Turnable database with TimeLine

Every time I pass through the kitchen, I fire up the TT101 once or twice to see if it's decided to go nuts again. This morning it finally did, once, from "cold" (power off overnight). Then it worked again on re-start for the duration of my light breakfast. I think the two technicians who have worked on this thing have simply left it running for days on end in their respective shops and therefore have concluded that they cannot duplicate my problem. The failure mode occurs at start-up, or not, so once it gets up and running it does seem to be fine. Perhaps the best approach is to leave power ON at all times or at least to wait a bit before starting the motor up after having applied power. And the failure mode is the same: If the tach displays "33.34", it's going to die within seconds, no braking, tach goes blank except for the decimal point. Bill Thalmann told me that the circuit is slaved to the tach, I think. Something in the circuit does not like to see overspeed, which makes me think the issue resides in the reverse servo mechanism.

But on the other hand, as regards Power, the thing malfunctioned consistently, every time no matter what, cold or warm, within about 90 seconds after start-up, before I sent the unit out this last time. So there goes my hypothesis. Yep, Gremlins in the basement.

Lewm
Just had to take a look and see how things turned out,
I see it could have been better.

Mine has a slight squeak on start up but the display is
so far consistent.

Well, what I have is a huge improvement compared to the way the TT101 was behaving before I sent it off to New Jersey. It does work fine about 90% of the time, and if it prematurely terminates, it seems to need only a re-start to get it up and running properly again. I feel confident enough to use it now, whereas it was a complete dud before shipping back and forth to NJ. Here's to UPS; they know how to kick around a turntable so as to improve it. (The repair guy in NJ candidly admits he did nothing; it would not even malfunction for him.)

The problem has got to be some micro-fracture in the soldering, as someone else suggested. Since I have 4 other perfectly good tt's, I do have time to go in there again and just re-solder everything in sight that has not already been re-soldered.

Lew, this is the first time I ask such question: how does it sound?

_______

Hiho,
Simple answer: I have not yet listened to the TT101, ever! Mine came as part of a QL10 (TT101 + Victor laminated wood plinth + Victor 7045 tonearm). The ensemble is in "like new" condition. I expect to listen to the TT101, at first, in this context. An assessment of the QL10 plinth, at first glance, is that it is "adequate". A big weak point, IMO, is the armboard, which is laminated wood and not terribly dead. My first goal would be to replace the armboard with one made of either Alu or brass. I just looked up the cost of the brass... more than $100 for a slab that would then need to be machined. So, perhaps alu will do for now. I have a piece already suited to it.

So last night I installed the TT101 motor into the QL10 plinth. For my personal preference, I re-set the tach to read out in "Hold" mode, rather than "Run" mode. In Hold, it reads out the steady state speed. In Run, it re-zeros itself every few seconds and then runs itself up to actual speed, over and over again. Interestingly, I got it back from the last repair guy in Run mode; I had never used it in Run mode prior to now.

When re-set in Hold mode, my unit malfunctions exactly as it did when I sent it off last time: it gets up to speed and holds it for about 90 seconds. Then it starts to show a very tiny speed error, e.g., 33.32 or 33.34, instead of 33.33. That event is premonitory to total shutdown. The tach goes blank and the "off" light goes on. The platter coasts to a stop with no brake effect. I initially blamed the recurrence of the old problem to the fact that I had had to tighten the tiny screws that hold the big metal outer chassis cover onto the lower motor assembly, in order to fit the TT101 into its plinth; otherwise the screws foul the wooden rim around the opening for the TT. I had previously observed that the unit works "better" when those screws are loose. I was about to take the TT101 out of its plinth again, to remove those damned screws entirely and leave the cage loose, but I had another thought at the last moment to see how the TT would work if I re-set the tach mode to Run. Sure enough, the table has been working beautifully and consistently all day long, on either 33 or 45 setting. This is consistent with Bill Thalmann's remark that the servos are slaved to the tach read-out. Also, I note that when the TT101 is working really well, as today, the platter comes to a complete halt immediately when you press Stop. This suggests that both the forward and reverse servos are doing their jobs. (There is no mechanical brake, to those who do not own one of these beasts, unlike in the Technics and other tt's.) When it is failing, and if I depress Stop before the failure mode kicks in, the platter will drift counter-clockwise for about one revolution and THEN stop, again pointing to the reverse servo as a culprit. It's all well and good to analye the problem, but finding the glitch and fixing it is a daunting task. I will leave mine alone as long as it works in Run mode.

This must be boring as watching paint dry, to anyone who does not own a TT101. Sorry. And I guess it's OT as well, but Halcro owns a TT101, so maybe he does not mind. The moral of the story is if you own a TT101, it is best to own at least one other reliable tt.