Nsm City 2 - the journey and rebirth

[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.

[Legtod2]

Cleaning...
Uggghh. Scrub brush, and tooth bush to clean the exterior black plastic.
The top speaker covers were caked with years of gunk. The bottom speaker grill will need black paint.
Windex to the glass and new sparkle was found. Used automotive dashboard cleaner to add shine to the black plastic works.

Cleaning the 45 rpm records all 80 of them. Yup the records had dust and other foreign particles.
Cleaned them with a kit from Crosley Vinyl cleaner. Basically its a plastic tube with a micro fiber cloth and gentle pads inside which clean the record surface. Just add water and the scoops of the gentle cleaning solution.
Insert the record in and rotate the record 3 times in each direction. Then wipe dry with micro fiber cloth.

[Legtod2]

Burnt out bulbs...
There are 6 12volt bulbs located in the control panel.
Found replacement bulbs at princess auto.
They are #194 12 volts. There is a small twist cap that the bulbs sit in.
Simple matter of untwist, replace bulb and put them back in place.

Replace gas prop rods...
I found the prop rods at princess auto too. They were 23 inches pin to pin.
They need to have mounting points modified to fit, soo I will hold off installing until after the re caping of the capacitors and amp rebuild.

[Legtod2]

Spent the weekend reviewing the schematics and building my shopping list for capacitors, resistors, etc.

The control unit has one connector that has nothing plugged into it. Its labeled electronic wallbox.

The schematics I have don' really include this.

Any one have schematics for the nsm city 2 ?

I might be able to use this for my connections to arduino controls

[Legtod2]

No 5volt led light on. No lights to 7 segments display. Guess no power to control unit.

Have the jukebox laying on its back and removed the 8 2inch long screws holding the base wood plate from bottom of cabinet. Now I am checking the transformer inside of the base and checking voltages on transformer
Getting 46.5 vac, 23 vac, 27 vac, and 13.6 vac.
Excpecting 43 vac, 22vac, 26 vac and 12 vac so not far off unit looks good no burn or brown marks.

Since I have the base open I may as well inspect base speakers too.that required 14 more 3inch lag bolts to be removed.

See pictures

[Legtod2]

My 5volt led being out was from blown fuse Si2.
Replacing the fuse returned the working control lights on the 7seg displays and the all the control bulbs.
I was able to play two records and the same fuse blew again.

I really need to find the schematics so I can trace the circuit and order the replacement resistors, caps, etc.

Sent an email to nsm usa looking for help, no reply.

They have a recent "we have been sold and ami is new owner, business to continue same as usual"

Guess I'll never hear boo from them.

Tried John from jukebox parts, he has no schematics.

Crap, crap, crap.

[Legtod2]

After much searching I found the schematics at radiomuseum.

My fuse blowing issue was from my 12 volt light bulbs on the console.
After I removed the 6 bulbs and ran the jukebox every thing was fine no blown fuses.

Guess I need to order my part to rebuild the board.

[Legtod2]

Latest observation. I can add credits to the machine. After the record plays I get an err1 and the credits do not decrease. The unit moves on to play my next selection. Not sure what is causing this

[Legtod2]

After I reprogrammed the credit unit the credit issue is now adding and removing credits properly.
Programming requires lifting the lid of the jukebox.
When P is displayed in the 7segment display I pressed 8 to clear all credits the press the finger icon button.
Next close the lid of jukebox and no credits display.
Next add two credits and choose two records to play.
Each record plays and properly reduces credit count one record at a time.

Ok that works okay dookie.

[Legtod2]

Had a evening of listening to the jukebox play. Loaded up 23 records and exercised the controls of the machine.
Inserted 25 cent coins for each record selection and monitored behavior of machine.

When this machine starts its scan it begins from the right and scans to the left, displaying digits 179 to 100 on the 7 segment display. When it travels left to right the display counts up from 200 to 279. Of course the enables the selection of the A Or B side of the record to be played.

During the scan from right to left the pace of the carasel is slow. After the record is played and the carasel is tracking to the right again the pace is excellerated. This may be an indicator of a bad resistor, cap or something else.

During the tracking of left to right the pace of the carasel returns to its slow and pokey self. I can only guess why the pace of the carasel varies some much.

The amp is presently switched to mono as opposed to stereo. When I switch to stereo I get no sound.

With just the one sound channel the volume is not up to my expectations. The amp rebuild should cure this.

I guess I should stop fiddling and order my parts and get to rebuilding

[Legtod2]

This little tidbit maybe helpful to nsm city 2 owners...

7 segment displays Err 1 when jukebox turned on.  What the hell does this mean. ?

According to the manual it means the unit is out of order and programming needs to be checked.

To correct and reprogram...
Lift lid of jukebox and Letter P P appears on display.
Press 8 key and finger icon key.
Lower lid of jukebox and now prices for selection will appear.
Insert some coins and listen to the music.

[Legtod2]

Tidbit of helpful quarks...

The carasel has a mechanical reverse direction switch. The lever is present on the left side below the grove where the record rotates.
For whatever reason the mechanical sliding lever is not fully engaging when the carasel returns to the home position. I will have to check the mech for other sticking and sliding parts. Maybe all this baby needs is to be exercised till the gunk gets worked out of its system.
The symptom of this problem was this...
Insert coin selection, I heard a hum but carasel was not moving and motor not spinning. I mannually turned motor but it crawled back to its home posistion. Pushing the reverse lever and the machine went on with its normal operation.

[Legtod2]

Taking a short break from my Marconi Radio build so I can install my new capacitors into the amp.

After I inventoried the caps and the schematics, I have all the correct voltages and capacitance per the schematics.

Removed the amp from the chasis then disconnected the large heat sink from the electronics back plane.

Mistake number one, ordered axial instead of radial caps for one of the caps.
Mistake number two the schematics called for 3300 uF and 25volts. The actuall installed on the board was 3300 uF and 35 volts.

Got all the electrolytic caps replaced that I had on hand. Next step I will just check the circuits for any tell tale problems. Goings to shoot some contact cleaner into the sliding stereo/mono switch.

Maybe my fathers day gift will be to having the left and right channels working on the amp and to have the ability to shake the windows when I crank the volume on the amp.

[Legtod2]

All caps done, re assembled amp and installed.

Wires connected ...

No sound ...

Trouble shooting time.

[ollihd]

Hi all,

I know this post is a bit old, but I'll try anyway. I'm fixing the same machine with the following problem. After the the carriage moves from left to right, it get's stuck at the right side (motor does not reverse). I have narrowed it down to probably a faulty relay. The only problem is that the schematics online are in bad quality so I cannot read the relay values.... Does anyone have any idea on the the relays? I would change all three of them at the same time. Or does someone have any other suggestions?

Thanks all in advance!

Sincerely, Olli

[joecap]

Hello,
 I have an NSM City II that I am trying to get working, it lights up, bar moves left and right and picks up records but they don's spin or play. You can hear a little feedback when you adjust the volume so I am hopeful everything else works. Do you know how to fix this or change a motor for this? any help would be appreciated.

[Olper]

Joecap, you are close to a working machine. The most common thing is that the old lubricants in the motors and other shafts get sticky.
Watch this:
It could be that WD40 will losen up the old lubricants so that your motor starts spinning. If the "record wheel" is stuck, it will not move even if the motor itself does spin. If the rubber wheel is just a little bit stiff, then the record wheel's rubber will slip and the music will be in slow motion. I wrestled with this. Had to clean up the rubber many times, had to clean up the tip of the axle that spins the wheel, and had to WD40 the rubber wheel's shaft.

WD40 may help you get the things moving, but ultimate fix would be to disassemble, clean up, and then relubricate with appropriate lubricants.

I recommend you try to make things work the easy way first. Then when you know that everything works at some level, only then should you start really getting into them. This way if you accidentally break something while trying to make it perfect, you will know that the issue is new and has something to do with what you have just done.

Best of luck!

I also have a NSM City II, and am working on it. I got it spinning records and hear the sound. It's cracking and popping. I bet the amp need electrolytes. Maybe some signal wires are bad too.
My device will not pick records itself. The lever is broken - snapped from the middle. I have new one coming and hope it will be good.
Also the front door is broken - the lower frame has cracked off. It needs screws and glue, and some black filler mass to make it new again. Also I'm missing the front window..
I've been buying records like crazy during the last 2 weeks I think I have more than 100 coming my way. Now i MUST fix this juke

Would love to hear from Legtod2, did you get the amp working? It's been more than a year.. I hope you haven't abandoned your project, as you were so close to have it fully operational :/

[Olper]

Yo Legtod!
I'm gonna redo all my capacitors too. I wen't through them and noticed that some of the aluminum cased capacitors are not indeed aluminum electrolytics. The difference is that aluminum electrolytics are polarized, while the other ones can handle AC.
Maybe you replaced some of the AC capacitors with aluminum electrolytics?
I got good pics of all original caps. If you help, give me a shout!

[Ken Layton]

Victory Glass sells some NSM service manuals. I see they have the model 240 and model ESII manuals/schematics.

And yes indeed NSM was bought by Rowe-Ami (AMI Entertainment) a couple of years ago. Some NSM information is here:

https://amientertainment.com/nsm/

The old website:

http://www.nsmmusic.com/

This website specializes in NSM vinyl jukeboxes:

http://nsmvinyljukeboxrepair.com/

[jbnyc341]

Hi Everyone - I just noticed this thread and may be able to contribute as I acquired a NSM City 2 last year and managed to repair most of the problems that it had, along with improving with a few add-ons:
- Carriage base was stuck to the left side of the rail with a non-stop clicking sound
   > Solved by a combination of cleaning the contacts in the base and leveling the rail properly (supporting springs not arranged properly)
- Only left speakers were working
   > Blown transistor on the carriage electronic board
- "Low quality" sound
   > Solved with a new needle
- Added Bluetooth receiver
   > built a 5-pin DIN adapter to combine Bluetooth audio feed + Regular Carriage base feed on the same plug (but different channels) - working beautifully switching from one feed to the other via a switch (installed in place of coin recall button)
- Added Multi-Color LED's (cool effect)

Last problem not fixed so far is the vinyl RPM's that are a tad too high -

Happy to share my experience if it can help someone (Joecap, maybe your no-sound issue could be related to your 2 transistors being deffective) - and happy to hear some advice/ideas regarding my RPM problem. Thanks!

[Olper]

I got the same - turntable at 47RPM
I'm not expert on AC motors.. Some people recommended that changing (increasing) the value of series resistance may help. It would increase "slip" and thus make it run slower.
If this is so called "permanent slip motor", then also changing the run capacitor would change running speed.

[SPearman]

I'm very interested in the "Added Bluetooth receiver
   > built a 5-pin DIN adapter to combine Bluetooth audio feed + Regular Carriage base feed on the same plug (but different channels) - working beautifully switching from one feed to the other via a switch (installed in place of coin recall button)" 

Is this a mod I could get made up by someone?  My eyes aren't that good to do this type of stuff.

Hi Everyone - I just noticed this thread and may be able to contribute as I acquired a NSM City 2 last year and managed to repair most of the problems that it had, along with improving with a few add-ons:
- Carriage base was stuck to the left side of the rail with a non-stop clicking sound
   > Solved by a combination of cleaning the contacts in the base and leveling the rail properly (supporting springs not arranged properly)
- Only left speakers were working
   > Blown transistor on the carriage electronic board
- "Low quality" sound
   > Solved with a new needle
- Added Bluetooth receiver
   > built a 5-pin DIN adapter to combine Bluetooth audio feed + Regular Carriage base feed on the same plug (but different channels) - working beautifully switching from one feed to the other via a switch (installed in place of coin recall button)
- Added Multi-Color LED's (cool effect)

Last problem not fixed so far is the vinyl RPM's that are a tad too high -

Happy to share my experience if it can help someone (Joecap, maybe your no-sound issue could be related to your 2 transistors being deffective) - and happy to hear some advice/ideas regarding my RPM problem. Thanks!

[runbabyrun]

Hi, sorry to drag up an old thread, i have just bought an NSM City IV  record and cd combo and would be interested into adding a bluetooth input into it somehow

[ChristophA]

Runbabyrun-
The City 4 is an ESIV.  You can get a line-in by making your own cable to connect to the TB socket. (An 8 pin DIN connector)

Use pins 3&5 as L & R signal input & pin 2 as ground. You also need to add a switch to pins 6 & 8.  The switch will act as a toggle between line-in audio and CD/Carriage audio.  You will also need to pickup a Bluetooth adapter, of course.

I’ve got an ESIV CD Galaxy, and it works like a charm.  Just have mine hooked up to an Alexa so you can shout out requests.

[ChristophA]

- Added Bluetooth receiver
   > built a 5-pin DIN adapter to combine Bluetooth audio feed + Regular Carriage base feed on the same plug (but different channels) - working beautifully switching from one feed to the other via a switch (installed in place of coin recall button)

I would love to hear more about how you did this… as I understand, the ES2 board has a muting circuit activated when the carriage isn’t playing.  How did you circumvent the muting?!?  Bringing home a City 2 in a couple weeks.

[Legtod2]

It's been awhile since I last posted. Bringing this thread back to life as I dust off my new desire to restart this project

[Legtod2]

I recently built a couple of other arduino projects and pinball machines and old radio that have my own raspberry pi in them running fruitbox juke box.

Today I am starting a list of what I want to do to this old girl and enable both play records and aux input from mp3 player.

[Legtod2]

As a reference here are some helpful web link on the NSM City II jukebox

Service Manual: https://nsmjukeboxmanuals.yolasite.com/resources/ES%20II%20Service%20Manual.pdf

Wiring Diagram: https://nsmjukeboxmanuals.yolasite.com/resources/ES%20II%20Wiring%20Diagram.pdf

Parts List: https://nsmjukeboxmanuals.yolasite.com/resources/Centrale%20200%20W%20Parts.pdf