ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Quelle Simonetta record player

Classicsat said:



A couple of drops of oil could clear that up. Old grease tends to gunk up on these machines. Only solution is to clean thoroughly (WD-40 breaks up old grease) and re-lube with a good quality grease.



Called an idler wheel. Common with record players in those days...especially record changers. Nowadays they're all either belt-drive or direct drive.


Replace the selenium rectifier. Those things don't age well and eventually they fail, releasing a real nasty smell in addition to ruining the amp. A silicone diode (400 PIV) is a good substitute.

Ditto, wax-paper covered foil and electrolytic capacitors should be replaced.

If you're familair with Use-Net, visit rec.antiques.radio+phono where radio & recordplayer collectors hang out. They might be able to help you out more.

Hehe... about half a year we learnt how to calculate the capacity of such a beast by the size of the foil and the dielectric constant of the paper
Seems like they're still used in textbooks...

BTW Sven, I sent you an e-mail regarding the radio.

Idler drive was pretty much universal for the lower-end decks then, and still used in many high-quality transcription turntables of the time (e.g. Garrard 301/401).

The most usual arrangement was for a horizontal idler wheel (i.e. vertical axis of rotation) and a stepped motor pulley, the idler being moved up and down to select the speed, but a horizontal motor shaft and vertical idler were used in some models. Several Goldring-Lenco decks used the latter arrangement, with a conical motor shaft to provide fully variable speeds.

I've seen the tapped motor winding to provide filament power on a few models, but the majority of the British players used a transformer anyway and ran the filaments from a separate 6.3V secondary winding.

The most common single-tube design of the era used an EL84, which in combination with the high output of a crystal cartridge provided adequate gain. Selenium rectifiers were found sometimes, or the ubiquitous EZ80 rectifier tube.

Those wax-paper capacitors tend to get leaky after 40 years or more, and in designs where they're used to couple from one stage to the next, the result is a positive bias on the grid and distortion. In severe cases it can result in over-dissipation of the tube.




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-29-2004).]

Texas-Ranger said:


Damn. I just ran through my email box killing the spam and realized after it was too late that I had deleted your email right along with everything else.

can you resend when you get a chance? thanks

The rubber wheel actually turned the record directly.
Most of the record players from the later 1950s into the 1980s were changer types that hade a horizontal idler, that mated between the turntable and the motor shaft, usually stepped.

The past 20 years or more though used speed regulated DC motors, which electrically changed speeds.

I've never seen a deck where the idler actually contacts and turns the record directly. Presumably there is only a very small turntable around the central bearing, perhaps just a little larger than the label?

Servo-controlled DC motors with direct drive have taken the place of a heavy flywheel-like turntable as you say. But to be honest, I'm not at all impressed with the turntables which have appeared in the modern units in recent years. With renewed interest in records I've noticed several manufacturers included a turntable in their mini-stack systems, but the deck is just a flimsy, cheap plastic joke.

Just found this old thread again.
I have a small Japanese portable record player (there should be pictures somewhere on the board) that also has the direct idler wheel to disc drive.
Still haven't gotten to fix the Simonetta beast... just stored it away.

Damn that beast stinks! Like deteriorated plastic or something. Just took it out of the closet after probably a ear of storage.

Obviously the fuse wasn't the only faulty part. New fuse - nothing. Next thing I'm gonna check is the connections at the mains connector, feels pretty loose.

Might as well be more shot, it still has a selene rectifier! Sadly I don't have any meters right now, my DMM is shot. Somewhat limits my possibilities of fault-finding.