Ton arm lift goes to fast so the needle hits the record heavily ???????????

Hi
It sounds as if the tone arm has become unbalanced. Make sure the turntable is on a firm flat horizontal surface and at the opposite end of the arm from the needle there will be a weight and a means of altering the position of weight on the tone arm. This weight keeps the needle on the record but only lightly when positioned correctly. If positioned too far from the pivot post the needle will as you have experience skip virtually straight across the record. You need to adjust the weight so that the needle just sits in the groove and plays without being too heavy. It is best to use a record you are not too worried about for this testing as the test record can sometimes get scratched.
Hope this is helpful, if so would you please register that with Fixya
Cheers

There's too much weight on the stylus or the needle is not inserted correctly.

If you study the screws around the cradle that the tone arm sits in you will see that it is adjustable. This determines where the tone arm is when the record comes up. If the machine was always wrong like this it may have been set for 45rpm records. You need to adjust the whole tone arm post with the screw that goes up into the base of the post..

Hello Caufield,

Ideas... Yes, indeed,

But without a MAKE or MODEL they focus
a lot on ESP & other psychic capabilities...

(Mind reading: The lack thereof)... Sorry...!!

In ye olden daze...
when I was young the (stacked record CHANGERS &
simple turn table) TONE arms were largely Rube
Goldberg electro-mechanical thingy-ma-call-it...
that triggered off of the wag action of the center grooves ...
(in all 78, 45 and 33 rpm records (once upon a time)).
Rube Goldberg Wikipedia

Without BENEFIT of year, make or model... ONE
might ACTUALLY look at the mechanical MECHANISM
and SEE the broken or missing spring, link or cam...

The very first/last action of ARM CONTROL was
the lift/lay action of the tone arm..

Without that FUNCTION "working" you are just
ruining records & needles...

My best advice would be to REPOST with
a hint of the proper nomenclature... I'm pretty sure
an appropriate volunteer expert will step forward.

Try it... you will like it and it is still totally FREE

Carnac the Magnificent

It could be 3 different things. The first is check the needle make sure its not dirty. the second is make sure the weight is set correctly. And the third is did you take the tone arm off the protective part that holds the tone arm in place when moving or travelling .

There's not enough pressure to keep the stylus down in the grooves. Increase the weight (on the end of the arm).

Regarding the poor sound quality (and possibly the skipping):
check the needle condition, see if exchanging it with a needle (or the entire pickup head) from a working turntable does any good.

Check the pickup connection pins (contacts on the pickup head and on the end of the wires coming through the arm from the unit), see if there is any dirt or oxydation and clean the contacts if necessary, also check for any damage to the wires.

As for the skipping - a heavily worn needle may affect the sound quality and cause skipping as well - if cahnging the needle (or the pickup head) doesn't make a change, try to realign the weight on the tone arm so that the pickup head will become a bit heavier, this could help somewhat (before you actually try to realign the weight, try to put a small coin or a small weight of some kind on the pickup head while it is playing a record, if the skipping goes away, you need to realign the tone arm weight).

This could also be a problem with the tone arm lifting mechanism (may be obstructed by something or damaged so it won't let the tone arm sit properly onto the record and "grab" the groove).

I just mentioned a few things you might want to check, but don't take anything for granted, the problem may as well be elsewhere in the unit.

regards

Triarcuate

See what kind of arm position sensing elements are used in your turntable (micro switches, optics or possibly other) and check if they work correctly - sometimes a microswitch can be damaged or have oxydized internal contacts or a badly soldered / broken wire and it will not function properly, causing the unit to stop automatically, the same might happen if the sensor is of optical type and there is some dust or broken wires or if the emmiter or sensor is damaged. Also, it could be a problem with the part that activates the switch / optics, it might be displaced or damaged.

If all sensors / switches seem to work well, then check the section which has wires going to those sensors / switches, it's the next probable location of the fault (it might be an electronic controller so there could be damage to some components, broken wires, dirty connectors or bad solder contacts).

It could as well be something else in the mechanisms, wiring or electronics, i just suggested a few things that might cause the malfunction you described.

Hope you can get it fixed.

regards

3rq8 (Triarcuate)

I have also had this problem with the same model turntable. I opened mine up and the problem seems to have been that the grease on the arm lift and cueing lever was gumming up the linkage between the two. (I suspect that my turntable hadn't been used in some time.) I managed to free up the parts by manually working the the arm lift (pressing it down) several times. I'm not sure that I needed to open up the chasis for this fix but it did help me to see what was going on. Good luck with yours.

Tim Orange

Hi Vat,
Although I live in Canada now, I was born in the former
Czecholsovakia. While I spent a year in the Czech Republic in
2006, I was amazed how advanced their technology was, in
comparison to Canada or the US. If you want modern technology,
Prague is the place to go. Anyway ...

1) As I said before, do NOT adjust the tone-arm weight up
and down. This setting must be set to match the stylus and
the cartridge !!! The wrong setting is very bad.

To get the weight adjusted correctly, do the following.

a) Check the cartridge and stylus (needle) specifications, on
the WEB if necessary.

A typical tracking weight is between 0.9 grams to 1.5 grams,
but this very much depends on the needle geometry. To much
weight will damage the needle and the record, but

so will too little, because the needle will not stay on the
surface, skipping or mistracking on loud passages.

Note that the tracking acceleration is proportional to the
the square root of the loudness, multiplied by the frequency
squared. So if the tracking force is too low, the needle will
bounce over high frequencies and damage the record as
well as the needle's tip.

2) Once you know the correct force for your needle, adjust
the rear weight for ZERO force, such that the needle just
floats weightlessly in the air. If your turn-table has an anti-
skating adjustment, set that to zero as well.

3) At this point the tone-arm should be totally weightless,
and should neither touch the plater nor swing up/down
by itself. It should float halfway.

4) A this point, adjust the rear weight's dial (not the weight) to
read zero. Note that the dial will slide, while you hold the
weight still. You have now calibrated the tone-arm's zero
point.

5) Now, adjust the weight (with the dial) to read the desired
tracking force, for example 1.25 grams.

6) Now adjust the anti-skating dial to the same number as
the rear weight. This setting compensates for the radial
(towards the center) component of the friction vector,
caused by the needle riding on the record groove, at some
specific (average) tone-arm angle.

7) Your tone arm is now balanced, and you should not
touch it after this, accept for minor adjustments.

For brand new records, you may lighten the tone-arm
by 10%. For old records, you can make it a little heavier.
Similarly, you can adjust the anti-skating to prevent a
record from skipping, but a bad record should be played
only once (and stored on your computer).

8) For some tone-arms and cartridges, the cartridge pitch
(up/down angle) is also adjustable. This requires a special
jig or gauge, supplied by the cartridge manufacturer.

The pitch can be adjusted either by the use of screws or
wedges, and by lowering / raising the rear gimble. On my
Technics SL 1200, the gimble elevation is adjustable with
a large ring, and my SURE V15 cartridge came with a guage
for adjusting it correctly.

9) It may also be possible to adjust the cartridge's yaw and
radius, but all of these adjustments should only be done
using the correct gauges and by strictly following the
cartridge installation manual.

10) NONE of these adjustments should effect the tone-arm
cueing or return process. There should be plenty of
clearence if the cueing mechanism is working properly,
except, perhaps, for the gimble elevation, if the cartridge
is unusually tall.

11) Is the cuing mechanism (i.e. the tone-arm lifter)
mechanical or hydraulic ?

Is it the lift consistent or does the tone-arm drop down
with time?

Does the tone-arm move parallel to the plater, or does the
stylus height change with tone-arm position (yaw)

You are looking for a mechanical defect in the cuing
mechanism.

12) How much over all lift do you get between the down position
and the up position? This should be at least 8 to 15mm

If the cuing mechanism is worn out, it may not move enough.

If it starts too low, it may move enough but not raise the
needle enough to clear the record.

If the cartridge is tracking too low, you may have to
remove some wedges or spacers between the cartridge
and the head, or lift the rear gimble if it is adjustable, or
get a different tone-arm head, that matches the cartridge
profile.

Finally as silly as this sounds, make sure that the
platter is fully dropped and properly engaged. If the
plater is too high, for what ever reason, this would also
cause the needle to drag.

Also make sure that the rubber mat on the plater is the
right one and that it is not too thick.

Martin


installation manual.