Beseler 45MXT motor replacement

[djkloss]

So I think I screwed up my motor on my Beseler 45MXT enlarger. The light bulb burned out, so I lowered the head to take out the bulb. (This is a 'new-to-me' enlarger, as I'm more of an Omega user). So, I accidentally lowered it too far using the switch. there was no 'stop' on the side rail. I heard a noise, and it wouldn't move up or down. The knob still turns manually both back & forth via the switch, but won't move the head up or down. Did I kill the motor?

A friend has a spare motor and I'm looking for a video on how to swap them out. If there is a video out there or if anyone can help me I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks! Dorothy

 

[glbeas]

Look to see if the drive gear has run off the bottom of the rack. If so it should go back on lifting the head while turning the knob in the right direction. If that works and you get it back together there should be a place for a stop pin on the column that will push the switch back as it hits bottom. Fix that.

 

[djkloss]

Look to see if the drive gear has run off the bottom of the rack. If so it should go back on lifting the head while turning the knob in the right direction. If that works and you get it back together there should be a place for a stop pin on the column that will push the switch back as it hits bottom. Fix that.

do i need to take the box apart to see that or is it in plain view? Thanks!

 

[David Brown]

do i need to take the box apart to see that or is it in plain view? Thanks!

Gary is not talking about the inside of the motor box. There is a track on the inside of both rails on each side of the enlarger, and there are gears that engage these tracks. From your description, it appears that you may have lowered the carriage too far since there was no stop pin at the bottom of the track where the motor runs, and the carriage dropped below the teeth of the tracks. You should be able to manually raise the carriage back up to engage the gears in the tracks, and then the motor should work fine.

 

[djkloss]

Thank you David, I did finally manage to raise it to a starting point but only after laying it on it's back. Once it was back up there still a new problem with the motor. It was able to go up but very slowly. I then manually turned the knob a bit higher and tried the switch in both directions. It works fine going down but not up.

I had already removed the cover, so I observed the belt on the motor. I tried running it up and down with and without the belt to see if anything looks bent.
The only thing I see is a lot of slack in the belt. Wondering if the position of the belt is the problem and maybe the spindle got moved when it bottomed out.

 

[djkloss]

I managed to move it up after laying it on it's back. The weight was too much for me to lift it standing up. However the motor is not functioning properly when raising it. Lowering doesn't seem to be a problem. It's very slow and stops running upwards. I wonder if everything got misaligned during the incident. This was an old enlarger from a camera store that went out of business. We're just going to swap one out and hope the other one works.
Lessons learned! Thanks all for your help!

 

[Rick A]

This may be of help.
http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/manuals/enlargers/beseler/Beseler_45mxt.pdf

 

[glbeas]

Sounds like its binding. The gears may not be on the track in the same place on one side.

 

[George Nova Scotia]

There is also a counterbalance spring which helps lift it. Check the manual on how to adjust.

 

[djkloss]

This may be of help.
http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/manuals/enlargers/beseler/Beseler_45mxt.pdf

Thanks Rick, I have the hard copy and it was very useful today. A little too late, but I certainly have learned a lot in the past few days about Beseler!

 

[djkloss]

Sounds like its binding. The gears may not be on the track in the same place on one side.

I thought that as well after checking against another motor. So I followed the instructions in the manual on how to make adjustments, and now it seems to work 'ok', not perfect, but at least it's working better than it was. It works well enough that I can start printing again. Thanks for your help!

 

[djkloss]

Thank you everyone for helping me through this. I learned a lot and really like my new enlarger. I just want it to work. It was used for many years in a camera store, so it has a lot of miles on it! and, hasn't been used in many years. so it found a good home.