Beaulieu 708 Stereo stuck in record mode after being damaged.

[Mark Barton]

Hello all. My Beauleiu 708 stereo was dropped by Parcelforce, cracking the board (and no they denied the claim saying it wasnt packaged correctly, even tho it was in its custom flight case and had recently been airfreighted from Germany without so much as a scratch) Initially on power up the projector would litterally scream, so I looked at the circuit board, only a small area damaged with breaks in the tracks. So I mended the tracks, but now the record light is on, so no sound output, as the machine is in recording mode. Your thoughts please. I am thinking of sending it to Bjorn in Sweden, your thoughts and experiences on that ~(especially potential repair costs) Thank you all.

[Phil Murat]

Hello Mark,

Very Sad story . Good to ear you made a repair for the damage board.
A) Recording function blocked : Suggest you Glance to "Technical Topics" (BEAULIEU 708 CAPACITOR REPLACEMENT) . You will see I had to replace LM556CN and small cap(s) associated to solve such a problem. LM556CN is a "Dual Timer", still avalable for few money. Check also the small Red P/B with a multitester.

B) Beaulieu Shipping Recommendations : Suggest you the machine to be sat down on large wooden plate , offering 3 holes facing to feet so that weight of the machine is not applied on feet. Then dispose a 5cm dense (at least) and compact foam thickness below the plate to absorb an abnormal vertical drop load.

(International shipping "standards" required a packaging which can absorb a package drop for 50cm to 1meter approx, without reporting any damage.)

C) There is a small aluminium sleeve stuck on case and just below rear foot : this is a crush sleeve to protect board from damages. In that case , crush force was certainly too much important.

Hope this helpfull

Kind Regards

[Joel Bleakley]

Hello Mark,

Sorry to hear what happened but also congratulations on getting a fine machine. I once had the pleasure of owning one of these until I foolishly swapped it for an elmo st-1200. As for your record issue it's been a while since I worked on mine but from memory on most of this vintage machines there is usually a rec/play switch like the one pictured. Failing that there is a possibility of a relay. The reason I mention this type of thing to look for is they are prone to issues from bad handling and transport. The only other thing would be if something blew up when you powered it on unknowingly with the damaged PCB. But you'd have to be very unlucky in that case but it's not impossible. To sum up I'd be checking something mechanical first. If you can find a circuit diagram from someone it might be worth seeing what the damaged section of PCB does to better understand what may have been effected by that.

[Mark Barton]

thank you chaps, the game is afoot in the repair of this superb projector, murdered by ParcelForce.

[Mark Todd]

I just dare`nt send good projectors through the post now.

I heard of so many total crash ups in the last two years, especially the last few months.

I suppose everything is a bit to pot.

But also there is no come back re being dropped and smashed up etc.

You can never tell with couriers, but good its getting sorted out Mark.

We need more, good, self trained fixers in the UK so we have somewhere to go in the car when getting things serviced.

Nice machines so fingers crossed.

Best Mark.

[Mark Barton]

Thank you all