Packing Your Intercom for Shipment

Whenever I talk with a customer about sending their Master Station in for repair, the final part of the conversation is about packing up their Master Station for shipment.  

Every Master Station needs to be protected against damage during shipment, otherwise it will end up like this IM5006.

This IM5006 was put into a box that was only slightly larger than the IM5006 itself and during shipment the box was probably dropped or bashed into something and the corner of the faceplate was broken.

When we package a Master Station for shipment, we do the following:

1.  The Master Station is placed inside a large plastic bag which is taped shut.  This prevents scuffs on the faceplate and prevents the styrofoam peanuts from getting inside the unit.

2.  We use extra heavy-duty Bubble Wrap (with large 1" bubbles) and wrap the Master in 3 layers of bubble wrap.  The first layer goes around the unit length-wise,  the 2nd and 3rd layers are wrapped around front to back.  All of the seams are taped closed to create a bubble wrap envelope.

3.  We use a new shipping box which measures 29" x 17" x 9".  This is the largest box which can be shipped based on its weight only and there is no additional charge for its "dimensional weight".

The other advantage to this size of box is that there is plenty of extra space around the Master Station in case the box is dropped or bashed into something.  Most shipping companies recommend a minimum of 4" of extra spaced around the contents of the box to prevent damage.

A layer of styrofoampPeanuts is placed in the box, the bubble-wrapped Master in placed on the peanuts and all of the extra space is filled with more peanuts.  The peanuts should be compacted somewhat to prevent the master from shifting around in the box.

4.  The box is sealed with lots of tape.  We tape the box with 3 rows of tape length wise, 5 rows of tape across its width and we seal the folded seams also.  This is done on both the top and bottom of the box.

Now the Master Station is ready to be shipped.  We use Fedex and each package is insured and will require a signature for delivery.

Update on Friday, August 30, 2013 at 10:22AM by Cindy & Christopher

How Not To Pack Your Intercom

By just chance I received an Intercom in today that is a very good example of how not to prepare your Master Station for shipment.

This is a NuTone IM303 and these are the actual pictures as we received the shipment from UPS.

When the UPS driver handed me the box, one corner was torn and the edge of the face plate was pushing through the tear.  The box is an old second hand box and it has other tears and gouges from being used before.

The seam had just one piece of tape closing the box, there wasn't any tape across the seam to help hold the box closed.

Inside was just the IMA303 with a few pieces of old bubble wrap and some waded up paper towels.  The IMA303 wasn't wrapped up in anything and it was free to slide around in the box during shipping.

It was mostly luck that this Master Station wasn't damaged at all. 

Update on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 7:45AM by Cindy & Christopher

Here's another good example of why it's so important to package your Intercom Master Station carefully for shipment.

A few weeks ago we received a NuTone Model 2090 Master Station in for repair.  This 2090 was manufactured in 1968 and needed to be rebuilt to restore it to working condition.

The box that it was shipped in was very small and there were just a few pieces of crumpled up newspaper in the box to cushion the Master Station.

When this 2090 was put on the bench for its initial testing before its repair, it appeared to be dead.  This was not the reported condition of the Master Station by its owner.

Upon closer inspection I found that the amplifier circuit board had a 4 inch crack across one corner.  It seemed that due to the lack of proper packaging this Master Station had been dropped and smashed during shipping.

If you look carefully and follow all of the red arrows you can see the crack in the fiberglass circuit board and through the solder traces.

Fortunately these early NuTone circuit boards have really huge circuit board traces and repairing them will be possible.  It would seem easy enough to just reflow the solder across the traces to eliminate the cracks, but this will not be a good enough method for this type of damage.  Solder by its self is much to soft to add any strength across the crack.

It is necessary to "stitch" the board back together by adding wire reinforcements accross the cracked traces.  I used the left over leads from the new componets I had installed during other repairs.  These wire leads are very stiff and they will solder to the traces very well.

If you look carefully and follow the green arrows, you can see how the wire leads are laid across the cracked areas and how they are embedded into the built up solder.

This method (even though it looks a little messy) adds a lot strenght back to the circuit board and it will prevent the crack from causing any future problems.

In the end, this 2090 worked well and the rebuild was successful.

Update on Monday, June 23, 2014 at 7:51AM by Cindy & Christopher

Just a quick reminder for everyone who is going to ship their NuTone Intercom Master Station for repair - Carefull and Proper packaging is VERY IMPORTANT.

We had two Master Stations delivered during the past few weeks that didn't have sufifficent packaging or were plced in boxes that were just to small.

One IM3303 Master came in with a broken faceplate.

The other IM3303 had a broken circuit board.

While we were able to replace both of these broken parts, the repir cost for the NuTone Master Stations were much higher than average due to the cost of the replacement parts.

Pack your NuTone Mster Stations well and insure them with your shipping carrier.

Update on Friday, September 19, 2014 at 3:47PM by Cindy & Christopher

We have a new winner for the worst packaging job ever when shipping a NuTone Master Station.

This NuTone N2561 was wrapped in one layer of bubble wrap and then placed inside a paper shipping envelope.  As you can see it didn't really make the trip very well.

A bent chassis corner was the only real damage, more of a statement about NuTone's quality construction than the effort made in packaging.  Good Grief! 

Update on Friday, December 5, 2014 at 10:12AM by Cindy & Christopher

The Box Has To Be Larger Than The Master Station!!

We received another broken IM3303 yesterday.  The box was actually smaller in height than the IM3303.

The damage to the main circuit board was caused by the Tuner Module being push down, cracking the board.

I'll look at this damaged Master today to see if it's repairable.

Update on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 3:11PM by Cindy & Christopher

Another Damaged Master Station Arrived Today

When I speak with customers about sending in their NuTone Master Stations for repair, the final topic of each conversation is about proper packaging to prevent shipping damage.

Fortunately, most Master Stations make it here in fine condition.  Unfortunately, that was not the case for this IMA4406.

The box was simply to small, without any real free space (crush space, as it's called) to protect the IMA4406 from impact damage. The packing materials were insufficient, just one layer of bubble-wrap and some shredded paper (from an actual shredder - please don't use this - it creates a terrible mess).

As you can see, the lower right-hand corner is completely broken off along with the right-hand door.  This is a serious amount of damage and it affects the lower hinge of the CD Players door.

This face place will likey have to be replaced with a refurbished, used faceplate.  I don't think that gling will work on this one.

Update on Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 7:25AM by Cindy & Christopher

Don't ship an 18" Master Station in an 18-1/2" Box

Part of every conversation I have with every person who is interested in having their NuTone Intercom repaired is about packaging their Master Station for shipment.  I stress the importance of packaging their Master Station well to prevent any type of shipping damage.

I also forward a copy of this article showing how we package their Master Station when we return, as an example of how they should prepare their set for shipping.

I always recommend that they look at the pictures of the Master Stations we get in, where people didn't follow my suggestions. . . 

Even with all of my encouragement and examples, people still don't listen and chaos ensues.

Recently, we had a IM4406 delivered for what would have been an ordinary repair with a damaged corner

This happened because the owner was trying to save a few dollars (maybe $20.00) in the shipping costs to send us the unit)  Apparently he had prepared him IM4406 as we described, then he didn't like the shipping costs he was quoted and he repacked it in a much smaller box.

Not only was the box used, but it only measured 18-1/2" wide and the IM4406 is 18" wide.  

Our customers attempt to save a few dollars in shipping costs has resulted in adding the cost of a replacement faceplate to his repair.

Chris

Repairing Intercoms requires a Global Effort

Most people have no idea how much work goes into having the necessary parts to repair NuTone intercoms systems.

Sourcing the correct components for several dozen different models that have been manufactured over the past 50 years is no small task. 

The biggest problem is part obsolescence.  Electronic components that were commonly available just 15 years ago are now becoming difficult to find and much more expensive to buy.  Many times we have to order hard to find parts from speciality suppliers in the US and from around the world. 

Components that were used in models that were manufactured in the mid 1990's through the mid 2000's are still available, but not always from suppliers located in the USA.

For these models our best source for components is in Asia.  After all that is where the components are manufactured and the products are assembled.

We work with a supplier in Singapore to source genuine replacement parts for many NuTone Intercom models.  What is truly amazing about this relationship is how easy and how fast it all works.

I placed an order with our supplier in Singapore on a Friday afternoon and the package with my parts was delivered on the following Tuesday.

We certainly live in great times. . .

Adding an Audio Jack to your NuTone Music Intercom Master Station

One of the most common and useful additions to any NuTone Music Intercom Master Station is a modern 1/8" (3.5mm) Audio Jack.  

The 1/8" audio jack is the most common size used today for modern audio devices. It looks just like the ear bud jack on your MP3 player of smart phone.  

When this type of jack is mounted to your NuTone Intercom master station, you can connect almost any type of external music source to play throughout your music intercom system.  This includes portable or table-top CD players, and almost all MP3 players including iPods and iPads.  You can also connect your smart phone to the system.

There are a few considerations to make this type of connection work correctly.  All of the modern devices I mentioned are Stereo Music Devices (they all have both right and left channel audio). Your NuTone Music Intercom System is a Mono System (the right and left channel audio are combined into one channel).

To have both channels of your stereo source play through the intercom system together, the audio jack has to be wired to mix the channels inside the jack.  There isn't any off-the-shelf kit that will have this setup, but it's easy to make from commonly available parts.

I sourced all of the parts from my local Radio Shack (every town has a Radio Shack) and the drill bit from my local Home Depot (again, everyone goes to Home Depot).

You will need two items from Radio Shack:

1)  1/8: Stereo Panel Mount Audio Jack  Model 274-249

1)  6-Ft. Shielded Cable, RCA Plug to Tinned Wires  Model 42-2371

And from Home Depot (or another hardware store):

1)  Irwin High Speed Steel Fractional Self-Starting UNIBIT  Model 10231.

To make up the Audio Jack and Cable, soldering is required.  For those of you who don't solder, ask a friend who does to help you.

The Audio Cable has two wires inside of it; the center wire is the Audio (positive) and the outer wire is the Ground (negative).

The Audio Jack has 3 connections on it (solder lugs); the 2 lugs on the back of the Jack are the Right and Left Channel (stereo) connections and the single lug at the top is the Ground (just one ground for both right and left channel is required).

(Red arrow is the Ground connection, Blue arrows are the Center wire connection, Yellow arrow is the RCS plug)

Turning the Stereo Jack into a Mono Jack is easy. Use the Center Wire in the Audio cable and solder it to the 2 lugs on the back of the jack (now right and left channels are mixed together). Then, solder the Outer wire from the cable to the single ground lug.  Your 1/8" jack is now complete and ready to be installed in the NuTone Master Station.

Now it's time to consider where on your NuTone Master Station the jack should be mounted.  I usually choose the side or the bottom of the Master Station's Faceplate to mount the jack.  

You will also need to look at the layout of the circuit boards on the back of the faceplate to find an area that has enough room to mount the jack easily.

The reason I choose to use the Irwin Unibit to drill the hole is because it will cut a very clean, round hole for the jack, it's easy to control the size of the hole and because conventional twist drill bits can grab the plastic of the faceplate and pull themselves in too fast.  This type of out-of-control drilling can cause the drill bit to hit a circuit board and RUIN IT (You have now been warned!)

Drill the hole, mount the 1/8" Audio Jack to the faceplate and plug the RCA Connector on the end of the Audio Cable into one of the Auxiliary Input connections on the back of the Intercom Master Station.

Most models have at least 2 inputs jacks to choose from. Select the AUX or TAPE jacks. Do not use the PHONO jack.

Now you are ready to listen to music from your own audio device.  Use a 1/8" to 1/8" Stereo Plug Cable (what ever length works best for your installation) to connect your music device (iPod) to the Master Station.

You might find that even with volume turned all the way up on your music device (iPod), the sound level from the Intercom System is lower than when you listen to the Radio.  This is typical for some music devices. Use the "System Volume" or "Program Volume" adjustment on your Master Station to compensate for the difference in volume.

If there is enough interest with our readers for this Audio Jack, I will consider offering it as a pre-made item for sale.

Please let me know what you think!

Use this Button to Contact Us about Ordering a Pre-Made Auxiliary Input Jack Assembly

Update on Thursday, January 2, 2014 at 9:49AM by Cindy & Christopher

I've had many people ask for a step-by-step on how to install the Audio Jack in their Intercom Master Station.  I've choosen a IM3003 for my example, the steps wil be similar for most other models.  An important consideration on where the Audio Jack is mounted is to make sure you have enough room for the Audio Jack and that you can drill the hole without drilling into a circuit board.

On a IM3003 the best place to mount the Audio Jack is the lower right-hand edge of the face plate.  There is plenty of room for the jack, the tuner circuit board is easy to move out of the way to do the work and it is a convienant location to plug an audio cable into.

The Tuner Circuit Board is held in place with a mounting bracket that is held to the back of the face plate with a single screw. (red arrow is the tuner board, blue arrow is the retaining bracket, green arrow is where the Audio jack will be mounted)

Remove the screw and slide the Tuner Board out of its retaining slots, place the Tuner Board out of the

way.

The depth of the IM3003 face plate is generious, so placing the Audio Jack is easy, just make sure you alow enough room around the jack do it will fit into the space properly.

Use a Unibit and drill the hole in the face place.

The face place on some NuTone Intercom Master Stations are thicker than others, the IM3003 has a fairly thick face plate so when the Audio Jack is placed thorugh the hole there aren't enough threads showing to screw on the locking ring.

The inside of the hole will need to be chamfered, which will allow the body of the Audio Jack to sit flush up against the inside of the plastic face plate.

Now there are plenty of threads for the locking ring.  Mount the Audio Jack to the face plate, reinstall the Tuner Board and replace its mounting bracket and screw.

Route the Audio Cable around the top of the Tuner.

Loop the audio cable through the interconnection cables of the IM3003 and plug the RCA connector into the TAPE input jack (not the PHONO jack)

I usally use a wire tie to secure the audio cable as it loops throughthe Master Station.

Update on Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 3:54PM by Cindy & Christopher

Adding An External Audio Input Jack to your NuTone Radio Intercom Master Station

Here's our newest Video:  It shows how to install a miniature Audio Input Jack on a NuTone Radio Intercom Master Station.

We now also have a "do-it-yourself" kit available.  The kit includes the pre-made Audio Jack/Cable assembly and the Stepped Drill Bit.  The Drill Bit is "loaned out" with the kit  and we include a Postage Paid Return Label so you can send the Drill Bit back to us when your done.

Please call our office to order the Kit.

925-743-8236 

Update on Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 7:22AM by Cindy & Christopher

Adding a Bluetooth Receiver to a NuTone Radio Intercom Master Station 

Now that you have added an external Audio Jack to your NuTone Intercom Master Station, you need to connect your external music source to it.

You can simply use a standard 1/8" (3.5mm) Stereo to Stereo audio cable, which plugs into the external Audio Jack and your music source. Or, you can do something that's quite a bit cooler - add a Bluetooth Receiver.

Bluetooth Receivers are vary common and easy to find - I bought the receiver I used in the Video on Amazon for about $16.00.

By using a Bluetooth Receiver, you don't have a cable hanging out of your NuTone Master Station and you don't have to worry about when to place your external audio source (CD, smart phone, iPod) all you have to do is pair your Bluetooth enabled device to the Receiver.

Here's a Video that shows how to do this after you have added the external Audio Jack to your NuTone Master Station.

Update on Friday, April 8, 2016 at 3:35PM by Cindy & Christopher

Adding an External Audio Jack on Pre 1975 NuTone Intercom Master Stations

Our Videos about adding an External Audio jack and using a BlueTooth receiver with your NuTone Radio Intercom Master Stations are very popular and I've had people contact me about how to add this feature on early NuTone Master Stations, like the 2090 / 2092, 2540 / 2541 and N2561 / N2562.

In this Video I cover the basics of how these early models already have an RCA input jack that is accessible from the outside of the Master Station and how you can reposition the RCA JAck for an internal connection.

You can contact us directly to order your External Audio Jack Assembly by calling our office 925-743-8236

 Visit our YouTube Channel Here

Update on Tuesday, November 30, 2021 at 4:00AM by Cindy & Christopher

Did we Start Something with our External Audio Jacks?

Our first post about these External Audio Jacks was way back in 2013.  Since then, there are more sellers of this specialized item and recently I had the occasion to inspect one of these "other" audio jack assemblies.

While this "other" audio jack wasn't terrible - it did have a fatal flaw that would make the sound from an external audio source sound wrong.

Watch this Video and learn what to watch out for when either buying or making your own External Audio Jack Assembly

Chris

A Really Dirty Amplifier Board from a NuTone IM3003

Here's another reason to cover and protect your Intercom Master Station during home renovation projects.

This amplifier board is from a IM3003 that was not covered during a kitchen renovation.  Drywall dust from sanding the walls got into the IM3003 and covered the amplifier board.

The drywall dust will hold moisture and become conductive, causing operational problems with the intercom system.  Also the drywall dust gets into the openings of the volume and tone controls, causing them to be intermittent and worn.  While the drywall dust can be clean away, the wear and damage can not be reversed.

After a through cleaning and rebuild, this IM3003 worked correctly again.

A Confirmed Lightening Strike on a NuTone IMA3303

We have many NuTone Intercom Master Stations that are sent to us for repair with suspected lightening damage.  Often it is really impossible to tell if the master station actually has lightening damage or if it's just a normally failed set.

Today I worked on a IMA3303 that has actual evidence that confirms a true lightening strike.

The back of the Main Circuit Board there are copper traces that have been burnt off the board and vaporized.

Inside the red box, the red arrows point to the 2 copper traces that were damaged from the high voltage of the lightening strike.

There's a lot of additional damage and the Control Circuit Board will need to be replaced, but this IMA3303 is repairable.