Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

My favourite
Post Reply
User avatar
stuart mackay
Posts: 501
Joined: 01 Mar 2018, 10:38
Location: Swaffham, Norfolk
Contact:

Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by stuart mackay »

Jonathan Turner visited yesterday clutching his newly acquired Variophon 10 from Mike K after the Ivinghoe soaring meet last weekend.

It looked like it had a fair bit of Patina shall we say ?!?, didnt take a before photo but here is the after shot following attacking the badly corroded chrome trim with white vinegar and wire wool. The case had a lot of sellotape on it so EvoStick adhesive remover and methanol were used to clean the plastic up...He now has a set that can be displayed nicely alongside his Variophon 2.

_STU3545reduced.jpg
Pchristy
Posts: 413
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 13:57
Location: South Devon, UK

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by Pchristy »

Good to see another one in circulation! I have two, now: My original (bought back in 1965) which is still working and a second (also thanks to MikeK) which has been giga-ized.

:D

--
Pete
User avatar
Mike_K
Posts: 669
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 06:35
Location: Hertfordshire

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by Mike_K »

It certainly looks better than it did last week! It was so badly corroded that I never opened it up, I suspect the internals and joystick switches will be corroded beyond use for a conversion.

Jonathan's set is the older Variophon model (not the Variophon S) and used the case from the Grundig Moto-Boy portable transistors radio, if you look closely on the front left of the case you can see a circle where the speaker was fitted in the Moto-Boy. By the later S model, the speaker aperture had gone, but it was still basically the same case. I bought a Moto-Boy from eBay.de a few years back to have the complete Grundig set and the main case is identical.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_moto_boy_203.html

I'm at a steam traction engine rally this weekend and haven't got a photo of the Moto-Boy on my phone, sorry to have to use a link
Burrell_Half_Pint.jpg
Mike
User avatar
tiptipflyer
Posts: 393
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 22:49
Location: Germany

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by tiptipflyer »

I can help out with a photo of my Moto-Boy. The Variophon 10 is a very nice radio set. I used mine (converted to 35MHz) last week to fly a Graupner FW Piaggio 149 and a Graupner Consul.
MotoBoy.JPG
Frank
User avatar
tiptipflyer
Posts: 393
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 22:49
Location: Germany

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by tiptipflyer »

Hi guys,
I was thinking about using an old Graupner Bellamatic or Servoautomatic with a modern receiver and that is what came out:
Varioton4.JPG
Varioton.JPG
In the red Varioton compartment is a modern 35MHz Yeti receiver and in the other Varioton cases (green etc.) are the drivers for the Servos.
A Bellamatic or Servoautomatic etc. can be connected with the original round connector. Even the power supply including the antenna can be connected with the round connector.
Required are 4.8V. The servos are using 2.5V, so a step down voltage regulator is added for that in each Servo-driver add-on.
The PCBs are drawn by me using Kicad and JLCPCB made the boards which look very professional.
The servo-driver consists of an Attiny85 and two relays.
Works great and looks very realistic.
I did two versions, the first will shorten the servo-motor connection when no voltage is applied. This results in a very slow movement when the Bellamatic returns to neutral.
The second version will keep the mototr connections open and the Bellamatic will return much faster to neutral (spring loaded).
I also did a PCB for one, two or three servos to just connect them to a modern receiver (2.4GHz or 35MHz) without the use of the old Varioton cases.
You can use any Reeds or even proportional transmitter to operate the unit, it just had to pair with the receiver. Of course when using a propo Tx, you still get only a reeds-like reaction of the servos.

For those of you interested in building one, here are the Kicad files:
Schaltstufe.zip
(83.19 KiB) Downloaded 57 times
SchaltstufeGerber.zip
(50.88 KiB) Downloaded 54 times
Pendler.zip
(53.85 KiB) Downloaded 53 times
PendlerGerber.zip
(27.4 KiB) Downloaded 62 times

Frank
Last edited by tiptipflyer on 12 Aug 2023, 16:55, edited 2 times in total.
Pchristy
Posts: 413
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 13:57
Location: South Devon, UK

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by Pchristy »

I love it! What a brilliant project!

It reminds me of something Mick Wilshere was thinking about before he shuffled off this mortal coil. He had quite a collection of very old - ie: valve - single channel sets - Mercury-Cossors, etc. He was proposing to hide one of my single channel 35 MHz sets inside the existing Tx and Rx cases, whilst keeping the original electronics.

He would then turn up at Old Warden with a suitable vintage model and ask if it was OK to fly it.

I would have loved to have seen the faces of the organisers when someone proposed flying what appeared to be a ground-based carrier-wave system...

:lol:

--
Pete
Martin
Posts: 744
Joined: 16 Feb 2018, 14:11
Location: Warwickshire

Re: Graupner Variophon 10 ex Mike K now with Wavemeter

Post by Martin »

Great project, Frank.
Post Reply