Rock-Ola Question

[dalangdon]

My Rock-Ola Grand Prix's remote control volume and cancel switch arrived today, but the guy I bought it from didn't give me any directions for the wiring. On the remote, there are five screws (labeled, appropriately enough, 1-5) and a screw on the cancel switch. There are five wires: Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue and Green. On the other end of the cable is a five pin round audio connector.

Any thoughts on which color wires go to which screws? I know this is a long shot, but I figure there's probably a Rock-Ola guy (or gal) somewhere out there in our membership.

 

[nasadowsk]

Ouch. Try calling up one of the better jukebox supply houses? Oh yeah, you could get the manual for your machine from Victory Glass, that'd probbably show how it all hooks up, or give you an idea...

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I put many dimes in a Grand Prix when I was a kid, there was one in the local pizza shop.

You could try posting the question over at the newsgroup alt.collecting.juke-boxes

If you own and old jukebox you should buy a manual for it.

As the old saying goes, RTFM (read the ******* manual)

Ken

 

[coldspot]

I have a 478 rockola here is the wico installation & assembly instructions. Wico made lots of parts for rockola and they were wired the same on most or all jukeboxes.

Disconnect existing phone volume control plug at amplifier and re[lace with remote control plug.

cable & pluge assembly wico no 72-3836

1 blue
2 green
3 orange
4 shields the bare wire
5 yellow
6 red

I can scan this sheet for you but do not know how to post it to the boards.

 

[coldspot]

Does your amp have the round plug on the front of it? If not the cable will not work.

 

[selectomatic]

If all else fails, you should be able to figure it out with

With the power turned off, measure the resistance to chassis ground for all five wires. Two should be open, one might be open or have a fairly high resistance, one might be open or have an even higher resistance, and one should be pretty much shorted to ground. It wouldn't surprise me if this wire was black.

Now turn the power on, and measure the voltage of each wire to chassis ground. The Ground wire shoud be 0V, two others should be 0V, one should have 24VDC or something like that, and the other might have something between 0VDC and 24VDC.

I'll assume that only one measures 24VDC. That's your 24VDC wire.

Now you have three wires to identify. Play a record, and read the voltage on each of the three wires. One of them probably has a voltage on it now. Watch your meter as you press the manual reject button on the machine. It should drop to 0V.

This is your Reject or Cancel wire. I'm guessing that the Cancel switch shorts it to ground in order to Reject the current record.

The other two wires are for the Volume Control Motor. With the machine off, there should be some resistance measured between these two, but not to anything else.

Now you need to figure out the wiring in the control. Two wires need to connect to the Cancel switch. These would be Ground and Cancel.

Four wires need to go to the Volume Control Switch. Looking at the back of the switch, you should see six terminals. The four at the ends are cross-connected in an X pattern. One wire comes off of each of the wires in the X. One of these wires goes to one side of the Volume Control motor, and the other goes to the other side of the motor.

Now you have two wires that go to the inner two contacts on the switch. One of these is Ground, and one is +VDC. One may connect over to the Cancel switch Ground contact. If so, that's the Ground wire. The other one is +VDC.

As others have said, get a service manual. Your machine needs regular maintenance to keep running, or you might have big problems down the line. Victory Glass has a minimum order, but Always Jukin' doesn't.

-kevin

p.s. There's a chance that Rock-Ola does things differently, and the Cancel switch has to be connected to +VDC to operate. Logic and a VOM should help you figure this out while you wait for your service manual to arrive.

http://www.alwaysjukin.com

 

[coldspot]

Hope this works

 

[selectomatic]

Oh. Never mind.

I thought everyone was using Motorized Volume Controls by that time. Sorry. Ignore my instructions completely.

-kevin

 

[coldspot]

Also this guy is the god of rockola jukeboxes. He can fix about anything he worked for rockola and knows all about there boxes. New rockola is not the same rockola they sold out and this guy has almost all the test and service stuff at his home.

Pennsylvania:

Service and repair of Rock-ola Jukeboxes. 33 years exp. Solid state specialist. Repair of Rock-ola amplifiers, computer boards, power supplies, circuit boards, Phillips CD Players, for all makes of jukeboxes, Rock-ola, NSM, Rowe, Wurlitzer, sorry no Seeburg. All items put back to factory specs with necessary updates. Reprints of service manuals, most makes and models. Representing Always Jukin' Magazine.
Charlie Maier
3016 Derry Terrace
Phila PA 19154
Phone 215-637-2869 btw 7pm-11pm EST
rockolacharlie(at)juno(dot)com

 

[coldspot]

Also I have a dial box it wires the same as this one. This box has slide volume control the other box used more then any was the round knob to turn it up and down and a round push button to reject a record.

 

[dalangdon]

A Happy Ending....

Our neighbor (who was also my roommate in college) has a Masters in Physics, and he loves to tinker with stuff, so this was right up his alley. After a few false starts, he got it working flawlessly.

Thanks for the tips and referals, everybody. I know that I will think twice about ordering anything from that particular vendor again. Not only was it dissassembled, it was filthy. I could maybe accept that if it had been inexpensive, but the guy charged me one hundred bucks, plus shipping!

I have a guy here in town that works on our rock-ola from time to time. He is new to the area and a real Godsend, as the only other guy around here expects you to bring in the unit to be serviced, and that wasn't a realistic expectation.