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Tandberg 3001A Tuner Needs Help

M

Mike Russell

New Member
Hello everyone,

This is my first post on AK. I'm new to the hi-fi world having been decidedly mid-fi most of my adult life.

I recently became taken with 3000 series Tandberg units. A few weeks ago, I picked up a 3001A tuner that needs some serious attention.

The first problem I wanted to tackle was that the tuning knob would turn but the tuning needle wouldn't move. I had a local tech take a look. He freed up the needle (so now it moves with the dial), but discovered a litany of other problems that he can't take on. Presets don't work. Battery leakage may have resulted in board corrosion. (The board may still be salvageable, but I'm not sure.) You can tune to a station but as soon as you let go of the dial the station drops out and the unit appears to revert to an (old) preset. I talked to Soundsmith, they were gracious but won't take it because it's already been looked at.

I'm in no way qualified to work on it myself. I know how specialized these units are. Any recommendations or referrals? I'd love to get it running again.
 
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AK member Tinman has the skills and experience to service that, drop him a line. It'll need new preset switches to fix the "reverts to an old preset" issue but there's a couple of larger risks here:

1) tech "freed up the needle" is really scary, as doing that properly requires some surgery inside the gearbox for the tuning pot and most techs can't/won't do it correctly, and
2) battery leakage/board corrosion can be very labor-intensive to repair properly as well

These are both very well-known issues but it'll come down to whether it's been jimmied or not, and how bad the board damage got. On the plus side, you can replace that board completely using one from a 3011 or 3011A parts unit.

You should be prepared to spend upwards of $300 parts and labor given the description of issues; that's well south of the Soundsmith price but these are still time-consuming pieces to service; I know that very well as my house is literally over-run with them in both working and nonworking/waiting to service condition.

I have the parts kits for these but am not doing outside repairs, but touch base with Tinman on his availability for taking yours in.

John
 
jdurbin1 said:
AK member Tinman has the skills and experience to service that, drop him a line. It'll need new preset switches to fix the "reverts to an old preset" issue but there's a couple of larger risks here:

1) tech "freed up the needle" is really scary, as doing that properly requires some surgery inside the gearbox for the tuning pot and most techs can't/won't do it correctly, and
2) battery leakage/board corrosion can be very labor-intensive to repair properly as well

These are both very well-known issues but it'll come down to whether it's been jimmied or not, and how bad the board damage got. On the plus side, you can replace that board completely using one from a 3011 or 3011A parts unit.

You should be prepared to spend upwards of $300 parts and labor given the description of issues; that's well south of the Soundsmith price but these are still time-consuming pieces to service; I know that very well as my house is literally over-run with them in both working and nonworking/waiting to service condition.

I have the parts kits for these but am not doing outside repairs, but touch base with Tinman on his availability for taking yours in.

John
Click to expand...

Thanks so much, John. I've been reading a lot of your posts the last few weeks. Such a great resource for folks like me new to the Tandberg brand.

One question (and please forgive my ignorance): If I end up having to replace the board with one from a 3011A, am I sacrificing some of the quality that makes the 3001A special, or is the board itself irrelevant in that equation?
 
They use the same tuning system boards, all of the "magic" of the 3001/3001A happens elsewhere. The 3001/3001A are packed with very high performance discrete circuitry where the 3011/3011A uses much simpler chip-based circuitry similar to what's in the TR-20xx series receivers. But, the part that controls the presets and servo-tuning is on those identical stacked tuning system boards.

John
 
Well, I have this one on the bench. The usual problems with the bonus that it's been twiddle-potted nicely! The entire front end needs re-aligning.
The tuning system boards weren't too bad. Some time in the ultrasound tank to remove the corrosion, new battery, etc. It works. Now I am just waiting for the hidden "SURPRISE!!". We'll see.

Why am I always the last tech to clean up everyone else's mess? :dunno:
 
I'd feel bad about missing out on this one, except I know it's in the right hands to be saved and for me anytime a Tandberg gets saved it's a good day :thumbsup:

Still, would be nice if you got a routine one to service once in awhile that wasn't chock full of evil... starting to think all of those ended up being stashed away in my spare room upstairs! :biggrin:

John
 
All the bad "pre-serviced" Tuners are the one's that keep being sold around. They can be quite the problem to fully de-bug. Not a fan of those interconnects either. The more plugs you put into something, the more unreliable it becomes.
Which is a shame, as Tandbergs are otherwise very well performing pieces of gear. But it takes a special kind of love and masochism to keep them running.

I finished this one, and it received VERY WELL here in the mountains.... but it will still have flaky inter-connections by design. No amount of cleaning and de-oxit will solve this in the long term. Maybe if they had gold plated the damn connectors.....
 
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