Vintage PROTON AI-3000 Stereo System All-in-One Take Two! Er, Three!

February 9, 2018

#231

Gentle reader,

Some time ago, I purchased a PROTON AI-3000 all-in-one stereo receiver. It, to my knowledge, was the most expensive (1989-1990) system of it's type, retailing for $1,300 which included two bookshelf speakers. These units themselves are slightly narrower than the standard 17" and extremely heavy! The majority of them are missing a door that covers the controls that span most of the bottom front of the unit, as seen below.

(The photo above, is not mine, but was found with a Google search. If the person who made the image wishes credit, please let me know.) Covers are removed. There are a pair on eBay right now, new still in the box. They appear to be of high quality.

 

The seller listed the first one I bought as a 3000II. I had written about this previously here:

Trying the minimalist route: PROTON AI-3000 II All-in-one Stereo Reciever and NOTHING ELSE! It was a bargain priced $69.99 with free shipping. What could go wrong? Someone along the shipping route had dropped the box, resulting in bending the front/left bottom corner. Plus, the CD player has "ERR" when trying a CD. The seller quickly refunded the full amount and I found another one, this one a proper series II for $99.99. Plus, that stated everything worked. It is seen below:

As you can see, it is in a lot nicer physical condition than the first one. Also missing the panel, but for a fully functioning one, I could live with that. After a time, CDs started skipping. Not all CDs, but most. I cleaned the laser, to no avail. See the very bottom of the article to see what else went wrong.*

There are two differences I can determine between the original series and series II. On the front, the type of CD transport/tray is different. Below is the original type:

These original series units have a door similar to what a lot of PCs have that flips open, pushed by the CD coming out, the tray itself is thinner too, top to bottom.

The other difference is on/in the back of the units. This is the original series. Note the are of the back between the AC plug socket and round fuseholder is flat with slits in it? Better seen below:

The back on the series II has a large protrusion and the AC plug socket is directly next to the fuseholder and AC power cord, as seen below. Inside is a much larger AC transformer than the original series has. Thus the "bump-out".

CD tray is one piece in series II as seen in these three images. One piece and much thicker.

So what happened after the CD player started acting up was this; I have long been watching eBay looking for a PROTON DC player. They are highly regarded and sought after and thus do not come up for sale often. To my surprise when I looked that day, there were TWO on eBay! One was newer and fancier and more expensive than the other. The less expensive one had somehow had most of the black anodizing rubbed off the face plate. He wanted $99.99 with free shipping AND it had the remote!

Here it is in all it's funny looking glory. It has the same time of CD door/tray as the original series AI-3000 units do.

Interestingly, it's model number is AC-300II. It must have been Karma that I found it. Even better it is the exact same width as the AI-3000II!

Strange that the play button is red and stop is tan. Counter intuitive.

More strange is it has a heat sink (black thing with fins) on the back of it. I've never seen that on anything that does not have a power amplifier. I opened it up and sure enough there is a transistor attached to it. Heat sinks are made of aluminum and excellent metal for heat transfer. They take the heat generated by the transistor and it flows through the heat sink into the air, thus cooling the transistor. The fins are for more surface area for cooling.

The larger fins above are for the power transistors in the amplifier on the AI-3000 units. On the other side are four transistors screwed to it with white heat transfer substance applied to insure the best conductivity.

See, the white stuff below? That's the heat transfer goo. I can't recall the correct name for it. Oddly, the transistor to the right appears to be exactly the same, yet it does not need a heat sink. 

But all this is HISTORY, building up to the present. I still wanted a fully working AI-3000II. To my delight, one showed up on eBay listed as fully working AND it still had the door, but it had issues. The door, not the rest of it. Better yet, $99.99 with free shipping! Bought it, I did. Weirdly, it took 14 days to get to Virginia from Florida! Poor mail carrier must have literally carried it the whole way! Poor guy.

Whatever device(s) that secured the hinges to the receiver are missing. By looking at it, I realized a couple of black wire ties might do the trick. And they do. It does not open fully, but I can still reach the controls just fine. Oh, and it had that cassette in it. I'm listening to it now and it has Tom Scott and Steely Dan on it. Right up my alley!

It was so dirty inside and out, especially inside the cassette well. A lot of time with rubbing alcohol, cotton swabs and paper towels cleaned up everything. At least I thought so until seeing these pictures! I also cleaned the cassette heads and transport equipment and demagnetized the heads. I also cleaned the CD laser. As advertised, everything works! The rear views:

Below it sits where the previous two did, to the right of my PC. That watch is solar charged Seiko, thus the window placement. Oh! Also on top is the icing on the AI-3000II cake!

Taped to the outside of the huge box was.......wait for it, the owner's manual! I've had a watch on eBay for the manual and the remote. But the former never appeared. The latter did, for $25.00, so it came here, too. Seen further below.

This remote is different from the multitude of remotes I have had. It is comfortable to hold and easy to read and use. Below, note how the front folds down and the narrow battery compartment underneath? Plus the sides are rubberized so it is easier to hold. In profile, which of course I forgot to shoot, the transmitter window points downward at about a 15 degree angle. It allows one to hold the unit comfortably and I really like it.

So, there you have it. Third time IS the charm in this case. *OH, I forgot the OTHER reason I had to get a third one! On the back of these are "PRE-OUT" RCA terminals which can be used to supply a subwoofer or a second power amplifier. When the previous unit was OFF, I was trying something out, that was attaching the really vintage SWTPC power amplifier to the Series II. When I touch one RCA cable to one of the plugs (below) a spark jumped to it. After that, the darn thing would NOT turn on! I'd forgotten about that. Thus, the need to get another AI-3000II unit. I opened it up and checked all over for a fuse, but it remains a mystery.

I plan to put the original unit back on eBay clearing explaining the inoperative CD player. And I will keep the PROTON CD player, just in case. Plus, as I wrote, they are RARE.

Thanks for looking,

Scott

February 9, 2018   

 

Ancient hand-made wooden cabinet finds a new purpose.

February 5, 2018

#230

Gentle reader,

We had outgrown our white Ikea cabinet which we had used to store DVD and Bluray discs. It was filled wall-to-wall and double deep. Yes, I know, we do still have movies and series and documentaries on plastic discs in plastic cases. Having had a this computer's hard drive stop working, I know what will happen should we have had a DVR which stores your digital "collection" on a hard drive. I do not have any media except photos stored on hard drives. I prefer to have things I can hold in my hands. In other words, REAL things.

Research narrowed our search of new cabinets to one that would cost more than $400 and weigh 160 pounds and have to be assembled. The latter did not bother me, the former two did. 

I had loaded our 21-year-old Ranger pickup with donations and suggested that since it was a Saturday, let's take them to Salvation Army rather than the store we usually visited on Sundays. So we did.

Since we were already there, we went inside to look around. My wife spotted a tall cabinet and called me over. It was obviously VERY old and hand made. It had two doors with two glass panels in each. The glass had visible ripples in it. Each door had a skeleton key lock and they were locked. Inside the bottom we could see some shelves.

Off she went to get the key from the cashier's desk. We opened it up and looked it over further. They wanted $99.00 for it. It measured 44 inches wide and 70 inches tall. We decided that we were meant to find and buy this piece. 

Our truck, which is rarely used, would hold it, and we had it with us. Plus, I had rope in it. Bought it we did and carefully loaded it, securing it with this 1" rope I have had for decades and never used. By the time we got home, it was dark, and rain was forecast, so we slid it out of the truck and removed the shelves and doors to lighten it. Then carefully carried it into the family room.

This image is actually after I had started working on it. We found that a piece of wood from the bottom front was long gone and felt it needed some sort of feet to keep the ancient wood off the floor. You can see the feet test-fitted in the photo. Plus the three shelves are inside it. They are 1" thick, and do not match each other in length as they had been cut with a hand saw who knows how many years ago. 

Constructed of mahogany, whatever glue they had used had long since let go. The only thing holding it together were tiny iron nails. We could make it move back and forth and side-to-side simply by pushing on it. So, some sort of bracing was in order.

Below are shots of the piece showing construction, finish and other details. I have worked with wood, and all kinds of other materials, all my life, so this was a challenge I readily accepted.

Above shows the gap from the missing piece from the front on the left. Also missing is some sort of  trim along the sides and possibly the front too.

Every nick, scratch and missing finish has a story we will never learn. Plus they add character.

Better seen above is the area where a piece of wood once resided below the doors.

Decorative rosette(?) trim on each side parallel to the pieces of wood separating each piece of glass in the doors.

Looking up shows the slap-dash finishing of the back wall and separate pieces of wood that make up the top. Note the saw-tooth trim and crown mouldings.

Speaking of saw-tooth, the supports for the shelves are like none we'd ever seen. Two on the inside of each side wall. Oddly, the shelves are too shallow to reach the front supports. Note also the heavy decorative trim on each side at the bottom front.

Left side has a crack most of the length of it. Saw-tooth trim continues on each side on top.

Doors are set in place for the photo, but not attached.

Yes, The locks are offset. Remember, this cabinet was made a LONG time ago. I wish there was a way to find out who, when and where it was made.

The two-tooth piece shown above was missing on the left. So my wife used this one to make a template and reverse engineered it. 

The feet we chose are large wooden balls. Which are flat top and bottom. With a threaded stud on the top. So I attached these brackets to the bottom. This would be the right rear when upright. At first I attached them squared with the two walls. Then realized that mounting them this way would add some rigidity. The bolt with nut is to make sure the bracket is exactly centered over the hole for the stud. Note how thick the walls are and the tongue and groove construction. Every hole I drilled was done so carefully to protect the ancient wood.

I kept the front brackets squared to help secure the new front bottom trim piece I was making out of a piece of oak. Mahogany, except Luan plywood, is pretty hard to find. I stained and finished the oak to match.

This view and the one below shows the back panel made up of nine separate pieces with tongue and grove construction lengthwise. Also note they never finished the inside of the top nor the outside. People tended to be much shorter than 70" way back then. I stand 75" tall, so I can see it.

Decorative pieces at the bottom, right is above and left is below. The left one took a hit or two. See how dark the wood is? When I drilled any the dust was very red. I suppose it could be cherry too, now that I think about it.

Iron nails are visible in the image above. Once hidden behind the missing trim pieces.

The back now squared and reinforced with large steel brackets. Looks as though it was against wainscotting at some point, based upon the scratches.

Here are the ball-feet prior to being finished. Thick and heavy and just the right height.

Here it is temporarily put together prior to being carried upstairs. The new bottom trim piece is visible and matches very well. The feet were finished the same but came out darker. I don't know what kind of wood they are made of.

Now upstairs, with two of the shelve installed. I could not figure out how shelve attached to those saw-tooth wooden brackets. So I removed all four of them and carefully measured and marked where to drill holes for shelf brackets (below).

Brackets in place, but have to be out to install the shelves, there is so little room to maneuver the boards. I found Ikea had shelf boards of solid pine already finished a dark brown. I had to trim 3/8" from the back, 8" from one end and notch each to clear central door frame.

I'm glad I chose to not finish the inside to cover where the saw-tooth brackets were. As installing the shelves was so tricky and left scratches on the inner panels on the sides.

All seven shelves now in place. They are all 8" apart, even though it doesn't look like it. Bottom one is secured by iron nails that once held the saw-tooth brackets on to the walls.

My wife found metal knobs that are a close match to the wood and she wanted to make the glass less translucent. So she got some smoke-tint and installed it.

Finally filled with all the movies with plenty of room to spare. The locks aren't quite so obviously misaligned once the doors are installed.

It was a fun project and it goes with the acacia wood floors and other types of wooden furniture we have.

Thanks for looking,

Scott

February 5, 2018