STUDER 169 / 269 mixing board restoration

In the past 15 years we have restored and sold around 50 STUDER mixing consoles at vintagetools. Here we show a few insights into the restoration work. We curently have a very nice 169 with VU bridge in the shop, but even if you can´t find one on the website, drop us an email, we always know who has one...
www.vintagetools.de/AUDIO/Mix...

[@sandyjonesmusic]

Amazing, thanks for sharing

[@ericharizanos5138]

Thanks for the tips. I am cleaning the faders of my 963 and they're very dirty. I am using isopropyl spray with qtips of various sizes. The most sensitive is the fader tracks and the fingers. Then i use a tiny drop of ptfe oil to lube the guides. Those little metal paper condensers on the pcb that you show are prone to explode!

[@hosac99]

any tips on noisy faders on bottom and top position?

[@vazdaqui8513]

is there any audio transformer on this mixing desk?

[@Yootjoob]

I always wanted one, but as always my wallet was on diet.😛

[@hosac99]

doing same restoration now bought broken 269
problem was psu also a lot of capacitors are short circuited
fixed the psu now slowly module by module fixing one thing after another
do you change all capacitors or only electrolytics
regards

[@vintagetools]

Great! Good luck. the psus are tricky sometimes.

[@stereomaster3003]

If your mixer worked in a studio, like mine (169 ), you will be shocked to see what it is under the connectors on the main board(s), i desoldered all the connectors , i cleaned them in the ultrasound bath and i cleaned also the horrible oxidation of old coffee, water, cola (or beer?) for maybe 30 years under the connectors and on the metal back cover. I strongly advise this to anyone want to restore a 169/269, even it is a huge work….

[@vintagetools]

So true. People tent to forget that there was excessive smoking everywhere until the mid-1990s. Smoking ban in the studio? No way! How are you supposed to work creatively? :-) Times are changing. Lol. The dirty layer of smear that the nicotine left behind was death for the faders and pots. At some point I removed the faders from our old SSL 4000 and vacuumed everything down below. Yep... At least one ashtray filling on 56 faders! Be sure to clean the circuit boards!🤢

[@sansvermillion]

The capacitors under the cover in the frame, they are Polyethylene? Have you encountered PE caps out of spec here? Thank you

[@shadowfire595]

Awesome project! Wie lange seid ihr mit so einer Restaurierung beschäftigt wenn man fragen darf?

[@vintagetools]

Dauert schon ein paar Tage, wenn man es so gründlich macht. Kommt immer drauf an was im Laufe der Überholung so ans Licht kommt. Abgerissene Leiterbahnen reparieren, versteckte Fehler finden und reparieren, usw.

[@ericharizanos5138]

On another note how do you make those eurocard multipin extensions? Really handy to calibrate the channel.

[@danielburns4483]

lucky enough to have two in my possession, family friend is letting me have a look and try them out to see if i can invest. currently troubleshooting. any recommendations on how to properly diagnose any issues? or frankly even get a signal from the unit after powering it on?

[@vintagetools]

Hi Daniel, If you get no signal at all, it is best to first check whether the power supply is supplying all voltages. If it does you can connect the audio I/O´s and follow all signals. In other words make a complete audio test with all the in and outputs such as Mic-Line in, master out, control room out, auxes, etc. If you need to repair stuff, do the same with an oscilloscope. Always just follow the signal and repair one fault after the other. At the end, if everything works well and sounds good, you can do tests with a measuring system such as the audio precision or any other. Good luck!

[@danielburns4483]

@@vintagetools amazing! this will help a ton. so exciting! thank you!