scrapyard turntable

[deduikertjes]

Well, finally here it is, my first diy scrapyard turntable.

As I was very happy having a few thorens parts doing nothing in my scrapyard I started building an new turntable using these. So the turntable can also be regarded as an extreme make over or a drastic tweak .

Attached an overview image.

More in the next post.

MArco

[deduikertjes]

HEre a photograph of the arm part of the turntable (yes, I know, I'm a lousy photographer).

The arm I regard as having build myself (otherwise it should be considered as a major tweak of a badminton racket). It's a full carbon arm with an aluminium head shell and a brass counterweight. Of course I used an unipivot. The VTA is adjustable in a wide margin (about 5 cm).

Marco

[deduikertjes]

A little on the details of this turntable.

The plinth is solid concrete in which a part of the sub chassis of a Thorens TD160 is embedded. This basically gave me a standard Thorens bearing in a concrete plinth. The sub chassis gave me a means of having it exactly vertical (as I assumed that the bearing is mounted axactly right in the sub chassis metal).

In this bearing a standard Thorens sub platter. I actually used a fibre one. I didn't need the mass of a metal one, and I believe the damping of the fibre one is better. On this I stacked two Thorens outer platters. I made the spindle longer.

I plan to fill the top platter with either concrete or Acryllic resin. I get worried a bit about the weight. How much platter weight can a Thorens bearing support before wear gets excessive? And when it does would a small Teflon plate on the bottom of the bearing help?

The motor is again a standard Thorens TD160 (synchronous AC) motor, but driven by my own power supply (wien bridge oscillator, power op-amp, step up transformer).

greatings, MArco

[planet10]

That is cool Marco. I'm about to work towards something similar using bits of a Linn LP12 i have.

Can you tell us more about the power supply. (i have a 50 Hz motoe and the power here is 60 Hz)

dave

[deduikertjes]

The arm I've made from a badminton racket. Actually these are well suited for the job (at least the one I used). The shaft is hollow and made from carbon. But the part where the counterweight is mounted is solid (that's the part here the racket handle was mounted on).

I left a small part of the blade on the shaft, so I could fix a flat piece of aluminium as a head shell (see image). The nice thing is that there is a little bit of metal at the end of the shaft so I could use a little bolt to fix the aluminium to the arm.

I created enough degrees of freedom in the cartridge/ arm/ head shell mounting that I can have the cartridge properly aligned AND the needle exactly under the middle line of the arm (actually the line around which the mass evenly distributed in that plane). I think that's vital to keep an unipivot arm from wobbling in around it's length axis. In this way I could avoid dampening this movement.

The counterweight is made of brass strip and is clamped on the arm. Heat shrink tubing is in between. The counterweight has a few screws for azimuth adjustment and tracking force adjustment. The thread for the anti skating is also attached here.

The point of the unipivot is a dart, which I've mounted in a piece of water pipe by means of molten lead and tin. I've inserted a little tube as well trough which the arm cable runs (made from a dead mouse).

The water pipe is mounted with a standard clamping water pipe support. (excuses for my horrible English here). I hope you understand.

The arm lift is again made from a Thorens part. A bicycle brake pad supports the arm. A bicycle seat post handle is the lever for operating the lift.

Well, that's about it.

As the whole concoction operates flawlessly it's time to mount a decent cartridge. First I have to make a phonoclone for that.

greetz, MArco

[deduikertjes]

Can you tell us more about the power supply. (i have a 50 Hz motoe and the power here is 60 Hz)

For details on the power supply see this: New power supply

succes, MArco

[d to the g]

Originally posted by planet10
That is cool Marco. I'm about to work towards something similar using bits of a Linn LP12 i have.

Can you tell us more about the power supply. (i have a 50 Hz motoe and the power here is 60 Hz)

dave

If the motor is a 2 way, you could drive it with a signal from a cd player, a la altmann.

[planet10]

Originally posted by shallbehealed
If the motor is a 2 way, you could drive it with a signal from a cd player, a la altmann.

It is a spare Linn 50 Hz 24 pole syncronous motor.

dave

[planet10]

Originally posted by deduikertjes
For details on the power supply see this

Thanx.

[Nanook]

just get SCD or Chris to turn you a new pulley for the motor. Then you could make whatever changes to the Linn supply and still allow for future upgrades

Speaking of SCD, I finally drilled out the centre of the record clamp he gave me, not sure of the effect of the record clamp, although it definitely doesn't ring like my stock Oracle one.

If you want to regen a power supply, try playing around with oscillating crystals...and then amplifying the output. Or go DC and use a battery