Technics SP-10 TT motor capacitors?

Strathorncat, Sounds like you know how to read a schematic and have an SP10 service manual. You will therefore know or be able to see that the external PS is far from "state of the art", even for 1980. I think this means that Technics built it as good as it had to be for the job it has to do: supply 5V and 32.5V regulated voltages and unregulated 140V to the main circuits built into the chassis. If one were really a zealot, one could build a "better" outboard supply, with better more modern regulators, a reguated 140V supply, etc. I doubt it would make much difference. Still...... I think about it once in a while. This falls far short of externalizing all the in-board circuitry as well, which I would be very reluctant to do.

Sure. I can see some value in that. But, that's a ways down the road for me. I just fell into my sp-10 and got an extra power supply off ebay and recapped both, so I hope to not have to worry about DC voltages for a while. I did notice that it was nothing special. I figure I'll get the deck ready to spin and start playing with plinth's, arms and cartridges. I'm "turnin' knobs" in the rest of my system, as well. Got lot's of low hanging fruit to benefit from.

I do wonder about one thing, however. Currently, I have a Grace 840F tonearm with a Grado Ref. Sonata and I get a bit of "the" hum. I'm wondering if there might be an easy way to shield/ground the motor/platter better within the deck. I've read that it's most likely due to the cartridge, but just thinking, since I'm about to crack it open anyway...

Thanks

Dear Lew: I think I understand what you posted about and that kind of prevention is that: a prevention, I?m not against it.

What I say is that I don't know/read/experiences anywhere on that kind of failure in a SP-10, but could happen.

Anyway, the whole subject is that we have to take care on our Sp-10s, no doubt about.

My question still is the same: any improvement?

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul, Sorry for the tone of my post, if it was too intense. In response to your latest, I can only say that there definitely ARE reports on the internet, on various other sites, of SP10s that won't hold speed, that have lost torque, that are plain "dead", etc. It is not unlikely that many of these problems were caused by old electrolytic capacitors that had become leaky and then destroyed downstream transistors or ICs. As Strathorncat said, I don't expect any "improvement" over the basic as-new performance of a fully functional SP10 Mk2A.

Stay tuned for the battery-supplied SP10, however. (Not hard to do for the 5V supply.) That would be cool.

Some references on questions ask here:

Raul, I've wondered too about the potential for "improved" performance with tt parts replacement versus piece of mind from eliminating old parts. Albert Porter who is well known on A'gon for his rebuild of his SP-10 Mk2, chose to upgrade caps in the power supply but left his motor unit alone. And while this is not the same for a turntable where the parts are out of the signal path, my friend Dan Banquer posted this description of sonic benefits from parts replacements in a tuner.

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/do-it-yourself-diy-topics/revamping-a-vintage-yamaha-t-80-tuner

Now for Lewm, Strathorncat, and Raul, there is a chap in England who developed a replacement power supply/regulator unit for the SP-10s. Check his site (I'm not a customer and have only read his posts on VinylEngine).

http://www.sp-10mkii.com/

And lastly, for Raul and others with interest of moving all electronics away from the motor unit itself, here is a little info on such a project. Sorry that the translation to English is very rough. Such a project is way beyond my basic soldering skills but one can dream.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://homepage2.nifty.com/~mhitaste/audiotop/audio_apparatus_page/sp-10mk2.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhomepage2.nifty%2B%2522Technics%2Bsp-10mk2%2522%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DbW5%26sa%3DG

And the famous Kaneta modification -

http://de.geocities.com/bc1a69/kaneta_eng.html

Happy reading and keep the information flow coming.