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Zeta tonearm rebuild.

Well, despite not working as a mechanic now,
I did a 3 1/2 years apprenticeship to become a fine-mechanic (at some time in the stone-age..)
with the sole purpose to have the double zero status for buying a Mission Mechanic some day.

But !

I know someone who owns a Mechanic.
Which is in a certain way the analogy to having seen the burning thornbush live, in today's terms.. :)

All I can say is, probably the most UNLIKELY place for a Mission Mechanic to be,
was in Mark's house at some point in the recent past.. :D
 
Jamie, I just remember...

People formerly used tiny snippets of cigarette paper
to test the vertical fine movement of their tonearm
during or after a renovation or re-calibration process.

The cigarette paper...buy as thin as you can get your hands on..
is considerably thinner than normal paper
and will give you a much finer 'evaluation-stepping'
to see or compare if you have a progress made in sensibility or not.

Once you have the cigarette paper in hand, you'll know to which kind of 'fine-movement' the journey is going..

Personally I would choose multiples of regular math-block (sized) square snippets for comparison.

Common wisdom is...rather a tiny bit looser is much preferred to too tight, so..keep that in mind.

Good luck ! :)
 
another update......
after concerned comments about using Vaseline i decided to strip the arm down again to check,yes i know im a glutton for punishment!
and what did i find in the bearings caps? yep traces of Vaseline! and thats after numerous heavy spraying with wd40 followed by ipa :mental:
so as the arm is in bits again i thought id try 5 bearings and see if that improves things,it would seem the only difference is the bearing size and not the cups as i thought earlier,an email from moth marketing confirmed this.

ive also learnt that having a small gap left over in the cup when the bearings are fitted is no bad thing,in fact its better than having them touching for obvious reasons,the general web view is half the bearings diameter is acceptable. so ive ordered some 1.5mm and 1.59mm bearings.

so watch this space chaps :)
 
Jamie you did a top job in the first place,
it is entirely new territory, so who is getting through such with a tripple 9 in the first run..?
Even I was not sure and had to look up the ingredients of WD40 and so on...it's a wide field
with a lot of specific topics combined...chemistry, physics,,,but..it's absolutely interesting.. :)
I'm not sure how many would take apart an arm on their own, re-asseble it and have it working fine..?
A bit of vaseline left inside or not...I did not take apart any arm yet,
I sent it away to have it done, so this alone deserves respect ! :)

I'm watching for sure, I booked the topic.. :)
 
And I think Simon was right..it may be time is up for a white-coat lesson in the lab.
You could try to put little drops of vaseline into a few cups & fill them with
a) Isoprop B) white Spirit C) Brake Cleaner D) you could try Diesel,,,may use for washing motor parts
...anyways..a few different liquids,,,you could try how they cope with cleaning up vaseline
in a test-cup instead of in your bearing ?

Second thing that came to my mind is, not only the chemical substance is interesting for getting the vaseline removed,
but also the pressure the substance is pushed through the bearing with..

For motor cleaner and brake cleaner, there is pump-cans in the automotive shops.
You can fill them with some liquid, say motor cleaner, pump the whole can up to higher pressure
and then you spray just pushing a trigger.

My thought was, if you'd fit some small hose to the exit-nose of such device,
and have the hose held tightly to the entrance hole of your bearing,
it will spray the chemial you choose with a much higher pressure
than previously, thus solving-and-pushing-out the vaseline the same.

Might be quite effective I imagine,,,the more once you found which of the above substances does the best job solving vaseline..
 
good idea but the trouble is the hole in the cup for squirting through is right in the center so any vaseline around the edges gets missed.i think it may be better to rely on dissolving rather than blasting out.
im thinking a long the lines of a soft shoe polish/wax that would easily dissolve in white spirit which in turn can bet removed with ipa and then finally compressed air.
i shall experiment first though as you suggested.
 
mmmh, honestly from my experince with cars, wax will rather be harder to remove.. ?
Try the lab session with vaseline first, if any chemical dissolves the vaseline entirely,
we are riding a dead horse here anyway.. :)
No need to further break your head about it then, I mean..
 
A question please..
You re-wired your Zeta straight @ arrival..?
Did you try using it with the old inner cable and a´cartridge tags in ?
My issue is, the cart tags on my Zeta are so fine (small), there is no chance I get them pushed onto any cartridge I own,,
not the Troika DG I had changed from tags to pins to suit my 'one piece from cart-to-outer-cable' wire, not on my Zyx Yatra, and even not on the Adikt I tried.. :/
Has there been any cartridges with smaller connectors in the 70s and early 80s, or are the tags on my Zeta simply so abused..?
(They do look like the tags have been removed from the cart with some water-pump-pliers..)

I know that a finer cable doesn't always mean it's not of good quality, so I have no definite judgement over the quality of this inner cable in the Zeta..
Just when I got closer to the arm while test-fitting it to my LP12,,my nose said this cable smells as if substancial gains could be had by swapping it out for some reasonable Cardas 99% pure copper job..?

And last question..to Jamie..how do you fit in pictures here,,,I have made some with my digi-cam, not sure how to upload them or which hosting site to use...or howeveryou do that..?
Thanks :)
 
torstoi said:
A question please..
You re-wired your Zeta straight @ arrival..?
Did you try using it with the old inner cable and a´cartridge tags in ?
My issue is, the cart tags on my Zeta are so fine (small), there is no chance I get them pushed onto any cartridge I own,,
not the Troika DG I had changed from tags to pins to suit my 'one piece from cart-to-outer-cable' wire, not on my Zyx Yatra, and even not on the Adikt I tried.. :/
Has there been any cartridges with smaller connectors in the 70s and early 80s, or are the tags on my Zeta simply so abused..?
(They do look like the tags have been removed from the cart with some water-pump-pliers..)

I know that a finer cable doesn't always mean it's not of good quality, so I have no definite judgement over the quality of this inner cable in the Zeta..
Just when I got closer to the arm while test-fitting it to my LP12,,my nose said this cable smells as if substancial gains could be had by swapping it out for some reasonable Cardas 99% pure copper job..?

And last question..to Jamie..how do you fit in pictures here,,,I have made some with my digi-cam, not sure how to upload them or which hosting site to use...or howeveryou do that..?
Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Hi,pretty much yes,it was re-wired by j7 ,the old wire wasn't original and it hummed alot in my system,the only thing ive kept were the rca plugs from it.
for posting pictures here i use a free hosting site, https://postimages.org/
after you upload a photo you just copy the direct link and then come back to this site, click on the photo icon at the top of you new post and enter it, its very easy.

my zeta by the way was re-wired in cardas 33,its very good,also regarding the 3 or 5 bearings,they must have changed the cup and cone size when they went to 5 as ive tried 1.5mm,1.59 and 2mm and they all leave to bigger space in the center for the cone to sit,it bottoms out so its a no go. i will have to stick with 3,
 
ok, I got it,,the Troika is on...nothing a chisel and a 500 gr hammer couldn't solve.
not.
I found a tiny nail and carefully pushed it into those bent tags with a flat-nose pliers,
required quite a bit of more ellbow.grease than I initially felt comfortable spending in that particular spot,
but I put the needle rollcage on and gave it a go.
Went onto the Troika's pins after that nicely & the whole arrangement is jogging warm @ 33,3 till tomorrow.
Other measures included I've oiled the motor bearings a tiny bit, fitted some new style longer sorbothane rubber grommets to the subchassis that are said to aid the springs into focussing on merely vertical moves and skip on doing sideways moves for the most part,
put an isolating cork piece from Audio Innovations between motor and top plate, John gave me...erhhh...10 yrs ago when I got the first edition Sole Subchassis..tapping the topplate my impression is the cork dampens it a bit,,,the knocks sound deader than before,
I think motor vibes transferred to the topplate is less ..or more silent now, too.
Isopropped the belt and the inner platter, set up the suspension with my favourite miniature Bosch battery screwdriver,
fairly slow, forward-backward can be handled blind just watching the upper side, tapping, levelling...watching swing..and re-adjust..
Completely off-topic, BUT..I neither did anything at the ZETA noor the cart with the accu device..
...up to now, that is.. :D
 
thx mate,,,I think it doesn't matter THAT much if it's 3 or 5 balls as long as the existing ones are in good shape,
and, more than that, adjusted well.
I haven't heard a tone, yet,,,have been over the raw setup from yesterday night up to now,
will have to put on my LP12 wallshelf up, so I have access from below as it's a frame design,
the one on now which curently the DPS is sitting on, is a table design.
Will have to do proper setup for geometrie with the feickert,
give it some suitable tracking force, run some tones for skating,,,and then we'll see which colour is trump today..
If the Zeta does about as good as it looks, it'll be a long night.
It seems near explosion from sheer self-confidence.

ok, I'll try copperfielding some picture into here now..
 
sorry guys, either I am too stupid or simply not allowed to post pics here..I have no idea.
I ended up wit a picture link, size adequate for websites etc,,,first said 'IMAGE' in the post preview...looked good
in the actual post then, the image was signed with a red cross, indicating it is broke, does not work,,no idea what now.. :/
 
I'll try it the old fashioned way now, a bit annoying bc you have to click every link, watch the pic, close again etc,
but anyway,,,here we go..

1. Pic of LP12 buildup inside, new grommet base (no ZETA picture) :

http://prntscr.com/jdgzlb

2. Pic of LP12 inside, sorbothane grommets, Sole subchassis (still no ZETA pic) :

http://prntscr.com/jdh20t

3. Sole subchassis in detail with new sorbothane grommets (no ZETA):

http://prntscr.com/jdh2nf

4. Holy mess, 2 plastic car garages from ATU forming an inspection table to work on the underside of the LP12, ZETA in picture now 1st time
Old rubber grommets visable lower left side of the platter:

http://prntscr.com/jdh3gx

5. And here is one for Tony,,,first song is Kind of Blue:

http://prntscr.com/jdh4me

6. More KOB, sideways:

http://prntscr.com/jdh5jm

7. Still KOB, still from the right, closer & Kind of Sharp this time..

http://prntscr.com/jdh5ux

8. Pics from under the hood ( NO ZETA) :

http://prntscr.com/jdhafg

9. Orchid:

http://prntscr.com/jdhbq6

10. Final closeup of deck Zeta:

http://prntscr.com/jdhcfm

That's it folks, sorry it took so long.

I made a mistake giving the ZETA a quick-and-dirty for-now setup, and was nailed to the sofa for nearly 2 days now.
Asked two days ago, I would have told you CD is good enough anyway.
Ok, the Karik/ Numerik IS doing fine in fact, but the DPS was simply not cutting it.
The LP12 is clearly MUCH ahead of CD replay now,,,LPs just nail you into the sofa,
no f*ckin chance to get out..
thus you have buiz in the kitchen or house to do: use the CD instead.. :)
Cheers!
PS: I LOVE the Zeta ! think it beats the Ekos I by a big margin, with Ekos II distance will be shorter, but...I tend to think the Zeta will beat that one, too.
Does lovely with the Troika btw, curious how it will do with the Yatra, but there is a BIG issue to solve before I'll have the pleasure coming to that one..
This journey started out somewhere in 2008, so should be clear now we're not on a short-distance race here..
Tip: Don't swap out you decks every 5 minutes, and you MIGHT come out somewhere great at some point..with a bit of patience..
So far for now,,I'm back to blue..
 
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