Repairing an Electronic Organ

Our unit at college found this Organ for free on Craigslist. After the sheer amazement over the fact we actually went out and got this thing wore off, I noticed that it really did not work all that well.

Some of the keys stuck, or didn't play, or played badly. I blamed the spring contacts behind the keys, so I immediately set about tearing the thing apart.

Step 1 General Warning

I'm not responsible for irreversible damage to your organ, organs, or domicile. So follow the general rule of life and don't be dumb.

Comments

[-Syrus-]

 You could add a Direct Injection, this way it is leveled for using it with "normal" guitar effectes, like a TS808 or TS9 or a flanger/phaser/delay/chorus for extra spacey effects.

I did this to an old organ that I got, chopped it up and use it with effects and all !
Sounds fantastic !

[SpadeLad]

The unit is actually called a Leslie speaker. Although not a true one like the fridge units that were sold with the rotating speaker on top and a standard speaker on the bottom, it follows exactly the same principle. I recently pulled one almost exactly the same out of an old and now defunct organ but it needs hooking up to a power supply. Have you ever worked with turning these into a standalone speaker setup?

[seandogue]

(removed by author or community request)

[Bigev]

You did say erasers. Thank you again!

[StrangeRover]

This is a Gulbransen organ. I had one of these and liked it well, but ended up selling it. I did, however, steal the Leslie speaker out of it before letting it go. You can run a guitar amp's speaker output into this and get a pretty good Leslie sound, even without having the horn section of the Leslie.

[bustedit]

strangerover, i picked up a kimball organ from Freecycle, but dont really plays keys, and the wife doesnt think it matches our white wicker on the front porch. it has a BIG speaker, and a volume pedal like a wah wah. i can solder a bit, and do some circuit bending, but only on battery powered junk. i also have a new guitar and only a plastic Fender practice amp. would i be able to (somewhat easily) turn the speaker into a guitar amp? is there an amp already in the organ, do you know? it has a hefty transformer, but no tubes or anything cool.

[Bigev]

Is Gulbransen a brand? This one says Lowrey on the front.

[bustedit]

the best kind of erasers are grey and stiff, and sometimes have a lil grit to them, they may be ink erasers. my father used one for cleaning his H.O. train rails when i was younger, and i used the same exact eraser to clean my Tyco slot cars & tracks they last quite a bit longer than the pinkies.

[SinAmos]

Good work.

[gmoon]

The "tremolo" you're referring to is a Leslie speaker effect (although competitors couldn't call it a "Leslie"...) StrangeRover below mentions it in passing.

They have a cool whooshing, phase-shifting sound, caused by rotating that funky baffle (pictured in step 2.)

[Bigev]

Huh. I thought it was a brand name when I saw it on the back of the unit.

[daulef]

great, been meaning to do this for a while now, you can barely give these 'generic' organs away over here (australia), check the free section of your local rag, theres normally at least one!