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AR XA Problems - Platter too slow

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Nick199475

New Member
So one day not long ago, I was listening to a record and all of sudden the platter slowed way down.

Since then I've changed the belt twice, applied talc, re-oiled everything, and tried different outlets, but I still can't get the platter up to playing speed. On top of that, when I drop the tonearm, the platter slows down further until it completely stops after a few rotations. When I remove the outside platter, I notice the spindle raises when I power up, especially when I put the belt on 45s.

The counterweight was calibrated prior to a recent move (about 3 months before this problem) with a friend of mine's calibration scale that I no longer have access to and hasn't been messed with at all since then. It can't be moved by hand and played fine for a while, so I'm inclined to believe that's not an issue.

Any ideas?

Edit: Also it's a Haydon motor
 
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How does it feel when you take the belt off and turn the sub platter by hand?

The motor is synchronous so significant deviations of speed from correct point to an issue either with the motor or the sub platter bearing.
 
N8Nagel said:
How does it feel when you take the belt off and turn the sub platter by hand?

The motor is synchronous so significant deviations of speed from correct point to an issue either with the motor or the sub platter bearing.
Click to expand...

It feels fine - smooth and balanced. Even with the belt on, I can give it a good push to get to a respectable speed, it just can't seem to maintain it.
 
The OP should also look at the run capacitor. If the run capacitor went open, the motor would lose a significant amount of torque and would run hot. The fact that arm drag slows the platter to a halt suggests to me that the motor's torque output is low -- a symptom that could be caused by the motor or its run cap going bad.
 
Nick199475 said:
It feels fine - smooth and balanced. Even with the belt on, I can give it a good push to get to a respectable speed, it just can't seem to maintain it.
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put a strobe disk on the platter, belt off, hand spin it to 33.33, and time it to full stop.......what do you get?
 
Unfortunately, I don't have access to a strobe disk. Are there any telltale signs that it may be the capacitor vs the motor? Heat wise, what wouldbe heating up? The motor beneath plinth or the platter/spindle? I haven't noticed anything heating up, but I haven't been checking the insides, and I haven't been running it for long seeing as I can't get it to run properly. Also I noticed when I remove the spindle that the peg it sits on seems to vibrating even when the power is off - is that normal?

Right now I'm leaning towards taking it a local tv/stereo repair guy to just save myself the headache of trial and error.
 
There are smartphone apps that can act as a tach if you set phone on platter. I've gone to those as I don't have any neon lights to use a strobe disc and even a strobe app for my phone won't clearly illuminate them.
 
Nick199475 said:
Unfortunately, I don't have access to a strobe disk. Are there any telltale signs that it may be the capacitor vs the motor? Heat wise, what wouldbe heating up? The motor beneath plinth or the platter/spindle? I haven't noticed anything heating up, but I haven't been checking the insides, and I haven't been running it for long seeing as I can't get it to run properly. Also I noticed when I remove the spindle that the peg it sits on seems to vibrating even when the power is off - is that normal?

Right now I'm leaning towards taking it a local tv/stereo repair guy to just save myself the headache of trial and error.
Click to expand...

the motor vibration with power off is normal. How easy does the does the pulley come off the motor spindle? A strobe can be downloaded free from Conrad Hoffman's site,
 
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