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Fulton Musical Industries

FMI-80 must be wired in reverse

You may not know this if you don't have the manual: Wire the midrange (the FMI-80) in REVERSE polarity ("out-of-phase", or plus-to-minus) relative to the woofer and the electrostatic tweeter array which are both connected normally.
 
Brian Beck said:
You may not know this if you don't have the manual: Wire the midrange (the FMI-80) in REVERSE polarity ("out-of-phase", or plus-to-minus) relative to the woofer and the electrostatic tweeter array which are both connected normally.
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Thanks, I plan on hooking them up today :thmbsp:
Do you have an electronic copy of the manual? if so I would love to get a copy :yes:

-Jim
 
Jim,

I tried but it exceeds the attachment size limit of this forum. And here I thought disk space was almost free these days.

I will be posting it in the new Fulton website and will announce that soon.

Brian
 
JBStemp said:
Bottoms off :yes:

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:banana:
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My crossover looks different.
 

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Triode4,
Looks as if you might have Premieres. What do you have up top? 80s and 'stats or something else? If Jeff is reading this, he'll know.
 
Yes, 80's and esr-6's. Thought I would check out the condition of the woofers while it's open. They look to be in great condition. I wish I had a schematic of the crossover to check values. The bass is there but not nearly as loud as it needs to be.
 
How many drivers are in the woofer cabinet? The J had two: a 10" and a 12". There were three in the Premiere box.
 
Something else, the bottom firing woofer has a beige painted basket, the other posted on this thread was unpainted.
 

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I've seen woofers look both ways.

What are the serial numbers on the labels of the woofer cabinets and do they say "J Modular"?
 
Serial #'s are 123L &123R , these were written in with a pen on FMI-80 stickers and a J written next to the #80 on the sticker.
 
Well that's interesting. Those might be very early Js. Your crossovers use more of the starter solenoid inductors than other Js I've seen, which generally match the other crossover images seen here. Jeff Medwin is the expert here. I'll send him an email to ask him to take a look at this thread and see if he can shed some light.
 
Hi Brian,

We need the FMI web site populated !!

If there is no 12 inch mid woofer, the speaker is only a J-Modular, and NOT a "PAH" J -Modular, or a later Premiere. The super thin external crossover jumpers are the earliest style, J-Modular era. The electrolytic computer grade caps on the far right side of the crossover, I have only seen in early J-Modulars.

Having eight "wroinkers" ( inductors ) instead of five is no big deal, Robert freely changed the design over the years. Also, a S/N 123 is an early serial number, so it started as a J-Modular, and seems to have never been updated to a Premiere.

I would look to see if the downwards-firing slot loaded 12 inch sub woofer has fallen out of its gap, due to 40 years of gravity.

A BENIGN cure is, with mirrors and lights and driver in place, observe inner spider creases, and you will likely SEE the spider creases NOT level, and the suspension has shifted the voice coil out of the speaker's magnetic gap, due to 40 years of down facing gravity and the weight of the cone.. Simply remove the driver carefully, weight the outer edges of the cone evenly with weights, EVENLY, and allow driver to sit facing UPwards for about two or three weeks, so that a new position will be established by the inner spider and outer surrounds, one that is centering the voice coil into the magnetic gap. Look at the CREASES of the INNER surround, to see if they are flat, that equals cone CENTERED perfectly.

Make sure the seal around the woofer module's crossover door is supple, intact, solid, not leaking or replace it. That is a hardware store item.

J Gordon Holt had trouble driving the earliest J-Modular crossovers, complained and Robert made it more efficient in later crossovers. Woofer module must be positioned and loaded to the rear wall, to develop lowest bass with definition !!!

Cheers,

Jeff Medwin
 
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Thanks for the reply, I did what you suggested and here is a few more pics of the J's I have. I places bowls the exact size of the outer flat ring of the surround. They are laying flat , now just a wait for a few weeks.:thmbsp:
 

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A few more.
 

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In the middle picture of your second set, we can clearly see the cone has extended outwards, to a point where it equals or exceeds the edge of the speaker frame, and the outer surround ( and inner spider) has allowed that to occur due to gravity, and the driver down positioned in the slot.

In the crossover picture, we can see that the foam weather stipping has compressed and come off, at the top of the woofer module's rear panel. This is common. Remove and replace it ALL around each rear woofer module with fresh fluffy stuff.

Imagine the "hot babe" in your moniker, and how she may be sagging due to gravity in 40 more years.

Check the cone after one week. If it were reverse biased ( inwards ) by 1/8th of an inch or so when held down for a few hours, that would be OK too over time.

That is an RTR alnico 12 inch woofer, a very good driver BTW.

You can still listen to the FMI 80s alone while you wait ! Have fun. Position the woofer module at ten inches initially from the rear of the module to the rear of the back wall. Correct distance you determine by ear, and the range will be 4 inches to 13 inches. Closer to the wall is "lower" and further away is "more defined", less muddy. You want to BRACKET the distances so it goes low and defined.

Jeff

Jeff
 
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LOL, good analogy, I'll be checking the surround on the 12 inchers progress over the next week or 2. I pulled the 10 inch woofers to see the condition. The surrounds are all in good condition and have no problems. I have applied deoxit to the pots but can't hear any difference in adjusting them. Maybe after the woofers are fixed maybe then.
 
Re-foam the door of the ten inch drivers, and take a good shower and change out your clothes after working with that nasty old fiberglass. Itch city !!

Have you had these speakers for awhile? What was or is your listening impressions?

The upper ten in a J, which plays a wide swath, will have weak suspensions, and be slightly higher in distortion than when new, but I do not know anyone who can satisfactorily rebuild them these days. Just use them as is, maybe rotate 10 inch mounting 180 degrees.

Jeff
 
Well, I have had to replace a tweeter power transformer and other than the lack of bass, I've been happy. With all the adjustment knobs on both the bass cabinets and tweeter panels, I wish there was more range of adjustable sound. I barely hear any difference on 1 extreme to the other on all these knobs.
 
As I recall, its a 25 Watt Ohmite pot of only 6 Ohms.

Robert Fulton did NOT want the final customers to get the speakers "way out of whack" from making gross misadjustments via the pots. He considered that when doing the design.

Who remade your RTR - ESR-6 power transformer? Got the specs for me to preserve? Can you mail it to me?

Jeff
 
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