Lowrey Organs

king_joolian · Oct 9, 2009

Has anybody harvested a lowrey organ before?
Any tips for where the goodies may be found in it?

It contains a couple of old DIP style ICs, no tubes. The only things to catch my eye were shiny silver pins with equally shiny solder.

I have read hammond organs contain palladium, could a lowrey also?

The biggest gain will probably be from recycling the space it occupies.

jimdoc · Oct 9, 2009

I have never tried a Lowrey, but if it has any palladium it will be in the contacts and bussbar that the keys or pedals activate.
Jim

jimdoc · Oct 9, 2009

Also I try to break it down to just the "good stuff" within an hour after I get it off my truck if I have the time. A sawzall or sledge hammer works for me. Some parts may sell on Ebay so check that out before you trash anything. Getting the palladium off of the bussbar and contacts takes the most time for me. But you can just stash those away to deal with later when you get time.
Jim

Palladium · Oct 9, 2009

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=164&p=7060&hilit=organs+palladium#p7060#p7060

king_joolian · Oct 13, 2009

Are the springs or the rods in the buss bars supposed to be palladium?
Both seem to reacting with HCL to a degree, possibly plated or plated with something, though what would be the point in using palladium if you were going to plate it??

The rods and springs were all covered in a dark layer of some kind, the springs have a shiny area where they make contact with the rods.

Never recovered palladium before, so unsure of the specifics, but it cant possibly dissolve in HCL, right?

Springs and rods added to seperate HCL solutions, one of the two made the place smell like rotten eggs (sulfide type smell)

Spring solution is clear with a slight yellow tinge, precipitated a floating milky layer when tap water was added to HCL solution. (silver?)

Rod solution went dark yellow overnight, black layer on the rods seems to flake off and disappear.

Ill let you know how it all goes.

jimdoc · Oct 13, 2009

If you look at the link in Palladium's post above, and then look on the first page of the four in that topic.Look for the first picture, it
is in the sixth posting. It shows the contacts and bussbars from a Hammond organ. The palladium portion is just a very thin wire spot welded on the skinny end of each contact, and along the entire top
end of each bussbar. Other brand organs may not have palladium at all, but if they do I am sure it will be thin wire or small contacts. In other words big parts won't be solid pd, just the parts that make contact. Jim

king_joolian · Oct 13, 2009

They must work off a different system.

The lowrey has a spring attached to the key that makes contact with the rods.

The wires leading from the contact rods appears to be the same low cost steel wires the rest of the organ has.

That settles that, nothing in a lowrey.

rusty · Oct 6, 2012

king_joolian said:
They must work off a different system.

The lowrey has a spring attached to the key that makes contact with the rods.

The wires leading from the contact rods appears to be the same low cost steel wires the rest of the organ has.

That settles that, nothing in a lowrey.

I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion that there's no value inside an old Lowery vacuum tube organ, you can clearly see the wires which make contact with the springs are heavily oxidized such as would appear on sterling silver.

Edit to add: Did you test any of the capacitors for silver

Its my best guess that the contact springs are made from nickle / silver.

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