Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild

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baddog1946

Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« on: 19 Feb 2011, 05:41 pm »
Hi all I thought I would post this thread for all to see of my Dynaco FM-3 rebuild. I used a Chauncey Epperson motherboard PEC modules, power supply board and replaced everything except a couple of trimmers with all new parts from Mouser.
I also benefited from the expert advice of Chauncey Epperson and the article on this thread by Bill Thomas.
I scavenged the original parts I needed from 5 other FM-3's I bought in various states or decay on eBay and was actually able to get 3 more operational tuners from them.
The "Epperson" modded tuner operates with no detectable hum or buzzing and pulls in stations I never got before. I was super happy when it worked right away I had an AC current hum when I first plugged it in but found a poor solder job had shorted out a point on the motherboard. After a cleanup of my solder work it fired up and made good music even before I did a complete alignment on it. After the alignment it was right on and as I mentioned completely free of any hum or other noise except the music. Total hours to do all the work about 30-40.
cheers
Baddog1946


denny9167

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #1 on: 6 Mar 2011, 07:44 am »
Very Nice!

Mark Korda

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Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #2 on: 7 Mar 2011, 05:15 am »
Baddog1946...don't get any dust on that or I'll have Chief Stoddlemeyer arrest you....Monk!.....looks fantastic,maybe up to the task of putting some H.H. Scotts,and the Marantz 10B to take notice!..Mark Korda

Noseyears

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Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #3 on: 8 Mar 2011, 05:33 pm »
Nicely done, it requires lots of patience and hard work.  :thumb:


starkiller

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #4 on: 11 Mar 2011, 02:15 am »
What'cha going to do with those other 2?? :green:

rlee8394

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #5 on: 18 Mar 2011, 04:06 am »
Hey Dog,

Did you use on of Chauncey's IF filters between the RF and IF sections, or just use a jumper. I think Chauncey used to call it a "sensitivity module." I don't see it on his site now.

Ron

roger15ohm

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #6 on: 9 Jul 2011, 11:32 am »
Hello,

Just got my little Project FM tuner and thinking of valve one soon.  I'd read some articles that Dynaco Fm 3 is a great one.  I also found out this fm selling in ebay (320678901450) with 120/240 selectable trans.  Is that true? How about the parts? All of them still selling in the market?   


Thanks for sharing.   

baldrick

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #7 on: 11 Jul 2011, 03:16 am »
You're right.  A properly repaired or restored FM-3 tuner is a fantastic tuner for the price. 
The sensitivity and selectivity is quite poor compared to good solid state tuners from the 1980s but the FM-3 sounds terrific on strong stations and in itself is quite capable.  The thing to remember is that the FM-3 needs to be in perfect condition and in perfect alignment to sound good.  That means that most of the time it will need to be repaired at minimum, most often refurbished and many times completely rebuilt from scratch before it performs well.

That ebay listing appears to look like a nice example of a factory built FM-3, but the pictures on the ebay listing are dreadful and blurry, and there is very little explanatory text.

The problem is that even totally restored FM-3s have trouble selling over $200, so why pay $329 on a tuner that you will no doubt have to repair to get working correctly?


Better to get one that is less money and invest the rest of the money you were going to spend to rebuild it properly.

Oh and to answer your question on the availability of parts:   You can get most parts except the critical ones. The EMM801 magic eye tube is extremely rare.  The transformer is extremely hard to find.  The tuning capacitor is impossible to find.  The germanium diodes in the multiplex decoder are getting difficult to find.  Most of the other parts (or their equivalents) are available.  You can find all the replacement tubes easily (except the EMM801)

roger15ohm

Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #8 on: 11 Jul 2011, 03:56 am »
Thanks baldrick.

kenneth Zhu

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Re: Dynaco FM-3/Chauncey Epperson rebuild
« Reply #9 on: 7 Dec 2011, 01:28 am »
Geogeous rebuilding. I've just got a FM-3 tuner and replaced the main PSU capacitor. It's working well now, but the sensitivity is a little bit dissapointing.

Anybody knows the IF curves so that it can be ideally aligned?

Thanks a lot.