ELEPHANT SURGERY: PHILIPS D8814 RESTORATION

D8814 is the most impressive animal in my minicollection of Big Boys:

Unlike all other beasts, the Elephant was singing from Day One, but he still needed a few minor fixes.

Original idea was simple: to re-belt cassette mechanism and to check ON button which felt too tight. As it turned out, ON button was actually broken with a temp fix by the previous owner.

Once you open the back, you see three boards plus three display/control blocks on top:

To get to cassette mechanism or to the ON button of the CB/control block (u-Computer unit according to the ServiceManual) we have to remove LED Bar unit (1), radio RF unit (2) and the mainboard/Recorder Unit (3). A few wires have to be desoldered, multipin connectors unplugged, and bare wires inserted into spring-loaded multipins (red circles) carefully detached:



Unless you insert a pin or flat jeweler’s screwdriver before pulling out the wires, some of the springs will be damaged! Before touching anything, one should go through the standard nightmare of marking all the connectors and wires and taking close-up photos of the wiresbefore desoldering:



Once stripped down, rebelting is a 10-min job, I used belts SM10.4 and SS5.2 from Consolidated Electronics



Previous owner flipped a few wires going to the Control Panel (u-Compiter):





Four screws keep aluminum shielding in place, once removed you get access to the “computer” itself. Do NOT touch the screws marked Orange, to get access to ON button you should remove only five screws marked in Green:

Once you flip the board you see that five top screws are holding LCD displays together, they should be removed only if some digits are flickering or missing (as was my case).



Previous owner fixed broken On and Off buttons with Silicone Sealant, it had to be scraped off first. I used Tamiya polystyrene glue and 0.5mm Styrene sheet to glue the buttons back to the board (old credit card with paint scraped off should work too). Unlike CrazyGlue, GorillaGlue, or rubber/Silicone-based glues, this glue actually welds plastics into one unbreakable piece. To strengthen the “hinge” line, I applied a layer of silicone glue:



Previous owner must have put a lot of efforts into pressing this ON button, not realizing that without two AA batteries Control Board (“u-Computer”) does not work:

So much pressure got applied that plastic for the screws holding this whole “u-computer” together cracked and had to be reinforced with brass sleeves:

Next I had to deal with missing digits on LCD displays, and five screws marked in Red had to be removed:

reistablishing solid electrical connection between the board and LCD means a lot of cursing and realignments, hope I will never have to do this again!

Time to Beautify the Elephant, I wanted to stretch an acoustically transparent cloth over its grilles, to cover jail-style plastic crossbars and fake tweeter:



By the way, “7”Woofer 2″Tweeter 4 Cone Speaker System” means a speaker cone with a whizzer:



Tape speed and W&F seem up to specs:

Did I mention that it looks absolutely Gorgeous?:

 

I suppose that the Sharp components we see in photographs 17 through 19 were built into this huge Philips portable? Japanese know-how nestled in a Netherlands enclosure? (At the risk of regretting rash remarks: how often do other nationalities match, let alone surpass, the Asian brands such as Aiwa, JVC, Panasonic, Sharp, etc, when it comes to the literally microscopic intricacies of integrated circuit board design and construction?)




And I suppose that YOKOGAWA is the brand name of the “WOW and flutter meter.” (Took me a few moments to find it; atypically not stamped or stenciled somewhere on the façade of the unit. // THEN AGAIN: Sometime after 7:00PM Eastern Time, June 2, 2021, I have started to wonder: perhaps the name of the "WOW and flutter" meter is something as seemingly pedestrian as LEADER. Perhaps the brand name is indeed "stamped or stenciled somewhere on the façade of the unit.")




As T-ster has said, this was splendid work on your part, Jorge. (And, early in May 2021, to correct my comments from 2018, there certainly is shortwave-tuning with this hulk.)




The size, number and clarity of the photos reminds me of what the BoomBoxery/Stereo2Go member Nickeccles has done several times with his restoration projects. Maybe I’m yet to see more repair-project threads such as this that you’ve already done. (Shrug) This sort of expertise seems guaranteed to solve my sluggish-playback and tape-eating problems. But, ah, the price of such skill. Well beyond my modest wallet, I fear. (Sigh)




Again, fine work that one sees here. That Yello album Stella – a 1985 release containing what an All-Music Guide critic referred to as “the cult favorite [hit] ‘Oh Yeah’” – must sound similarly “gorgeous,” eh?

 

Enjoyed reading the topic with excellent photos. I can tell you spent hours to repair it. great job

 

Thank you guys for the kind words
@Easthelp it is funny that you mentioned St.Nick/ @nickeccles It was he who pushed me into the troubles of uploading my resto efforts! I also wonder sometimes who designed cassette mechanism for my "Swiss-designed" Sencor S-4800:

probably "made in Japan", as all other Sencors, but did they go into troubles to design mechanism from scratch? I spent days repairing/reinforcing all those gears, and then snatched this mechanism, in like-new condition off eBay for $30. Talk about wasted time!!!

 

Uh, no offense, Jorge, but why do I get the impression that there's something somewhat creepy about the sight of that Sencor S-4800 cassette-deck mechanism? There just seems to be something undesirable about those four beige (or "off-beige") gears or cogs or whatever they are, roughly in the centre of the side of the mechanism opposite that of the motor. Silly as this sounds, my skin started grumbling at the sight of them. Even the sight of my Aiwa's mechanism doesn't quite creep me out. (Shaking this head of mine)

 

Those are the horrors next to impossible to fix... And the flywheel to the right, with rubber band and broken string, that is the contraption for smooth door opening! Problem solved by Philips and Panasonic with a drop of viscous silicone oil. I can almost see the engraving: "Swiss-made. Patek Philippe. complication 5396R". With one catch: it is impossible to adjust. It is either too slow or too quick, and even when adjusted it drifts off in a few days of use. So, maybe it was designed from scratch by Swiss dudes.

 

I KNEW I had seen that cassette mechanism somewhere before........

It's a slightly reworked version of the Ferguson 3T18 deck & imo a very good deck all gear driven just one large flat capstan belt!!

The full auto stop mechanism can be problematic though & I ended up buying a scrapper just to get the deck out which was perfect after a rebelt & service restoring my 3T18 to perfect working order!! Took around 3 years to get all the parts I needed to build a minty one!!



I MUST get my elephant repaired! They are so beautiful to look at too even when a little poorly like mine!!

 

Sencor - Ferguson, what a team! Who were the real "shadow writer" for them?

 

You have some very nice pieces of equipment on your bench, noticed that power supply and the microscope....

 

This is an incredible story, hope to one day be at the level of skill and patience to restore an elephant like this. I'm stuck here with a ruined old TCM-3 from Sony that I want to put together again... If I had the patience for it!

 

Wow quite a loving effort, despite the horrible service manuals Philips are known for....
And the Sencor, when they say "designed in Switzerland" that's really all they mean.....Draw up a design and tell someone in Asia to build it, lol.
Nice looking red panels on yours....I got mine camo-dipped

 

Not very pleasing to read those comments from Reli about the Switzerland-based Sencor brand being a “design only” company when it came to building boomboxes and other electronics. Not pleasing to read that Sencor would leave the actual manufacturing to some Japanese plant or another. But not really unexpected. (Shrug) As I’ve told myself often enough of late, Japan was “King Of Consumer Electronics” by way of the firms in that nation designing and manufacturing many popular, frequently high-quality appliances and electronics in the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, with an expertise that non-Japanese (and more broadly non-Asian) manufacturers couldn't always match.



Interesting re-finishing of the façade of that Sencor boombox. (Is it an S-4800?) It seems to be in good condition. Is the backlighting for the various dials original?



Thanks for sharing.