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Vandalised Opus 1400

Started by chorkyb, July 23, 2012, 01:05:33 PM

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chorkyb

Hello All,
I was recently given an old Johannus Opus 1400 by a school. It had been badly vandalised and was no longer any use to the school. A few years back, somebody unscrewed the back and stole most of the internal speakers. In order to get at them, the thief cut all the wires connected to the racks of main circuit boards. I'd like to get it going again, but there are an awful lot of wires that need to be reconnected.
Having no experience with electronic organs, my first problem is not knowing what it's supposed to look like back there! For all I know, more is missing than just the speakers. So any schematics or photos anyone might have of a complete Opus 1400 (or similar) would be greatly appreciated. I have contacted Johannus and asked for information, but apparently the person I need is on holiday, and won't be back for some time.
And one technical point: I can match up pretty much all the bundles of cut wires from the circuit board racks to the inside of the organ. However, in many of these bundles there are (for example) two black wires, or 10 red/white striped wires. So in these cases, when there are multiple wires of the same colour, can I assume that it does not matter which connects to which?
Many thanks for any help

David Pinnegar

Dear David

http://www.wdgreenhill.com/manu/johannus.htm is the best source of service manuals and it's listed as being in stock!

The job may be rather more complex than it appears - those bundles of wires need to be traced from source to destination matching up which are which. It might be a nightmare depending on what might be missing and need replication.

If you are not electronically confident, your cheapest way to get a working organ might be to use the manuals with new midi interfaces (EOCS is helpful or boards from Roman Sowa http://www.midi-hardware.com/index.php?section=products ) and plug these into a computer running Hauptwerk or jOrgan.

David Fetterman at Makins is probably the expert on this but I have also heard the name Hugh Banton.

If you draw blanks, it may be that the 1400 matches up with my Makin Encore of around 1993 vintage in which my combination piston circuitry has failed together with the Great Posaune stop and I may be willing to buy remaining circuit boards for relevant spare parts.

Best wishes

David P

revtonynewnham

Hi David (H)

I suspect that the use of same coloured wire was a manufacturing convenience. the harnesses were probably produced on a jig and the soldered into place.  You'll definitely need a circuit diagram, etc. - and a lot of patience.  It may even be better to replace the wiring from scratch.  Or do as David suggests and use the console & MIDI to do something new.

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

Dear David

If you send me your email address I can photograph the service manual and email it to you.

It's not really terribly helpful though. Very schematic . . . with wiring looms indicated by a heavy line as a bus labelled for instance M0-M7 and N0-N7.

The manuals, by the way, are connected as an 8x8 matrix and not a 60x1 busbar - which is important if you are ordering Midi circuits from Roman Sowa. Effectively this means for instance that to read each manual one has 8 wires labelled P0-7 going to all three manuals and pedals and then 8 wires each to each manual and the pedalboard. This cuts down the quantity of wiring enormously from 3x60 plus 32 plus common, 213 wires in all, to 8 plus 8x3 plus 32, a total of 64 wires connecting manuals and pedals to the processor board.

It is the tabstop version of my drawstop instrument and I would be significantly interested in buying the parts as spares for mine.

With drawstops rather than tabs my wiring looms will be different and as a Makin might be a slightly different physical manifestation in terms of wiring and for the moment I can't move my instrument to take pics inside.

Basically however, you should have a big processor board on a shelf and below, a rack for sound cards, divided into two one side for pedal and swell and the other for Gt and Ch. In each rack there is a generator frequency card, some four cards with the sound chips and three cards of amplifiers.

Down the bottom there are three transformers for the three power supplies.

As a three manual and pedal console there is certainly a base value there for conversion projects fashionable nowadays.

Best wishes

David P
antespam at gmail dot com