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Mass Deck?

Vinny said:
The original felt mat on my LP12 drove me totally nuts as it almost without fail, stuck to a record due to static.
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Make sure the subchassis has a proper path to mains earth, it should on an LP12, but check with a meter. That should remove most of the issue, wet-vacuuming your records on a proper RCM and storing them in Nagaoka inners or equivalents does the rest. It really shouldn’t be an issue, though I guess some synthetic floor coverings may be responsible to a degree, i.e. the user actually charges the record before playing it via handling.
 
Back to the hyperspace....

Holy mother, loading the platter onto the base! There must be a knack between crushing fingers and smashing the bearing!!
That done, it holds 33 OK (using a strobe sheet), but on the 45rpm position it does roughly 20rpm - near enough 3 seconds per rev'.

The alignment of the motor height to the platter looks pretty much spot on (by eye), the motor assembly is sitting the approx. 10mm from the fixed rear leg (and moving it closer to compensate for the large pulley diameter in use for 45rpm achieve not much).

Suggestions? What have I missed?
 
What travails in the quest of t/t experiment, Vinny. Your graphite 'mat', like mine, should be fine as is. I've never used a mat, believing that the designer knew best and it certainly hasn't had any deleterious effect on my records. Actually, it's easy to lift off and place them with little or no slippage. An additional mat, i.m.o., could hinder this. As far as s.q. is concerned, I've never tried a proprietary mat; it would mean lifting the arm though, I guess.

Re. the speed, on 33, if your strobe disc and zapper (?) allows, measure speed with the stylus in the groove. I must admit that with my Dais, I didn't find any visible difference, presumably because of the mass. On previous decks (suspended belt-drive) there has been a minute difference.

Why on Earth your 45 rpm is less than your 33 is beyond me. Are you sure you're in the groove (!?) properly on the motor? I had the belt slip as I was changing speed once and it fell between the two grooves; that really slowed it up. Don't know if it's the same motor, though I guess it is.
 
Applying the most basic of logic, I gave the platter a bigger shove on the 45rpm setting and it took a while to settle. I then left it for 30-40 minutes and it seems at least reasonably steady judged using a strobe sheet at more then 33rpm, but lower than 45.

I have just stopped it for a few minutes and will repeat the 45rpm experiment.
 
I moved the motor assembly a little to tighten the belt and the same again on the 45 position - somewhere between 33 and 45.
Changed back to 33 position - fine at 33 by strobe.
 
Hmm. Tried yet again, giving the platter one major shove, and it has settled on 45 again.

The design relies on a barely capable motor, but it looks like it can't speed anything up very much at all. It APPEARS that it needs a shove of more than 45rpmto be able to hold that speed.
 
The belt should not be tight at all, in fact the tighter you have it the more likely the deck will slow down. Just make sure the motor height is right so the belt is running cleanly in the channel and then position the motor for the least belt tension you can achieve that doesn’t slow down. It will need a good manual shove to get to 45rpm, but once there it should hold it fine.
 
Yes, really you need to shove it slightly above 45 and then let it find it. Don’t expect that tiny little motor to do anything other than maintain speed.
 
Congrats Vinny! I am looking forward to hearing about your adventure with unipivots. I used to own a Moerch UP4 and I am sure that there is another Unipivot - this time a 12" - somewhere in my future. Also consider the Wand tonearms, Kuzma Stogi S / 12 VTA or the Pear Audio tonearms - the latter of which are very similar to the NA unipivots.
 
Rosewind said:
Congrats Vinny! I am looking forward to hearing about your adventure with unipivots
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Thank you.
Well, I have to say that I don't understand how I used an ARO for so long on an LP12, and that that was beaten by the pseudo-uni Hadcock by a very long way. But the adventure here is both the mass deck and a uni-pivot of an entirely different principle and engineering design.

I will not have, but will probably find, the time to set things up tomorrow.....................reports as and when, here. :)

The 10 inch ace space will get a Delos on it.
 
There are just a few 45 LPs and EPs here, one or two extremely good :)

I have to say that it took at least a few moments of play to fall in love with a Delos. Thanks
 
FWIW I never had the slightest issue getting my admittedly lighter Spacedeck up to 45, and Jonathan R’s Dais plays 45s fine. As I say you need to just overshoot and let the deck find the speed from there, don’t ask it to speed up. Set the motor position as close to the deck as it will happily work on 33 and that is right. As ever with NA it is a different logic, but once you get into the mindset it works great. Tom was a very clever bloke IMHO. I learned more in a hour or so chatting and listening than I do most years!
 
This thing might JUST possibly drive me nuts judging how much shove is required to get close to speed....................

Playing now for 20 minutes or so, record on the graphite, no extra mat. Reminds me of the PT1 rather than the LP12 - so totally foot-tappingly musical, but with MASSES of bass, which could probably be "fixed" to some degree on my PT1 with another arm rather than the Orion.

Something to be lived with for a while before going back to the LP12.
 
Must be something up with the bearing, I've had pretty much all the later Notts models, never had an issue at all. Just tried my 294 and gentle full turn by hand and its up to speed in 2/3 revolutions.
 
I doubt that it is the bearing - it just demands that you have to be moderately close to speed on the push.
 
That's sounds about right, they do take a good shove to get up to 45, I got used to it pretty quick but I don't really listen to too many 45's

The Dais takes a notably bigger shove.
 
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