Accidentally left my belt-drive TT running

Hey all. I was wondering how much damage, if any, I've done to my belt drive turntable by leaving it spinning all night. Thank goodness the tonearm was lifted during this stretch!

Heres what happened, I JUST got the turntable brand-new yesterday, and after an evening of playing vinyl, I lifted the tonearm and put the LP away. Only I forgot to switch off the motor, since this is a manual TT.

Have I done any damage? Up to this point, all my tables were direct drive so I'm not really sure...

 

You haven't done any damage. All you did was play records for 8 straight hours. (You just didn't actually listen to the music while it was happening.) If you can damage a TT with eight hours of use, then you should get a different TT.

No worries.

 

I leave my turntable running all day. Sometimes I turn it off at night. Sometimes I don't.

 

Thanks, was just concerned. I'm learning.

Awesome Zevon pic, BTW.

 

Rest easy.

Even if tonearm left on record with needle in runout groove, no damage would be done. You would have just helped to break in cartridge suspension.

 

I accidentally do this for maybe an hour at a time, but usually with the needle in the runout groove. It happens when I am recording an LP to the computer and I get caught up in doing something else around the house or falling asleep. I've never had any problems as a result of doing this.

 

Happened to me once, maybe 15 years ago, as I used to run the platter just to avoid the belt from deforming over the pulley and I forgot to switch it off. I still use the same turntable and it's only on its second belt. The original belt disintegrated from age just a couple years ago, so not from running it overnight once. These days I take the belt off the pulley when I'm finished playing.

 

Thank you. It was an awesome concert. We were sittingthisclose.

Warren Zevon is my number two record of all time.

What kind of turntable do you have?

 

Why?

 

No damage done, not a problem. So tell us about your new belt-drive TT. How do like it, how did the vinyl sound?

 

Hey all. Its a Pro-Ject Debut III with stock Ortofon cart.

I love this thing. I always had a vinyl collection (roughly 200 lp's; mostly classic rock and new wave with some classical tossed in there), but used my beater Technics rigs and a worn out Garrard Z200B. This Pro-Ject is a massive improvement for me. I may also get a dedicated phono pre and Speedbox next. I'm using the builtin phono pre of my Kenwood KA-8100 integrated, and it sounds great, but I know it can be better.

 

I leave my Rega Planar 3 (18 years old) running 24/7 as per recommended by Rega. This thing has been on for 18 years without any damage, even when I'm on vacation.

OK, it has been turned off when I dust it, switch the belt to the 45 rpm pully, on the rare occassion the power goes out or twice when I moved residences. It has survived the Ice Storm of 1998???? and the big summer power outage that effected parts of Canada and the US a few years back.

It still sounds great.

Yours will survive the 8 hours of a warm summer evening just fine.

 

I just don't like the idea of it being bent over the narrow spindle for longer periods and somehow think it will retain its nominal length for longer if it's not stretched out all the time. Guess I'm strange that way.

 

I can't imagine doing that.

 

Music Hall recommends removing the belt if the turntable isn't used for more than three months.

 

Not a problem; whenever I fit a new belt I always leave it running overnight.

 

My dad left his Perpetuum-Ebner PE-2020 turntable running for a week (shut if off, or so he thought, on one weekend, and found it still running the next). He proceeded to install a "monitor light" on the front of it (that's how I found out about the story, when I mentioned the light). Strangely enough, history repeated itself, as I did the same with one of my Linn Sondek LP12 turntables (ended up leaving it running for a few days) - thankfully no harm done in either case.