ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Philips record player

Posted for Texas Ranger:








[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-22-2004).]

There used to be a London company here in the 50s/60s selling similar "under radio" units under the name of Add-A-Gram (gramophone being the British term for phonograph).

Most turntables in U.K. domestic equipment at the time were British made (BSR, Collaro, Garrard etc.) but Philips appeared occasionally.

One thing that always sticks in my mind on the Philips decks is the labeling on the turnover stylus assembly. British makes generally had LP/78 or 33-45/78, but the Philips units were marked M and N, which I always assumed stood for microgroove and normal.

I see the plate indicates power sources of 110, 127, and 220V. Does the motor actually have separate taps for 110 and 127 volts? Most of the British deck motors just provided for series or parallel connections, so the same setting would be used for 110 or 127.

Taking a real close look at the pictures it appears that the motor only has 2 sets of windings, but the 127V section of the voltage selector has a resistor fitted somehow, so the 110V windings can work at 127V. A radio freak who was at the flea market told me that until the 1950ies Vienna had 110 and 220V AC as well as 220V DC, which actually used the same unpolarized ungrounded plugs. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether he was talking about 127V 3ph or actually 110V single phase.
He also told me that Eumig still made DC only radios in the early to mid-50ies that could be dumped 10 years later because DC was no more...

AC/DC radios utilizing a simple half-wave rectifier arrangement were made into the 1960s here, but DC-only is something unusual (not counting battery portables, of course).

Some models made by Bush (and maybe other companies too) sold in both AC/DC and AC-only versions, and in some cases a "field conversion" kit was available. Quite why they produced a transformer-based AC-only model in addition to the AC/DC version is something of a mystery.

Hey Ragnar, I owned one of them in the late '80's, 230V version though, used to play AC/DC 7" vinyl's on it, wearing my Mullet!.
I still have the disc's though, but the Mullet is long gone!.
Got lost somewhere though.
{Message Edited to remove spelling errors}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 04-25-2004).]

It was a cool beast, but having the alternative of either paying 6 Euros for a total ruin or getting my money back I chose the latter. I'm somewhat running out of storage space
My room looks like an antiques store anyway. Looking around I see a 1970ies fake mahogony Hitachi TV, a Siemens Video 2000 video, a big cardboard box with V2000 tapes, a portable Panasonic VHS recorder with external tuner, some VHS tapes, an old Commodore TV monitor, a huge Ikea plush elk, 3 computers, a huge flourescent/incandescent combo flashlight w/ built-in AM/shortwave radio and alarm siren, 3 computers with printers, 3 laptops, a slide projector, several vintage phones, an old Toshiba record player (big thing with radio and huge but extremely cheap speakers) that needs a new belt, a 1970ies SOny stereo, severall reel-toreel tape recorders, tapes everywhere, records, 3 guitars,... oh yeah, forgot the lego reproduction of a 1054 Vienna Stadtbahn car type N1 (basically a 2-axle tramway car being used on a former urban railway system from 1954 to 1983),...

I know the problem Ragnar! Every time I acquire another piece of old equipment I have the problem of where to put it. My bedroom has looked like an electronics workshop ever since I was about 8 years old. I consider that to be perfectly normal.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-27-2004).]