My Beocenter 9500 Restoration

[Beitie]

I recently picked up a Beocenter 9500 off of eBay, and it actually made it to me in good shape! I was also glad that it came with the original box. This thread will be the progress I make (or struggle with) while bringing this beautiful Beocenter back to full life.

So far I have all the old adhesive from the glass and plastic brackets removed, and I’m applying 3M VHB tape to hold the glass in place.

The Beocenter powers on, tuner works for sure, and the powerlink sockets work for sure. I will have to get new belts for the CD and Cassette doors, a new belt for the Cassette mechanism, and probably a capacitor kit for the CD player.

Feel free to follow along and any advice you’d like to give would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Beitie]

I have the glass all fixed up now. The touch sensors all seem to be working just fine. So that’s good.

I then spent part of my day opening up the Beocenter. After opening it up, I found the CD player and Tape doors have a pulley system, and the CD player door is really messed up. Tape door has some issues too, so I’ll have to look closer into that.

[Guy]

Great work – a BC9500 is well worth restoring.  I have never tried re-threading those door strings, but it is supposed to be quite tricky.  There’s some instructions in the service manual I think.  Here’s some photos showing mine if that helps! (click to enlarge)

 

[Beitie]

Also, when I put the Beocenter all back together, it no longer seems to power on. I’m not sure if I tripped a fuse or something?

[matador]

Hi Beitie,

Thank you for sharing your work. May I suggest that you add your pictures  in the post by clicking in the little framed mountain, last button in the window where you type your message? Better than as attachement because they will show up in the thread bigger than the little preview of an attached picture.

Thank you.

[Beitie]

Thanks Guy and thanks Matador! That will help.

[Beitie]

So after looking at things closely, I felt that I had a good chance at fixing the cassette deck door. The string for the top side of the door is still fully working and stringed properly. The lower string is loose, but doesn’t seem too far off from what it should be.

I could tell by looking at this that the knot was still good in the string. It’s very hard to see with the eye, but when looking at the photo, it’s clear as day. So I tried to put the knot into the slot in the sliding bracket.

Even after getting the knot into the correct spot, the string was still loose. So something else must be wrong with it yet.

[Beitie]

Sadly this project isn’t going well at all. After my last post I continued a few attempts at repairing the Beocenter, but with each attempt, things got worse, not better.

Today I took the Beocenter up to a friends and between the two of us we got very close, but ultimately got beat by the Beocenter.

I can see how the string is supposed to go around the longer rod, but the level of difficulty and mental anguish it is to put that together is just too much for me.

I took this picture of my Beocenter 9000. Here I can see how many times the string goes around the rod, what directions the string comes off of it, etc. But even with four hands, we just couldn’t manage to get the strings of the 9500 in the correct spots. It’s a really bad, sinking feeling.

[Beitie]

So after a lot of frustration, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Beocenter, and I came up with an idea where I started with the slider, and directed the string from there, maybe I could get it taken care of correctly.

I think I got it. Though I still have a ton of work to do, and might have to re-do one of these sliders. I’m posting a video on the method I used, and I totally welcome any other suggestions, or pointers telling me where I went wrong.

https://youtu.be/OLJxMHMDfyo

[Guy]

Very clear video.  Quick question that I should have asked earlier – do you have the Service Manual?  It is available to Silver/Gold members of the site.

The manual (page 7-5) does show the string routing – as far as I can see the only difference is that the  manual shows three loops around the revolving drive rod (not two as you have done).  Of course, any slack may be taken up by the spring arrangement for the pulley at the other end.  The service manual is not very clear on how the string attaches to the slider, but you seems to have found the solution to that.

[Beitie]

Thanks Guy, I do have the manual, so I’ll give it a look. At first I thought 3 turns as well, so I might play around with it a little more. The main problem is each slider and system will affect the others, so if you have something wrong, and rework it, you could easily un-do your previous work on a completely different slider.

(slight edit, I am a Gold member, just don’t have it linked to my forum thing.)

[Guy]

If you send Keith a PM he will be able to upgrade your status to Gold.

My BC9500 is packed away at the moment so I can’t check the number of turns.  However, next time I visit my mother-in-law I need to change the door drive belts for her BC9500 so I will have a look at a working example there.

Good luck with the rest of the restoration – while it is open I would probably replace the mute relay and also the battery as it’s only a matter of time before these fail.  Personally I wouldn’t touch the CD player capacitors unless it stops working.

Keep posting updates – it’ll be well worth it when finished ?

[Motorman]

Hi I restored two BC9500. 2 loops around the driving shaft is correct.

The most important thing is that both the shaft and the thread are clean and free of grease. Personally, I have simply mounted the threads the other way around to have clean thread around the shaft again.

The reason for this is that the motor simply has a time control for opening and closing. This means that the friction between the shaft and the thread must be so great that the door moves. As soon as the door is in one of your system, the thread must slip through without overloading the drive.

This is also the reason for the whirring noise when you switch off the system. The BC never knows if the cassette door is open. It therefore always runs the motor for the cassette door when it is switched off in order to close a possibly open door. If it is already closed, the thread on the shaft simply slips through.

[Beitie]

Well, I had it set up with all the strings doing the two loops around. However, the lower cassette door string was too loose. So I re-did it with three loops around. While it was a little tight getting the knot back into the slider, it worked. However, then the upper CD door string was too loose, and the door wouldn’t open properly on its own.

So this is a very frustrating issue. I’m currently playing around with three to see if I can get that to work.

Motorman, I fully agree with your take as well. So I’m just struggling with this project.

The next big issue is: When I received this item, I could turn it on, change inputs, ect. At one point much earlier while trying to figure out the door issue, I had the Beocenter up in the service position, and I tapped on the “Load CD” sensor. From that point on, the Beocenter lost power.

I opened up the fuse panel last night, and checked the fuses, all were good.

[Guy]

With regard to the doors, did you fit new door motor drive belts yet?  This is definitely worth doing so that the whole mechanism can operate as designed.  Otherwise you may find that the third cord turn is compensating for (or causing) motor drive slippage.

The power down problem sounds like a loose connection in one of those many cables that has to bend through an extra 90 degrees when you put the system in the service position!

[Guy]

Guy wrote:

My BC9500 is packed away at the moment so I can’t check the number of turns.

I just managed to access my BC9500 and open the box. There are three turns in each of the four locations – here’s a photo of the top of the CD door drive shaft:

[Motorman]

Hi Guy,

thanks for the picture and I rechecked with mine. 3 Loops is correct. I was “on the wood way” as we say in German ;-). For the sliding doors it is also important that the sliding grooves are really clean and only slightly lubricated. Regrading the loss of power I also agree with you that it is probably a loose cable connection.

[Beitie]

Thanks guys! I will check the connectors on the boards.

Yes, I do have new belts on the door motors.

[Beitie]

Last night I was able to get all the doors stringed properly. I double checked all the connectors to the PCB’s, and buttoned up the Beocenter. Still it will not power on. I even tried a few different outlets. So the project is on hold for now. I want my dining room table back.

[Guy]

Guy wrote:

However, next time I visit my mother-in-law I need to change the door drive belts for her BC9500 so I will have a look at a working example there.

I checked my mother in law’s BC9500 last night and one of the CD door strings is loose inside! I’ll need to fetch it to my house in the coming weeks to give it a good clean and re-thread the strings. The upper glass panel is also loose so I will re-stick that to the plastic frame.

@Beitie – your video no longer works (says it is private), so could you possible re-post for reference?

[Author]

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