Building an air bearing turntable

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Hi guys,

I'm going to build an air bearing spindle turntable. I looked with interest at the thread about this in 2008 and thought I would have a go. Would be very grateful for anyone with knowledge about motion control as I have not much of a clue.

Basically, there's these air bearings (just the bearing - no motor) going on ebay for $1400 or so. A compressor and filter isn't so expensive, so was thinking all need to do is get a good motor to run a mylar pulley that would couple to the air bearing. If the pulley is 100:1 then the servo motor could go at - say 3,333 RPM and the spindle with the LP on would rotate at 33.33 RPM.

But when I started reading about this, I got really confused with encoders, controllers, servo motors, linear amplifiers and so on. I'm all a bit lost and don't want to spend more than $1,000 on the motor side of thing.

Can anybody help? I think the sound could be really cool!

Thanks in advance!!

Antony
 
Antony:

Find yourself an old Maplenoll turntable, which you can use for parts. In addition to having an air bearing platter, the Maplenolls also included an air bearing tonearm. An Athena would be a great place to start.

Regards,
Scott
 
Antony, one of my friends has an air bearing spindle that he bought just for this purpose, but his ideas have moved on since and he's unlikely to use it. It'll be a damn sight less expensive than $1000.

Shall I ask him how much he'd want for it?
 
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