My turntable went into the rinse cycle!

This morning, I was tracking through an album when all of a sudden things began speeding up, uncontrollably. I have an old Technics SLQ200 direct drive turntable that's served me well for over twenty years, and for some reason, it now doesn't spin at normal speeds, but seems to be in the "rinse" cycle" , spinning up to a ridiculous speed. I stopped it of course and for now have replaced it in my main system with a lesser model from around the same time, an SLQ30.

Being a direct drive, did some kind of wheel or gear slip out of place? Is something like this common? Do you think it could be repared? By me? Can I go through the rest of my life with only one working turntable? Will that one last forever? - These are the questions running through my mind. Advice will be welcomed.

 

My SL1300 did this recently; I sat it on the shelf for about two months and forgot about it. Then it hit me that the speed control pots might be dirty; I took it out and twisted them vigorously, and amazingly it works fine again. Does yours have any kind of manual speed control? If not, it could be a bad capacitor or something.

 

Well Harry, at least your rekkids will be clean.

In a direct drive, the motor is the only thing driving the turntable--the spindle is actually an extension of the motor shaft. If your speed is off, then it is an eletrical or electronic problem. As mentioned above, you might try twisting your speed controls back and forth a few dozen times to see if maybe dust or oxidation inside them is causing a bad contact. (I've done that with older equipment to clear up noisy volume controls.) Since the speed controls are really the only "mechanical" parts, they are likely the cause of it.

If not, then there was probably a component failure, like a bad resistor or more likely, a capacitor since those are sometimes known to go bad with age. If there was an electrical spike in the power line, that could have damaged other electronic components inside such as transistors or integrated circuits. Any number of things could have happened, but I would try the trick with the speed control adjustments to see if that helps. For a better fix, a bit of anti-oxidation spray (like DeOxit) on the controls will clean them up.

 

I had the same exact thing happen to my Technics turntable. I had to get a new one. But no one gave me the advice about cleaning the speed control. Please let us know if this works for you.
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=38989

 

Sorry about that; at that time I hadn't eperienced it, so I didn't really know what could happen. In looking at the SL-Q200 on the internet, it doesn't appear to have speed trim pots, so I'm betting now on a bad cap (or several; I read somewhere once that recapping Technics decks - assuming the resistors aren't fried - will bring them back to life).

 

If that's the case, I'll loan Harry my soldering iron and spool of solder...

As for having it repaired, if you can find anyone to repair it, the cost would probably be as much as replacing it with another used turntable.

 

That's true...a lot of the Technics don't go for much on ebay.

 

Always take your turntables out of your pockets before you put your pants in the washer.

 

and now I have a new quote

 

Nobody is going to understand it, it is one of those "you had to be there" things

 

hi Joe
as you can see it didn't really matter

 

I just re-read my thread starter and realized that I got my SL-Q's mixed up. My main turntable, the one that went into hyperdrive, was the SL-Q30. It's got a power on/off switch that I like to use when dubbing tracks to CD-R. It also has more adjustable tracking controls.

The replacement, the lesser of the two units, is the SL-Q200 with no power switch, and "factory adjusted" tracking.

FWIW, I found another SL-Q30 on eBay: $20 with $13 shipping. So for $33 (less than a tank of gas these days), I've replaced my defective turntable with another identical one that's supposed to be in great shape. Amazing...