Hammond Solovox Repair, 1949

How To Repair a Hammond Solovox

This article from the June, 1949 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine gives invaluable contemporary information about repairing the Hammond Solovox electronic musical instrument.

Unlike most musical instruments, a Solovox has more in common with a tube radio than a tuba, so the article is written for radio repairmen of the time. It lists a catalog of common troubles and the methods for curing them.

As noted in our main Solovox article, the major task in restoring any Solovox is capacitor replacement. In many cases, replacing the old capacitors and cleaning the keyswitches and other controls with DeOxit will bring the instrument back to life.

If recapping and cleaning doesn't do the trick, perhaps this article has the answer. Notice that there are different versions of the Solovox, and this article does not cover all of them in detail. Still, any information is better than none!

The parts most likely to need replacement in a Solovox are capacitors and resistors. These are readily available from sources listed in our Parts page. If your Solovox has a defective proprietary part such as a broken key, the only source would be another junked Solovox. Hammond stopped making replacement parts for the Solovox many years ago.

The repair article mentions cleaning electrical contacts with carbon tetrachloride. This dangerous chemical is no longer readily available. A safe modern substitute is DeOxit, made by the CAIG company and available from many online suppliers.