[sdiy] OT: home organ Leslie hacking

[rkmoore at memphis.edu]

I think that you can just treat it as a speaker.  Match your amp and 
speaker impedances and make sure that you're not connected to the 
organ amp if you are connected to an external one.  Also, the speakers 
that I ahve seen in most home organs were pretty cheesy, so you may 
want to replace it with a higher quality speaker that will mount up to 
the baffle.  

Don't try to get too creative with speed control.  The leslie in my 
home organ is a little single phase induction motor.  I've seen people 
put rheostats in series with the motor to vary the voltage in an 
attempt to vary the speed.  This will damage the motor.  These motors 
are only meant to run at speeds related to the frequency of the AC 
source.  If you have an inverter for the motor then you can shange the 
motor speed.  I have added a switch to turn the motor on and off 
because in my organ the leslie rotates constantly otherwise.

Richard Moore
----- Original Message -----
From: CCartCat at aol.com
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005 8:53 am
Subject: [sdiy] OT:  home organ Leslie hacking

> Just a pie in the sky hypothetical:
> 
> If I were to find an old home organ with a built-in Leslie and   . 
> . .
> 
> If it the organ pretty much worked overall and   . . .
> 
> I wanted to have the occasional option of sending my own non-organ 
> signal 
> thru the Leslie . . .
> 
> How would I proceed?
> 
> I can guess that I may want a dummy load for the organ's own amp 
> so it's kept 
> happy while I'm borrowing the Leslie.   Beyond that, I'm worse 
> than guessing. 
>  Anyone had any hands on experience?
> 
> I ask because I occasionally see a home organ in a thrift store 
> with a 
> built-in Leslie.   Too often this happens when I'm not 
> particularly close to home 
> (as in out of state) and cartage becomes a bigger issue than 
> usual.   Rather 
> than torture myself with what might have been or might be, I 
> thought I'd do a 
> reality check.
> 
> Also, I imagine a home organ Leslie is not the greatest of all 
> Leslies, but 
> for my purposes, Leslie-fying any sound at hand for the sake of 
> fun, it may 
> well suffice.
> 
> Lurking in thrifts as well, now and then,
> Kevin Seward
>