The gentleman I bought it from with the lot said he had changed the bushings and put in a new set of brushes to the motor. It even came with an extra set of new brushes. Apparently where he had it stored ended up having something fall on the back jar and lid cracking the edge of the Bakelite top and completely destroying the jar. I figured I could get a new jar from eBay and I was right. Set me back $50 though for it.
It also came with an L&R ultrasonic base. If you have ever had to move these things you know they are like 60 pounds of machine at least. I plugged it all in and when I started it I knew there was an issue right away. The cycle should be that it lifts the motor with the lids, the jars move around and the motor drops back down into the jar. Wish it had gone that way. The machine immediately started to turn the jars which is bad as the lids have a lip and that catches the jar and jams the machine.
I was so bummed about this. I had no idea what to expect but I already knew I as not dealing with electronics. I looked up an instruction manual and printed it out. Found a service manual as well on line. I have no idea why people are paying $20 for a copy of the manual that I printed for the cost of a few sheets of paper an a little black ink. All in cost would be less than a buck but people like to make super profit on such simple things.
I went ahead and looked at the service manual and it gives instructions if the machine goes out of sync. It said to take the arm off and to remove the pin that holds it in place in the middle. Ok but I could not understand why it said not to put it back, I took the back cover off and I found out why it weighs so much. There is a massive electric motor in it and the base frame is very thick cast metal. I removed the arm after taking the nut off and punched out the middle pin.
The process is to manually turn that arm back and forth with the base disk on the shaft. The idea is that it changes the timing of when the motor kicks in to spin and when the motor raises up then the jars move. So a lot of fiddling and i got it close but at that point the other half wan none to happy with the noise and time with the machine and not her. So I put it aside for the time. I did get back to it after a week and a half.
I would suggest that if you plan on doing this process, keep the jars off until you have it right. I did have the jars off but I can imagine someone forgetting and jamming it again. I got it to the right spot and it has been working great. Still need to spend the $100 on cleaner and rinse and put it to real work but that will be another day. The machine itself is a nice little marvel of how things can be automated without the use of computers and electronics.
There are these screws next to each holder. The little bar behind it has marks that help indicate the time of the cycle. As the bottom part moves around to the next jar/stage, that screw that is through the bottom trips a lever. The further down the screw the further down the lever and the longer the time on that timer. When the timer is up that trips a switch to turn the motor on to move to the next cycle. As a switch is pressed or released that causes the motor to go up then the arm causes the base to move the jars then that trips the switch for the timer and a switch it pressed to cause the motor to go back down.
The movement of the motor up and down is actually hydraulic for the lift and lowering. There is a filler tube with a cap and breather on the side of the machine. The heater did smell a bit when I was first turning it on and there was a bit of smoke that concerned me to start but it was all good. I figured out how to connect the ultrasonic unit to the cleaner and it seems to work but I will have no idea yet until I try it.
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