My Maggie

[livemusic]

Meet my Maggie - the last incarnation of my homebrewed TT, based on magnet repulsion.
The platter is a massive sandwitch made of hardwood, bronze, sorbotane and aluminum stuffed with leadshot. Only 3 kg out of total 33 is taken by vertical bearing (ceramic ball running on HSS instrumantal steel thrust plate); the rest is supported by a couple of neodimium magnet rings. The lateral bearing (journal) comprises of bronze-steel matched pair, lubricated with Van den Hul TT oil. It's a wonderfull stuff: very low viscosity combined with high resistance against breaking of lubrication film, which gives me the lowest possible viscous friction for substantional total bearing surface area.
The base is made of aluminum and birch plywood, also stuffed with leadshot. The legs are solid bronze cylinders resting on ceramic balls. Two arms are mounted: dedicated mono and ladegaard clone, which was shown on this forum earlier.
The Teres motor/controlled is incased into plywood/lead housing, adding mass and allowing precise levelling. VHS tape is used for belt.
All this stuff is resting on the sandbox, made of birch plywood with the marble upper plate. The sandbox is supported in turn by another three pairs of neodimium super-magnets, bearing the total mass of about 70 kg.
My greatest fear was if a magnetic field can affect delicate MC carts. Good news: no influence whatsoever, if the magnets are kept far enough from cart, under thick platter.
I live for a week with my new TT and I feel much closer to analog heaven.

[livemusic]

Some pictures:

[livemusic]

Just in case somebody wants to see other pictures:

[FastEddy]

Fantastic!! ... I especially like the generous use of wood structural parts.

Nice looking as well as obvious attention to engineering detail.

Curious: what do you sit the TT on?? (I saw a high end TT sitting on a marble slab ... on top of a water filled wheel barrow inner tube ... on top of a marble pedistal .. and that sure took care of any passing truck traffic as far as rumble, etc.)

[valveitude]

What FastEddy said

Couple of Q's for you. First how does this compare with your earlier glass topped constrained layer effort? I meant to ask about the mag repulsion when you posted the draft of your stand base in another thread. After reading the write up on the Continuim table, I thought this approach was pretty slick. Are you using n40 or n50 mags? What is the surface area of the mags vs. weight? I assume you are using "donut" mags for the stand and platter, is this correct?

Thanx,
Casey

[livemusic]

what do you sit the TT on??

Magnetically suspended sandbox is sitting on the custom build stand (nothing special really, but I don't care - I have sufficient isolation from outside world).
You can see it here more clearly:
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0196kd1.jpg
Some more pictures for those who cares:
http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0216hh2.jpg
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0194ph8.jpg
http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0149ee5.jpg
http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0215ov5.jpg

[livemusic]

Are you using n40 or n50 mags? What is the surface area of the mags vs. weight?

Base support magnets are 3 pairs of 2"OD x 1"ID x 1/4" thick N48 neodimium donuts - the strongest I could get on e-bay.
The total supported weight is about 70 kg.
Another pair of N48 3"X1.65"X0.5" supports 33 ks platter.

[FastEddy]

magnificent ,,, truely ...

[cubastreet]

That's ridiculous, but I love overkill!
the magnetic suspension is a nice idea, provided you get a nice even flux around the rings.

[marekst]

I love it when people aim high! Very inspiring. Made me think about my next project... I can’t see the belt. On which part of the platter do you run it? I am asking because I had a problem with the static build up running Teres belt on non conductive surface.
Congratulations!!!
Marek