Rx-5150 left speaker off

Hi I'm new here and I am the original owner of a 5150 and it's been kind of neglected the last 10 years.

I was having a lot of static in the adjustments of volume and bass and treble ... And the left speaker has stopped working in the last few years.

So I opened it up today and put some cleaner in the pots and that seemed to dramatically I,prove the static on the knobs.

I tried moving the speaker wires to see what would happen if I flipped the speaker connector and it appears the left speaker is fine ... As it would play full volume when connected to the 2 pins of that normally connect to the right speaker.

So am kind of at a loss as to what I can do to get the left speaker working again.

I did try the cleaner on the headphone jack and around that area and for while! I got full volume restored but it didn't stay and then returned to not working or very faintly working.

So I stopped as I was worried that too much cleaner might not be a good thing.

I also could really find a good hole,in the balance to spray.

I feel like I am really close to fixing it but not sure how,to proceed. Any ideas appreciated.

I did notice one of the really big blue capacitors near the headphone jack,looks a big funny, with a lot,of,gunk on the bottom (maybe that's normal). I did temporarily get some volume when putting cleaner down the headphone jack but zi was weary because it sits atop this large capacitor and I was just kind of shielding it with a cloth to absorb the cleaner that went through.

Thanks in advance,
Scott

The jack possibly has corrosion causing bad connection. Test with headphones first to see if both channels work properly. Also cleaning the function switch with deoxit and moving switch 20-30 times. Also when spraying inside of jack it helps to use a headphone plug by putting it in jack and pulling out many times.


Bad Boy Bill

That balance pot needs some spray - there is a way of spraying the cleaner inside.

The balance pot had a tiny hole that I sprayed into but it's harder to tell how much gets in.

Thanks I will try with headphones as suggested.

I was using blue shower techspray.

Should I try the Deoxit instead?

I think the record / playback switch could potentially cause this issue. I highly suggest cleaning it.

I had a bunch of cutting out and popping/static on my 5150 until I sprayed the record bar. That cleared it all up.

what is the "record bar" ?

It's just another name for the play/record mode switch. It's so long from all the switching it has to do, that it looks like a bar.
It's switched by the record button on the cassette deck, usually cannected with a stiff piece of wire like you see below. It's why pressing record can take a little extra effort than the other buttons.

The 5150 has a servo deck.

Thanks again ... very helpful.

So with a servo deck, there is no record bar to clean?

No, he was just pointing out that the RX-5150 in particular does not require extra force to press record, since it uses servos to assist with that.

It still has a record bar.