Pioneer PL-L800 jerky arm travel

Drjay

Drjay

Active Member
Hi everybody,
I picked up a PL-L800 this weekend that worked perfectly in all functions and sounded great for about 6 LPs. It then, out of the blue, developed the jerky arm syndrome it had read about in a post which I can not now locate. I'm looking for help on how to attempt to correct it and have a copy of the repair manual, but don't have the first clue about how to even get at the tone arm traveler tube to rotate it ( even though it shows only a couple of small scratches) and clean the V blocks (whatever they are). I am almost totally incompetent with electronics trouble shooting, but am fairly good with mechanical issues. From what I remember from the post I can't find, this syndrome is usually due to mechanical (friction) factors. And yes, I remember from what I have read in the past that lubing the traveler tube is a no-no, With some guidance, I'm hoping I can get it going again, it sounded truly nice when it was working properly.
Thanks!
Jay
 
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There is another post on here how to fix a Sony L 520 that will help you. Clean the carriage tube and driven gear with alcohol and tooth brush. Relube gear with silicone grease.
 
The PL-L800 and the PS-LX520 have a somewhat different design. The PL-L800 has a large diameter rail that guides the arm. Inserted into the arm is a "CdS Assembly" which is some sort of magnetized rod. The the PS-LX520 has only one small rail with nothing inside it. Both turntables use Teflon to coat the rails. The Sony benefits from the slightest, almost undetectable coating of Silicone grease but the Pioneer's rails must remain dry.

As to the jerky arm motion, there are many possible causes for that. The simplest is a dirty rail. The related problem of a damaged Teflon coating is unrepairable except through replacing them.

Other possible causes are dirt in the channel that the bottom of the tonearm carriage rides in, a misadjusted or failing arm position sensor or a failing tracking motor.

This is a very complex turntable with lots of things to go wrong. The service manual has a large troubleshooting section and also instructions for making adjustments.

Service manual here: http://www.vinylengine.com/library/pioneer/pl-l800.shtml

John
 
The CDs assembly is the optical gate that controls arm tracking movement by managing a linear magnetic motor that moves the arm carriage when the arm is moved slighty off tangent to the groove.
The tangency error is much less than that of a pivoted arm and inaudible.
Jerky travel is usually a symptom of binding from debris and/ or hardened lube. Clean and relube very sparingly.
 
Good news! Using the manual, which was invaluable, I took it apart, cleaned the carriage slider tube and V blocks with alcohol and rotated the carriage slider tube enough to put the tone arm carriage V blocks onto virgin tube territory. Result, it works perfectly with not the slightest trace of jerkiness. It sounds really nice too. The key, according to the manual, Boreas post above and additional info I gleaned, is to to NOT use any lubrication of any kind, it will simply attract dust and cause the problem to recur.
 
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Excellent!

Yes, the bar is Teflon coated and needs no lube. As you say, lubrication only mucks things up.

John
 
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