Hello,

Today I received a quite nice Beomaster 6000 from Germany and spent a couple hours cleaning it up. Everything looked to be just alright inside so I decided to give it a go before bedtime to see how it actually does technically and soundwise. Well, the Beomaster fired up very promisingly, but unfortunately I wasn't able to continue as soon as I realised that the volume control's motor belt was slipping almost continuously.

Am I right that's a pretty common problem these days? The volume control itself feels to be okay by moving it from end to end manually - although not very light probably because of the belt. The motor seems to stop when you help it to the zero volume as well.

Might replacement belts be available somewhere or should I just try looking around for a close-to-match one and try that?

Kind regards, Jouni

hello,

I think the belt isn't a so critical part (and usually service manuals doesn't mark them as critical), unless you ABSOLUTELY want original B&O spare parts, i guess the best solution is to try looking around for a close-to-match one (or more than one) and try that...

As far as I see you have to take off the cord pulley, so pay attention to not alter the cord path when remounting!

Bye

Seems like it's a cord, not a belt. This cord is sold by the meter and you have to tie it yourself - I'm pretty certain there never was such a thing as "an original spare part" for those. If you need new cord, I have genuine dial cord available. The service manuals usually just tell the length of the loop you need and the routing for the cord.

Anyway, if the cord is still there and installed correctly as it seems, it should not slip. I can think of two reasons:

• The mechanical parts have too much friction
• The cord has been replaced by some wrong type of thread, and so it has stretched too much - looks like this might be the case, because all the dial cords I have seen are striped (see here).
  

Check the rotating parts first, though, because replacing the cords will always be royal pain in the derriere! If you happen to have that black "karhunlanka" lying around, it is worth a try - but it is also expensive to buy nowadays.

Oh yes,

onyx: I see your opinion, I think I'll start looking around a bit - maybe there's something very similar nearby! Got to be careful disassemblying that though, indeed.

tournedos: Sorry for the picture focusing more on that white dial cord instead of the black rubber belt I actually meant - between the motor and the potentiometer wheel (or more like pulley wheel as onyx said). That's the one slipping a lot - the white dial cord feels to be just alright. What a great reply you wrote though

Thank you for your very informative replies!

Webu:

tournedos: Sorry for the picture focusing more on that white dial cord instead of the black rubber belt I actually meant - between the motor and the potentiometer wheel (or more like pulley wheel as onyx said). That's the one slipping a lot - the white dial cord feels to be just alright.

Ah, OK, now I see it That will most probably be ready for replacement. Short belts like that are a little difficult to replace by generic ones since they don't stretch much, and it is difficult to measure the right length.

Partco in Helsinki has lots of belts in store - but you will probably have to buy/order several different lengths to get one that works - or member Dillen can probably sell you the correct belt.

Just cut out a piece of the old belt and glue it back together using cyanoacrylate.

I once asked Dillen if he had spare belts available and he gave me this hint....

I guess it is not a really permanent solution but it worked fine on my two 6000s. And they are still working today...

Yes, that's a temporary fix.
I am currently having some belts produced but they are hard to match in that this particular belt needs to have
a huge friction. No off-the-shelf belts will do.

They were never really good when new either, silly system altogether.

Martin

Hi Jouni,

Firstly sorry for high jacking your thread! But I think I'm am suffering the same fate!

Martin, could you PM me the cost of your belts? I think I need to order one sooner than later....

My volume on my 6000 has also has been driving me a bit crazy lately... Despite having it adjusted end of last year, after which it was OK for a while, it now constantly gets stuck around 25 and you can only increase the volume by reducing it to around 10 and 'taking a run up to it' ..... sometimes this has to be done several times to allow you to increase above 30. It has now also started sometimes jamming between 10 - 20 and can only be fixed by turning the unit on and off. So I think that the belt has stretched and constantly slipping like Jouni's.

Thanks in advance,

Laurence.

No problem at all Laurence!

It's more like great to see this thread benefit anyone else as well

I think I'll try that temporary fix soon as it seems to be a bit hard to find a matching belt, even for Martin! Let's see what happens As Martin said, it seems to need a huge friction since even the old one isn't weak at all - maybe it's just too smooth or something today.

In other news, I've been running the Beomaster on my desk for a couple hours now and it sounds pretty much like a 4400 I've been using as my main Beomaster past months. Unfortunately the 74.8 MHz problem is present - otherwise everything looks good! No heat problems as I can see or anything like balance slider crackling a lot - it's all okay.

The 74.8 MHz issue might be a bit off topic, but would you think it's worth trying to sort out if Martin luckily could supply the needed IC for example?

Anyway, here are some better high resolution pictures, feel free to browse: http://www.verkkojohto.net/webu/bm6000/

Kind regards and many thanks for your replies, Jouni

Hi Jouni,

Thanks, was well timed was thinking about posting about this, so you beat me to it!

I understand from the experts (on this and other sites)  that the 6000 electronics are based largely on the 4400 so your comparison is well founded, as you may already know.

I hope that you can get the tuner sorted out, but I understood that you can still tune it to stations despite it showing the wrong digits? I actually really enjoy listening to radio on this system, (maybe a little pyschological perhaps) as I find it very rich, with nice depth, more so than my newer system.

Hope you can fix this problem easily.

Laurence.

Oh yes,

The tuner still seems to work alright without the working digits - so it's not a too serious problem at all though always a bit sorry to lose such a nice big display [:'(]

Here's some, hmm, hopefully progress:

Hey, it works!

As soon as I woke up I forced that belt back in and tried again - wehee, it moves! So it wasn't a very silly idea to do some glueing at all!

Actually I removed just a tiny bit of the rubber belt for a start, but it still seems to be enough - the belt definitely felt harder to get back in place than before as well.

Here's a couple new pictures:

Warm regards, Jouni

Hey Jouni,

Nice one! Glad it worked for you.

Out of interest how much did you cut out? It looks around 5 or 6mm? Would that be about right? 

Thanks,

Laurence.

soundchoice70:

Out of interest how much did you cut out? It looks around 5 or 6mm? Would that be about right? 

I'm not Jouni, but as I said I did the same thing on two 6000s some time ago....I did cut out approximately 1cm.

One of them is in daily use with that repaired belt and has been working fine for one month now. The other one is still needs to be fixed (broken power supply).

Webu:

The tuner still seems to work alright without the working digits - so it's not a too serious problem at all though always a bit sorry to lose such a nice big display [:'(]

That's 5mm pretty exactly - you got it right

1cm might do even better as ablaumeise confirmed, I just thought to start off slowly since you can always cut out the previous glueing for an another 5mm or so - not really the other way round

Anyway, the volume control is nicely responsive now through 0 to 30 at least - I haven't really dared to test the highest levels yet. Don't know if the mechanism gets any harder at the end of the scale - then any extra mms might be needed to avoid slight slipping.

Sorry for using a bit wrong words for the display problem - I've got the stuck 74.8 MHz issue actually. All the digits itself seem to be doing alright so far. Your topic looks to be very helpful for the digit problem though - great stuff!

Edit: Oh, by the way, I just noticed that the smaller transformer is running quite hot (the one right below the display, the seperate black box felt on the bottom of the Beomaster). It stays a bit warm even in standby - I suppose it's the same for anyone else? The large grill on back of the Beomaster doesn't get nearly as hot as the small black "bottom" box in my case, at normal listening levels. Just to make sure there's nothing alarming happening with it.

Hi Alaumeise,

Sorry, I was just congratulating Jouni on his success with your suggestion to cut the belt that Martin had given to you. I think this will help many of us... am considering doing it myself, as to be honest aside from the hassle of the volume not working smoothly I'm a little concerned the motor will 'burn out' with all the stress being placed on it. So thanks again.

Hi Jouni,

Well thanks for your report back,  I know what I can do now. The action on my unit volume when it decides to work is  smooth all the way up to the higher levels.

With reference to your heat question, yes the plate on the bottom is quite hot, its the power transformer I think, you can have a look at the attached thread for more info on the heat issues as these units can run quite hot, and this might be of some interest to you.... http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/p/20866/155698.aspx#155698.

Laurence.

soundchoice70:

Hi Alaumeise,

Sorry, I was just congratulating Jouni on his success with your suggestion to cut the belt that Martin had given to you.

I understood that, I was just wanted to share my experience too as you only asked Jouni. 

Webu:

 Sorry for using a bit wrong words for the display problem - I've got the stuck 74.8 MHz issue actually. All the digits itself seem to be doing alright so far. Your topic looks to be very helpful for the digit problem though - great stuff!

Sorry, you said something about non-working digits  - thats why I thought your display was faulty. I didn't even know this 74.8MHz problem existed...none of my 6000s suffered from this.

Just out of interest: How much did you pay for yours? Mine are from Germany too (surprising, isn't it? ) and I saw the prices on eBay are somehow going crazy in the last months. I paid 25€ for each of mine (both mint condition - and that was only months ago!) and nowadays they are sold for 60€ and up...

Hi All,

Short update on my volume motor issue ... whilst checking with Martin on whether he had managed to source the new belts he mentioned (which he has not been able to date)... he gave another suggestion that I try the following simple trick... The result is fantastic, smooth easy movement now from 0 - 60 on the volume scale.

Simply take IPA (isopropyl alcohol) and rub onto the removed belt ( just off the guide wheels ) for a few minutes, to get it to start gripping again.  Its so easy and yet totally effective.

As usual Martin your a wealth of great advice. Thank you.

A great weekend to all!

Laurence.

PS: Ablaumeise... I think I paid about 10x what you paid for yours on ebay, when I purchased mine from a dealer last year ...... yikes! So you did well!