Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Best groove, I did not realize you live in Italy. (Lucky for you, by the way.) I don’t know about cost of round-trip shipping to JP in New York City, but I do know that his repair work is very reasonable in cost, surprisingly so in relation to his skill set. The TT101 circuit is very complex, given the "bi-directional servo" system, so I wish you best of luck in figuring out the cause of your problem. You might benefit from talking to JP, even if you feel you cannot afford to ship the TT101 for repair. There are several chips in there, but one and only one of them is the main controller. Of two "broken" units that I know about, including mine, neither of them needed a new chip, fortunately. But I may be able to help you out if it turns out you do need a new controller chip.

Definitely you should start out by replacing all the electrolytic capacitors, unless you know for sure that this has been done recently.  The lifespan of an electrolytic is typically less than 30 years, and shorter still if the unit has been sitting for many years without power.

Best Groove,

Lewm has stock of one of the unobtanium IC, I have of the other, so should you need one I can help too.

Best of Luck


Peter

I've given two TT101 chips away at this point, so I am not sure it's fair to say I have a "stock" of them, but I do think I have a few more, in one of those drawers where you put things you don't want to lose and then forget where the drawer is.  I would always want to keep at least one spare for myself.

@lewm 
@pbnaudio 

Many many thanks for your precious help..... I will keep in mind if insurmountable problems arise when I begin work.

Surely the turntable will need a complete recap first of all because the capacitors are all original (many failures happen because of the skills out of tolerance) and later I will be able to discover the remaining faults.

I hope everything is resolved without major problems (I'm optimistic) luckily in the world there are good technicians very competent for repairs and to give some advice on this turntable; In the states there is Mr.JP in Italy someone might find, in UK I found there is a good laboratory with plenty of experience on the JVC turntable also for our TT-101 (I need to find the address).

This does not rule out that if I need an unsolvable failure I will ask all these competent people to understand and solve the problem.

I hope so much is not broken some IC unproblematic but I understand that Lewm has some spare for sale.

My English is bad and writing is not perfect, so you can understand that I'm a stranger. :)

Best-groove, No, Lewm does not have some spare for sale.  I cannot supply all TT101 owners, but I may be able to spare one for you for no cost if you really need it.  Assuming I have at least two left in my stash.