DCH
Well-Known Member
Thought I'd toss a few pictures up here as it's kinda hard to find a step-by-step of replacing the notoriously fail-prone speaker relays in the R-117.
PLEASE NOTE: I am not an expert in anything. Try this at your own risk. MAKE SURE YOU UNPLUG THE UNIT and leave it unplugged for, like, a fortnight or three to make sure all big capacitors are discharged. I exaggerate... but not by much. Be f'ing careful.
So, as you may well know, the three main things that typically go blech on a R-117 are, in order of likelihood of bleching:
1 - the speaker relays die
2 - the volume pot gets wonky
3 - the tone controls (subsonic filter, tone defeat) go bad
Lucky me, all 3 have come to pass on this unit. I was fortunate enough to have a tech fix the volume pot (had to bend a wiper, but now it works nicely) and I've got a TP-117 to bypass all the R-117 preamp stuff (upgrade anyways), and this weekend I decided to tackle issue #1, the relays.
I've thought about/tried to get into them before, but it seemed like a beast to access, so I stopped bothering after the pot got fixed. But lately it's just unavoidable. Even with the preamp, I was typically only getting one channel coming out of the R-117. So... here we go again.
The beast itself:
Take the case off - there's 3 screws on either side and 2 on the back - to access the interior:
Here in the back of the unit you can see the speaker board. There are six screws on the back holding the speaker posts to the back of the case; remove them.
You'll note the big honkin' transformer (silver thing) that weighs roughly as much as a neutron star. In order to actually get the board out, you need to remove it - or at least tilt it to the side. It's held in place by four screws, one at each corner. You also need to disconnect six cables, marked with red arrows, and clip two zip ties, marked with blue arrows:
Once those are all disconnected, and you've removed the four screws holding the transformer to the bottom of the case and the six holding the speaker PCB to the back, you can tilt the transformer (carefully) towards your left if you're facing the front of the unit, and lift it gently aside. This thing is heavy. It's like 80% the weight of the R-117 in general, so make sure you've got a good grip and then slide out the speaker board.
I STRONGLY suggest you set the transformer back in its place once the speaker board is out. I don't know where else you could put it or why, but just make sure you don't accidentally set or drop it on anything you don't intend to turn into a flour of some type.
You'll find four black boxes - the relays - soldered onto the board. Desolder the spots shown with white arrows below to remove them:
Once they're out, you'll be replacing them with NTE R22-5D16-24 relays, which you can find wherever. I got two from Amazon and a further three from Ebay (in case I screwed up something, which shockingly I did not).
Original Matsushita relays:
NTE Replacement:
Side-by-side comparison notes that the NTE has an extra pin - the Matsushitas have 4, the NTEs 5. Just break or cut off the extra one before putting it in.
Solder it in place, and you're good to reassemble. Lift up the transformer, pop the speaker board back into its spot (making sure that the side with the connectors is up), put the transformer back in its spot, screw it and the speaker board back into place, reconnect all six connectors, and close up the case. You should have a nicely functioning R-117 with fancy schmancy properly-working new speaker relays.
If you don't... please note my disclaimer, I'm not an expert in anything. This is just what worked for me. And worked bloody great, too.
Anyways, hope this is reasonably helpful to someone, someday. Cheers!
PLEASE NOTE: I am not an expert in anything. Try this at your own risk. MAKE SURE YOU UNPLUG THE UNIT and leave it unplugged for, like, a fortnight or three to make sure all big capacitors are discharged. I exaggerate... but not by much. Be f'ing careful.
So, as you may well know, the three main things that typically go blech on a R-117 are, in order of likelihood of bleching:
1 - the speaker relays die
2 - the volume pot gets wonky
3 - the tone controls (subsonic filter, tone defeat) go bad
Lucky me, all 3 have come to pass on this unit. I was fortunate enough to have a tech fix the volume pot (had to bend a wiper, but now it works nicely) and I've got a TP-117 to bypass all the R-117 preamp stuff (upgrade anyways), and this weekend I decided to tackle issue #1, the relays.
I've thought about/tried to get into them before, but it seemed like a beast to access, so I stopped bothering after the pot got fixed. But lately it's just unavoidable. Even with the preamp, I was typically only getting one channel coming out of the R-117. So... here we go again.
The beast itself:
Take the case off - there's 3 screws on either side and 2 on the back - to access the interior:
Here in the back of the unit you can see the speaker board. There are six screws on the back holding the speaker posts to the back of the case; remove them.
You'll note the big honkin' transformer (silver thing) that weighs roughly as much as a neutron star. In order to actually get the board out, you need to remove it - or at least tilt it to the side. It's held in place by four screws, one at each corner. You also need to disconnect six cables, marked with red arrows, and clip two zip ties, marked with blue arrows:
Once those are all disconnected, and you've removed the four screws holding the transformer to the bottom of the case and the six holding the speaker PCB to the back, you can tilt the transformer (carefully) towards your left if you're facing the front of the unit, and lift it gently aside. This thing is heavy. It's like 80% the weight of the R-117 in general, so make sure you've got a good grip and then slide out the speaker board.
I STRONGLY suggest you set the transformer back in its place once the speaker board is out. I don't know where else you could put it or why, but just make sure you don't accidentally set or drop it on anything you don't intend to turn into a flour of some type.
You'll find four black boxes - the relays - soldered onto the board. Desolder the spots shown with white arrows below to remove them:
Once they're out, you'll be replacing them with NTE R22-5D16-24 relays, which you can find wherever. I got two from Amazon and a further three from Ebay (in case I screwed up something, which shockingly I did not).
Original Matsushita relays:
NTE Replacement:
Side-by-side comparison notes that the NTE has an extra pin - the Matsushitas have 4, the NTEs 5. Just break or cut off the extra one before putting it in.
Solder it in place, and you're good to reassemble. Lift up the transformer, pop the speaker board back into its spot (making sure that the side with the connectors is up), put the transformer back in its spot, screw it and the speaker board back into place, reconnect all six connectors, and close up the case. You should have a nicely functioning R-117 with fancy schmancy properly-working new speaker relays.
If you don't... please note my disclaimer, I'm not an expert in anything. This is just what worked for me. And worked bloody great, too.
Anyways, hope this is reasonably helpful to someone, someday. Cheers!
