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Now no left channel at all

D

DijonMaster

Active Member
Long story short, was using a crap soldering iron and the joints weren't great. Randomly the left channel stopped working. I got a better one, changed the rca port and soldered everything together, but now there's still no left channel. I've switched RCAs on the receiver and pretty much isolated it to the turntable.

I'm not sure what to do and kind of freaking out.

Disconnected the ground for a better pic. I cant see any splits.20230502_041325.jpg
 
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DijonMaster said:
I only have the one cartridge, but i switched the wires around and it doesn't fix the issue. How would I test the tonearm wiring?
Click to expand...

  • Remove cartridge.
  • Get a multimeter to test continuity
  • note which connector's in head shell side of tonearm is the right, left, right GND and Left GND
  • test for continuity from tonearm head shell right signal pin to rear RCA center pin on right channel .
  • now test Right GND pin from tonearm head shell connector to RCA sleeve
  • repeat for left .
You should have continuity for each . Also make sure there is no cross continuity, ie, no center pin to sleeve continuity

Athanasios
 
Nashou66 said:
  • Remove cartridge.
  • Get a multimeter to test continuity
  • note which connector's in head shell side of tonearm is the right, left, right GND and Left GND
  • test for continuity from tonearm head shell right signal pin to rear RCA center pin on right channel .
  • now test Right GND pin from tonearm head shell connector to RCA sleeve
  • repeat for left .
You should have continuity for each . Also make sure there is no cross continuity, ie, no center pin to sleeve continuity

Athanasios
Click to expand...

Do I need to plug the table into the wall or reciever to test continuity
 
It might also be the head shell on the AR XA/XB they sometimes don't mount tightly to the spring pins in the tonearm
and lose contact. In hindsight it might be that.

I hope in your searching for the problem at the solder connections you dint make things worse ;)

Athanasios
 
Nashou66 said:
It might also be the head shell on the AR XA/XB they sometimes don't mount tightly to the spring pins in the tonearm
and lose contact. In hindsight it might be that.

I hope in your searching for the problem at the solder connections you dint make things worse ;)

Athanasios
Click to expand...

You and me both. Oh well, gotta start somewhere I guess. At least the table was cheap
 
Nashou66 said:
They are great sounding tables that perform way better that more expensive tables. Once serviced correctly they are wonderful to listen to. They just let the music through .
Click to expand...

When ir worked, it sounded wonderful. I'm on a mission to make it work again.
 
If the problem didn't migrate to the right channel when you switched the tonearm wires, then possibly the contact points between the headshell and the tonearm need cleaning. That is, there are four contacts (pins) at the rear of the headshell, and four contacts in the front of the tonearm where the headshell screws into it. If contacts are dirty, you can lose the signal for that channel. It only needs one path in the channel (+ve or -ve) to lose continuity, and the whole channel is knocked out. When you say the left channel stopped working randomly, if that means intermittently, then oxidized contacts is one possible cause. The other likely one, as mentioned above, is loose connection of a wire or a terminal somewhere, though switching wires over as you did, without the problem moving with the wire, makes that much less likely.

The multimeter will help a lot for this kind of problem, but if you don't have it yet, cleaning the four headshell contact pins (both at the back of the headshell and where the headshell wires connect to them) and the four tonearm contacts may help restore continuity.

On the other hand, the wiring and soldering in your photos do look as if they could harbour a problem or two...I wonder if some of the insulation has been lost on the tonearm wire during soldering and an uninsulated section of the positive and negative wire for the left channel are making contact with each other. From what you said in one of these threads, it sounded like footfall was causing either a connection to come loose or something to short out.
 
Tonoje said:
If the problem didn't migrate to the right channel when you switched the tonearm wires, then possibly the contact points between the headshell and the tonearm need cleaning. That is, there are four contacts (pins) at the rear of the headshell, and four contacts in the front of the tonearm where the headshell screws into it. If contacts are dirty, you can lose the signal for that channel. It only needs one path in the channel (+ve or -ve) to lose continuity, and the whole channel is knocked out. When you say the left channel stopped working randomly, if that means intermittently, then oxidized contacts is one possible cause. The other likely one, as mentioned above, is loose connection of a wire or a terminal somewhere, though switching wires over as you did, without the problem moving with the wire, makes that much less likely.

The multimeter will help a lot for this kind of problem, but if you don't have it yet, cleaning the four headshell contact pins (both at the back of the headshell and where the headshell wires connect to them) and the four tonearm contacts may help restore continuity.

On the other hand, the wiring and soldering in your photos do look as if they could harbour a problem or two...I wonder if some of the insulation has been lost on the tonearm wire during soldering and an uninsulated section of the positive and negative wire for the left channel are making contact with each other. From what you said in one of these threads, it sounded like footfall was causing either a connection to come loose or something to short out.
Click to expand...

So I misspoke. I switched the rca wires, not the internal wiring. The problem followed. Switching the rcas made the left work and the right go out
 
So as you say, the problem is almost certainly isolated to the turntable. A meter to check continuity would speed your troubleshooting up considerably. As I mentioned to someone in another thread recently, you can get a decent one for about $12 on Amazon US, if that's where you are. It practically pays for itself the first time you use it.

The wiring job looks just a bit too haphazard compared to, well, other pictures of this turntable that I've seen so far. Are the tonearm wires that are soldered to the terminal actually insulated? If not, then they will short out if they come into contact with each other or the other pole on the terminal. Or the insulation at some section on a pair of wires may have been damaged if you caught it with the soldering iron, which for wires that thin will melt through in an instant. If you got the pos. and neg. wire at the same moment, that would create a possible shorting point. Also, though it looks okay in the picture, make sure that you haven't accidentally bridged the positive and negative terminal of the RCA with solder. Again, easier to check with a multimeter.

Looking at the pictures in the other thread, one thing that makes it less surprising that this happened in the left channel is that the negative lug has had a lot of solder slopped onto it to connect both the ground and the tonearm wire. It doesn't look like a great joint. Don't worry, soldering quickly improves with practice - but fwiw, thick speaker wire is not what you want to be soldering in the first place. The wire is probably not suitable for your turntable, and your soldering iron is almost certainly not suitable for that gauge of wire.

If you want to check continuity for the left channel (you do), put one probe of the meter onto the appropriate headshell contact pin in the tonearm, and the other probe onto the negative lug (not the tonearm wire) down this end. If there is no continuity, you will have to redo that connection, because it would indicate that the tonearm wire is not making contact with the RCA. Best way is to start again on that lug, just remove all the old solder and try again. The practice is good for you. I prefer braid for desoldering. Not a fan of the hand pump method, because I'm rubbish at it.
 
Tonoje said:
So as you say, the problem is almost certainly isolated to the turntable. A meter to check continuity would speed your troubleshooting up considerably. As I mentioned to someone in another thread recently, you can get a decent one for about $12 on Amazon US, if that's where you are. It practically pays for itself the first time you use it.

The wiring job looks just a bit too haphazard compared to, well, other pictures of this turntable that I've seen so far. Are the tonearm wires that are soldered to the terminal actually insulated? If not, then they will short out if they come into contact with each other or the other pole on the terminal. Or the insulation at some section on a pair of wires may have been damaged if you caught it with the soldering iron, which for wires that thin will melt through in an instant. If you got the pos. and neg. wire at the same moment, that would create a possible shorting point. Also, though it looks okay in the picture, make sure that you haven't accidentally bridged the positive and negative terminal of the RCA with solder. Again, easier to check with a multimeter.

Looking at the pictures in the other thread, one thing that makes it less surprising that this happened in the left channel is that the negative lug has had a lot of solder slopped onto it to connect both the ground and the tonearm wire. It doesn't look like a great joint. Don't worry, soldering quickly improves with practice - but fwiw, thick speaker wire is not what you want to be soldering in the first place. The wire is probably not suitable for your turntable, and your soldering iron is almost certainly not suitable for that gauge of wire.

If you want to check continuity for the left channel (you do), put one probe of the meter onto the appropriate headshell contact pin in the tonearm, and the other probe onto the negative lug (not the tonearm wire) down this end. If there is no continuity, you will have to redo that connection, because it would indicate that the tonearm wire is not making contact with the RCA. Best way is to start again on that lug, just remove all the old solder and try again. The practice is good for you. I prefer braid for desoldering. Not a fan of the hand pump method, because I'm rubbish at it.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much! This is super helpful info. I ordered a multimeter so let's see what it says when it gets here. I used speaker wire because that's what I had, but then I realized that I never threw away my old PC fans so I'll strip them for wire.

I think the wiring was redone at some point on the table, since the colors don't match up. The wires are colored but I don't believe they're insulated beyond whatever material was used to color them. Do they need to be insulated?

I may redo the ground wire. It seems a bit funky. Does the ground wire need to be insulated? I saw in this post that he used all insulated wire, but the ground wire I have just seems to be straight silver wire
 
I couldn't see clearly in the picture (colours or bare wire). But if they're coloured, you can probably assume that means they're insulated. Normally there's some very thin plastic sheathing on this type of wire. Even if that's present on yours, it can be damaged easily, and an accidental touch from a soldering iron will certainly do that, laying the wire bare. It's usually designed to do so, because it's fiddly stuff to strip otherwise.

However, I think that rather than the tonearm wires, a problem in the solder joint of the centre pin (positive in the RCA) or lug (negative) is most likely.

And with all that said, I don't think you should completely discount the possibility that the headshell pins and tonearm contacts for the headshell are in need of cleaning and re-seating. A problem there can certainly make a channel drop out.
 
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DijonMaster said:
I may redo the ground wire. It seems a bit funky. Does the ground wire need to be insulated?
Click to expand...

I've never seen one that isn't, and while it would still do its job, as circuits have multiple locations that are uninsulated (air itself being the insulator), you want to be sure it won't make contact with any other uninsulated part and cause a short. And there isn't really any good reason to use uninsulated wire when insulated wire is ubiquitous. Not having any to hand is the best reason for getting hold of some. It would also be inviting trouble to follow up a channel dropout issue, caused by shorting or bad connections, with a new way to introduce problems.
 
Tonoje said:
I've never seen one that isn't, and while it would still do its job, as circuits have multiple locations that are uninsulated (air itself being the insulator), you want to be sure it won't make contact with any other uninsulated part and cause a short. And there isn't really any good reason to use uninsulated wire when insulated wire is ubiquitous. Not having any to hand is the best reason for getting hold of some. It would also be inviting trouble to follow up a channel dropout issue, caused by shorting or bad connections, with a new way to introduce problems.
Click to expand...

Thankfully the pc fans I have have a good length of thin insulated wire, so worst case I'll use those. Thank you so much. I'll look for breaks in the insulation, though it honestly just seems like the wires are dyed or painted
 
That's probably an enamel coating for insulation, and the colours of course are for easy identification.
 
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