950 diagram, part #58 is the control
shaft assembly.

[William]

Nice work, Mr. Mogul, and I am glad you found a solution to the cartridge problem. Usually with a little thinking and sometimes some creative parts things will come together and work.

Bill

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

I was able to free up the control shaft assembly, using
solvents and butane lighter heat.
Again took much longer than anticipated.

The control shaft connects to a two piece shut-off rod.

This necessitated partial dis-assembly of the rod, so
I could hook the bottom rod into the control shaft's
connection opening.

You can see the rods before and after in photos.

On a V-M 950, the shut-off rod is one single piece, and you
can dis-connect it from the On/Off/Rej knob to
make it easier to re-connect to the control shaft.

Last night the cussing hung in the sky for some time !

[electra225]

It looks like you are making good progress now. Thanks for sharing that project, Mr. Mogul....

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

Cut off the old tonearm wire clips, tinned tonearm leads
after exposing new wire, and soldered on new clips
for the Pfanstiehl P-228.

Cartridge leads test good continuity to amp connecting
cables under the Telefunken base.

I'll check the cart's tracking force.
There are no adjustment slots in the tonearm
for the spring.
So, I may need to cut off a coil of the spring if the
tracking is too heavy.

Next, on to cleaning up the wiring nest in the amplifier.

[William]

Looks good Mr. Mogul. The spring does not look like it is overly stretched so it will be interesting to see how much weight it produces.

Bill

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

The tonearm tracking force measured 5.5 - 6 grams,
within the Pfanstiehl P-228 range.
So, I did not make any adjustment in that.

I played several albums using the auto play Reject with no problem.

One oddity I discovered is that apparently, this changer does not
play records manually.

When I turned the changer to "ON" position, it set about
going through the auto cycle.

I asked Gary at the V of Music, and his opinion was that
these models only played automatically.

[electra225]

Interesting! Perhaps the "automatic play only" feature makes the mechanicals less complex? Thanks for sharing your project, Mr. Mogul. It takes time to document and post pictures. Your explanations are thorough and informative. I appreciate that....