Rega planar 3 problems

All of a sudden, not that i use my turntable that much, it seems to be a little slow, out of pitch, out of tune. we're not talking a minor slightly out of tune or a major, but i definately spoil;s the drive of the music, and joni mitchell sounded much deeper than i recall.

I did replace the drive belt a few months ago, and superglued the pulley to the motor. It appeared to be working fine for some time after that. Pulley still stuck. It does seem to make wobble and judder a bit more on startup, and slightly during revelotions, could it be a bearing?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated, wanted to put me fet up and enjoy some music, but this has totally spoiled the oppurtunity.

I was changing between 33's and 45's rather quickly and a few times
the other day.....

Thanks

 

Hi

You can try this under a flory light for a speed check

Stuart


http://www.quadesl.com/pdf/strobe.pdf

 

Rega P3's do have their feature of a slow and grinding sound on start-up, the mass from the platter pulls the belt arm towards the plinth on initial start-up and it rubs, hence the grinding sound.
We always leave our deck spinning but when we change records we switch off and allow the platter to stop but then on re-start we give the platter a gentle push which has an effect of not pulling the belt arm as much and the deck starts up quicker and with less noise.
Obviously this does not resolve your speed issues, whihc you do need to get checked out with a strobe.

 

Angus,

You say that the belt is in good nick and that the pulley is attached to the motor spindle, so that really only leaves the motor circuit board. Planars of early '80s vintage have a large brown resistor on the circuit board and these die. You can sometimes see a black line, where the resistor is breaking down, developing. The cure is to get a more modern board fitted that uses different components.

The only other possibility that springs to mind is that the ball in the bottom of the bearing can sieze up and wear oval, causing inconsistent speeds, but this happens very gradually and doesn't really become apparent until the deck is serviced, a new ball put in, and suddenly it sounds like new again.

Ed.