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Nsm City 2 - the journey and rebirth

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Legtod2:
Sharing my journey of restoring a Nsm City 2 jukebox.

I began my journey finding the unit sitting dead at my brothers place.
My brother fixes and restores seeburgs, wirlitzers, ami, etc from the tube era.

This unit was not getting the love and attention it needed, someone needed to bring it back to a working state.

My last jukebox was a seeburg LS1 and unfortunately I sold it when I had a temporary moment of bad judgement.
Missed it and rebuilt several mame machines, virtual pinball machines, pi jukebox radios.

Now that I have the nsm I really want to restore and improve upon it.

First I'll get the unit working and playing, then add remote capability.

The City 2 and 1946 Philco radio sit side by side.

Legtod2:
So what are the problems with this unit ?
Carriage will not track left and right when music selected.
No sound if record manully mounted.
Needs a good cleaning
Base speakers look to be in bad shape
Some rust on bottom speaker grills
Gas props that hold up doors not working, using a broom handle to hold open lid
Missing back art work
Burnt out bulbs in control panel
Credit segment display very weak.
Minor scratch on glass
Gas prop rods that hold up door

Legtod2:
Carriage will not track left and right when music selected...

The solenoid on the carriage unit was stuck. The pin would not move at all.
I did not have a replacement part so I forced the pin out of the solenoid, used a drill bit to oversize the plastic sleeve by a thousands of an inch and now the pin slides without issues.

Put everthing back together and tested firing the solenoid from the relay. That worked fine.
Wham bam thank you mam, the carriage now tracks left and right.

The tracking one direction is really slow in one direction, and regular in the other direction.

Over multiple testing cycles the carriage is not always recognizing it is in rest position or starting position located at the far right of the track. Not sure if this is an optio issue or not. Add optio checkup to the list.

Legtod2:
No sound...
Now that the carriage is tracking left and right lets try to select a sound and listen to some tune.

Oh boy the carriage tracks to the 3 digit selection and the 7 segment display show the tracking with each selection as the carriage moves. Thats good news the optio is working ..

The carriage stops and it loads the correct record. The motor spins and so does the record.
No sound...

I check out the amp and volume controls. Try to turn up volume and pots to get sound. Nothing.
Checking the schematic I see the 4 pin volume wires are connect to the wrong place on the board.
Connect them up.... still no sound.

Scratch my head for a while.   Hmm, what will happen if I switch from stereo to mono (switch on main board).

We have sound !!!!!!!

Now I am listening to records but volume is a bit low for a 700 watt system. I want the windows to rattle when I crank this beastie.  Amp rebuild on the check list.

After several testing cycles I see the sound is only coming from the left base speak and top left speaker.

Legtod2:
Brainstorming... what do I really what this thing to do.

I have seen a could of examples whereby jukebox have been hacked to enable mp3 music capabilities.
In some cases the interior of the box is gutted and replaced with a ipod with some fancy controls on the outside.

I want to retain all the charm of the original controls and playing the records with the traditional controls.
I also want internet radio and mp3 songs to stream thru the jukebox amp. Plus I want my ipad or phone to control it.

Already did this with my 1946 radio, now Do it again with the juke box.

Question is how to do it?
So one method is to hook into the optional wall box controls of the jukebox. Control volume, record cancel, on off, record selection, a/b toggle between mp3 feed to amplifier from jukebox and alternative music feed.
A raspberry pi could provide a web service to the ipad to act as an external wall box control system.

Method two is Replace all controls and displays with my own version of new 7 segment displays and touch screens.
If I go touch screen, I will drop the present buttons and 7 seg display all together. Should I go this direction, the machine will lose some of its present character. A web interface is a must plus streaming to bluetooth speakers placed outside or in different rooms in the house. The pi will be used for this.

Decisions decisions.

Will post pictures and youtube of radio and jukebox in action.

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