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Pioneer PL-25 problem

Howard...here is some shots of the stylus pressure guage. I don't have a clue how this thing works with this arm. Right now I just balanced the arm and then gave it a little more weight. It would be nice to properly setup the weight. Ever see anything like this before.
 

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hakaplan said:
Okay, what confused me is that you said in your original post that this was a belt drive turntable and that it needed a belt. Then after you got the motor working, you said you played an LP. And I was confused because you never mentioned anything about getting a new belt. Now going back a few posts I see where you mentioned it was an idler wheel drive. Never knew Pioneer made any--and I'll bet most others didn't either. There was also a PL-A25 which was belt drive and that might be what those belts are intended for. I don't know of any PL-25F. Where did you find mention of that model?

Anyway, does the original capacitor have polarity markings (+-)? If so, it's a tantalum which was a type of electrolytic, and would require that kind of replacement, since the polarity matters. Otherwise it was just a large cylindrically shaped ceramic or a mylar, and polarity is not an issue, so those polys would work fine.
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I was really confused too:yes: I first got the table and looked up what little info I could find on it. Since they listed belts for it I assumed it was a belt drive. Recall I couldn't get the platter off. It was only after getting the platter off (Thanks to your suggestion) I saw it was an idler. The PIoneer PL-25F was mentioned on a online site selling service manuals. It may very well be wrong. The only two issues left are the rumble and slight speed variation. I think the rumble is the idler wheel itself. If I remove the platter and run it I hear the thunk thunk thunk sound at the wheel, and when I disengage it the sounds stop immediatey. May be this wheel is causing the speed problem too. It's a very small varaiance but if you listen closely you can hear it. This table does sound really good. I think Nashvillebil pointed to a site that rebuilds the wheels.
 
Yep, it probably has a flattened edge on it from having been left engaged against the platter for a long period of time. If you can get it re-built that would be great.

Regarding the TF gauge, I've never seen one of those--that's a collector's item for sure. So is the tt, for that matter. If it works the way I think, it's rather ingenius, although you' probably find that a cheap digital pocket scale is easier and more accurate. The idea is that the gauge is placed on the on the deck of the tt. The the stylus tip is placed on the desired tracking force on the gauge, and then the counterweight on the arm is moved until the gauge itself is horizontal. I'm sure it's a lot of trial and error.
 
I apologize for resurrecting an old thread, but I need a peace of advice on adjusting the turntable in question (pioneer pl-25).

I'll start by stating that I'm completely new to turntables, and I base my understanding on TTs by reading bit of information from here and there during this week. I found here by google.

I bought this pioneer pl-25 last weekend among couple of other items on unknown condition. Mine had similar issues as geode's one, it had the motor completely stuck. I took into peaces, cleaned it and put in some oil and hoped for the best and that was enough to get it going again :)

It played records quite nicely on my judgement, but I decided to order a new stylus for it, which I received today. It has the original cartridge installed. I've read some things about the needle pressure and anti skating, but for example this TT does not have any scale or readings in the tonearm, so I don't have a clue what the weight on the needle is at the moment. I ordered some cheap mechanical needle pressure gauge from my local audio equipment dealer, which I should receive at some point next week.

Actually the question I'm asking is about the anti-skating with this TT. After installing the new stylus the tracking seems to be drifting "inwards" the record a lot more comparing to the old stylus and it won't stay on the groove without a serious weight on the tonearm. The new stylus bends quite noticeably to the right when looking at the cartridge from straight ahead while playing records. Is there any way of adjusting the anti-skating on this TT or doing some DIY tweak for achieving the anti-skating effect?

So I don't know the current stylus pressure, but to describe it by words, the stylus bends horizontally almost to the level of the plastic casing of it, with pressures that it keeps tracking without skips. The tracking fails for example when lowering the stylus to the start of a record where the grooves are widely spaced. It tends to stay in place with the actual tracks better.

I bought couple of LPs just to test this TT, am I going to ruin them by playing with such setup? :)

/ Joonas

P.S By looking at geode's pictures again I noticed that my unit doesn't have the lever for lowering the tonearm, but other that that, this seems to be exactly the same TT with idler-drive motor etc.
 
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