I have a TT again

[raindog]

Since my old TT ( Technics SL-QL5) died a couple of years ago I was unable to listen to my LP's .
Fortunately a month or so ago a friend of mine gave me a Sony PS-LX10 ( i know it's not the best TT but i cant afford to buy a good one and i don't have access to equipment to build one ) , unfortunately it was missing a couple of bits : the stylus , the rubber mat , the cover and worst of all , after searching the internet i found out that it was part of a complete system and supposedly it only worked when attached to the ,,mother" system( explaining the lack of a power cord, power switch or even audio outputs ).
I didn't let that get in my way and after studying the TT i dicovered it has a complete power stage ( rectifier, filter caps, regulators) but no transformer and the wires from the cartridge where soldered to a separate piece of PCB i started looking at the service manuals of the PS-LX series ( witch seem to be very similar to each other regarding the design ) and went to work. I also have a cheap imitation of a TT made by Schneider ( SBD 55 ) witch i didn't use because it was a horrible piece of junk made entirely from plastic but who had a very good rubber mat ( and fitted exactly over the Sony platter ) , a cover ( not perfect but i will do for now ) a strangely enough the stylus of the Schneider fitted almost perfectly on the Sony cartridge . Next I attached a 2x10 V transformer and a my old preamp, plugged everything in and to my surprise the TT worked and it even sounded ok. Now I've took everything apart because it needed cleaning up and i want to oil the moving parts.
The TT looks pretty well build , the vertical shaft of the arm is on ball bearings and the horizontal joint is also on ball bearings. The platter is aluminum but it's pretty light , the thing that surprised me was the size of the motor ( huge! ).
Any suggestions to improve my new ,,toy" are welcome!

[raindog]

You can see the size of the motor

[raindog]

platter, mat and arm

[raindog]

An empty shell of it's former self

[Nanook]

Normally I'd say junk it, but perhaps due to your location , I won't, particularly if you've all the bits to put it together. I may even have one of those kicking around the house too.

someplace (maybe here at diyAudio , some one had modified an old Sony plastic table.

The worst thing going for that Sony (I think) is the plastic plinth. If you could mount all the bits on a piece of Baltic Birch plywood, or similar, then at least you would have a base to begin fininshing the turntable. One way may be to carefully cut the top of the turntable plinth and then build some panels for the sides...

[raindog]

Thanks for the suggestions Nanook, I was thinking about replacing the plinth since I've got the TT ( I even have a large piece of plywood ), the difficult part is fitting the arm ( and all the mechanics attached to it ). In defense of my ,,location" I actually found a lot of second-hand TT's ( Technics, Kenwood, Akai, Uher, Telefunken and even Thorens ), but the ones at a reasonable price were usually abused by teenagers trying to be DJs and I didn't want to spend my money on something I probably couldn't repair.

All the best,

Paul

[Nanook]

I guess I must have misinterpreted you, regarding reasonable price

i know it's not the best TT but i cant afford to buy a good one and i don't have access to equipment to build one

you can always convert it to a manual table...

also, if I can make a tonearm, so can you...Nanook's $2.19 diy tonearm , so that would take care of the tonearm situation

[raindog]

nanook
I actually like the ,,automatic" feature of my TT ( I've seen people complaining about misalignments in the movement of the arm -mine had the same problem when I got it but it was very easy to fix , the mechanics controlling the arm allow for adjustments).
I love your idea of using a chopping block for the plinth and I will give it a try ( I remember seeing some large ones in a supermarket ).
I'm not so sure about the unipivot arm but I think i will fiddle with the original one .

[Dr. Anton Fnatt]

This was strange. I got an Sony PS-LX10 25.08.2007 in search for a TT to play over my vinyl collection to harddisk, searched the WEB and found this fresh posts on the same TT the day after. Life is good! Maybe you can give me a hint of the pinouts of the 2 connectors on the backside of Sony PS-LX10?

[raindog]

Dr. Fnatt

As far as I was able to find out searching the web the connectors you inquire about are meant to link the TT to the system it was part of ( so they are in fact proprietary Sony connectors ). I've got my TT without a transformer to power it but I presume it was removed because it had three wires just hanging around linked on the main PCB to a bridge rectifier so i attached ( after looking at similar TT schematics ) a 2x10 V 10Watt transformer to the wires ( white connected to the center tap ) and the TT came to life. The TT doesn't contain a preamp but the cartridge is connected to the small PCB covered by a metal shield ( you can put RCA connectors in the back like I did ). Returning to the connectors you asked about they seem to allow the ,,mother" system to control the TT ( remote control, synchronized recording to a compact cassette etc. ). If you have more questions I will be happy to answer ( if I can )

Best regards

Paul