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Restoring a Pioneer PL-630 Turntable

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Maybe I missed it but I don't see any reference to the adjustment of the black plastic feet. I didn't find anything in the manual either. I'm guessing they adjust the suspension movement/tension? Anyway I'll put them in about the middle where they originally were. Any thoughts on proper adjustment?

I'm in the middle of replacing the automation belt and will report back when I'm finished.
 
Put them about midway, then, kind of dribble the platter in the plinth (putting equal effort across the platter, kind of bounce it up and down). You should get lots of room to move before bottoming or topping out. If not, determine which foot adjustments are affecting such, and correct with tweaks, until you can dribble the platter freely, with bottoming or topping taking place at equal excursions, toward all four corners.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
Rich, thanks for the quick response. The suspension seems pretty even so I'm good.

When I took the plinth off and saw the belt still in place I thought shoot, that's not the problem as I expected it to be broken. But as you mentioned in a previous post my belt was stiff and stretched. I installed the new belt and the automation works great. I needed to adjust the cuing height and I'm all set.

For those wondering the gray plastic/composite sides are part of the plinth and are not removable. I have a little beautification project under way and will start a new thread when I've finished.
 
Are the 610 and 630 pretty much identical expect for the additional automation? I'm more of a semi-auto guy and would love to get my hands on a nice 610 to go with the 630. Regardless these are sweet TT's that sound as good as they look. I have a Denon DP-60L and believe it or not it appears to be more complicated than these tables and not near as easy to take apart.
 
Thank you Rich and all the other members for your wealth of information and repair questions on this wonderful turntable. I purchased one of these turntables yesterday at a local thrift store in almost perfect condition (not even a scratch on the dust cover) for just under $25.00 including sales tax.

The reason they were selling so low was that the turntable had a bunch of really weird issues going on with it. Some front panel buttons weren't working, the speed was wildly erratic, etc. After reading the entire post, I came to the conclusion that maybe the controls needed a good shot of de-oxit.

I opened the turntable and carefully cleaned the controls. I put the turntable back together again, and hoped that I did the right thing. I was rewarded for my efforts with a turntable that works perfectly.

My $25.00 investment paid off. It is a terrific unit and a real work of art. Built like a tank, and weighs as much as one too.

Once again thank you to all my fellow members.
 
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djw99mn said:
Thank you Rich and all the other members for your wealth of information and repair questions on this wonderful turntable. I purchased one of these turntables yesterday at a local thrift store in almost perfect condition (not even a scratch on the dust cover) for just under $25.00 including sales tax.

The reason they were selling so low was that the turntable had a bunch of really weird issues going on with it. Some front panel buttons weren't working, the speed was wildly erratic, etc. After reading the entire post, I came to the conclusion that maybe the controls needed a good shot of de-oxit.

I opened the turntable and carefully cleaned the controls. I put the turntable back together again, and hoped that I did the right thing. I was rewarded for my efforts with a turntable that works perfectly.

My $25.00 investment paid off. It is a terrific unit and a real work of art. Built like a tank, and weighs as much as one too.

Once again thank you to all my fellow members.
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There you go. :thmbsp: Now work those controls about 30 times per month, to keep them clean and functional. Do not worry. You will not wear them out.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
Sorry for the 'thread necro'.

Started working on my PL-610, which is pretty much the same as the 630 minus the automatic part.

At any rate, when I opened it up, the rubber suspension boots were in a million little pieces, way beyond repair of any sort. Except for one.

So, is it possible to use something else for the boot? Or repair the one to make some sort of mold?

Lastly, which RTV is the best for this job, Permatex sells several types.

Thank you.

p.s.- Rich, tried to send you a message, your mailbox is full
 
The boot serves only to damp any oscillations in the suspension. You can make do without the boots, as long as you have the collar parts. Simply cut strips of very soft foam rubber, like that used in padding furniture, and wind it in between the spring windings. All will be well. The result should be that the platter can be dribbled easily, but does not continue to bounce when you stop.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
Sorry for hijacking this thread, but the pl630 I got from my uncle has a different problem. Speed and everything works fine, but the platter makes some noise while rotating, sounds like a constant scratch. This even occurs when the motor is powered off and I rotate the platter with my hand.
So I took the platter out and saw, that the spindle is absolutely dry. As far as I know, there should be some grease or oil on it.
So before I destroy something: Should I use grease or oil? And which kind?

Greetings and thanks in advance
Norbert
 
Thanks for this great thread. This one even surpasses the CTF motor rebuild thread and I didn't know that was possible. I was gifted a PL 630 and was searching for info. This thread surpasses any expectation I could have had. I've been inside only a few TTs in my lifetime, but I did not expect to see such an array of complication inside. Can I assume from what I see and read that the the 630 model was a TOTL or near TOTL turntable in its day. I am not big on vinyl, but I sense this would maybe a be a good TT to keep and pair up with my SX 1250 and or SX 1280. Thanks again for such great information.
 
KingBubba said:
Thanks for this great thread. This one even surpasses the CTF motor rebuild thread and I didn't know that was possible. I was gifted a PL 630 and was searching for info. This thread surpasses any expectation I could have had. I've been inside only a few TTs in my lifetime, but I did not expect to see such an array of complication inside. Can I assume from what I see and read that the the 630 model was a TOTL or near TOTL turntable in its day. I am not big on vinyl, but I sense this would maybe a be a good TT to keep and pair up with my SX 1250 and or SX 1280. Thanks again for such great information.
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The PL-630 was/is indeed top of the pecking order, and was designed for the SPEC series. The PL-C590 was considered a bit higher, but the PL-630 has the same specs, with the addition of auto functions. I have 2 in my main rig, and it is going to stay that way.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
KingBubba said:
I am not big on vinyl, but I sense this would maybe a be a good TT to keep and pair up with my SX 1250 and or SX 1280. Thanks again for such great information.
Click to expand...
I purchased my PL-630 to mate with my SX-1250. But after listening to it I sold my Denon DP-60L and now use the 630 as my main TT. Besides sounding better to my ear I really like the fully automatic features and looks. :thmbsp:
 
I just received one of these from Rich this morning. I just got it set up enough to verify that it came through shipping just fine. If you need any advice on how to ship, ask Rich - this is in the top 3 packing jobs I've ever seen in my life.

My room is in the middle of being rearranged and I'm about 1/3 of the way done installing acoustic treatments so I don't want to wax poetic about how the rig is sounding right now, but it's sounding very very good.

I'm listening to: AT33ptg, the amazingly immaculate and lovingly restored PL-630, a Jolida JD9a phono stage (I have a few tubes but currently with Russian "reissue Mullard" 12AX7 that were premium screened for noise etc and cryo'ed), my trusty and beloved Pioneer Spec 1 preamp, My trusty and belove Aspen Amplifiers Aksa 100 Nirvana amp (from Hugh Dean in Australia), and my killer DIY speakers (BIG ported bookshelves sort of, designed by Jon Marsh, Vifa XT25 and Hivi aluminum 8" and a 12th order xo).

In the next day or so I'll try to start a separate thread so this one doesn't get cluttered up. [Edited by Moderator]

One of my friends said he got a bunch of Led Zeppelin recently and I thought he meant vinyl but was alas mistaken. I can't STAND it when people think we're into vinyl because of nostalgia for the charming hideous scratchy crap sound they remember from their parent's $99 stereo system. They are so baffled when I tell them that my record player sounds better than any CD player they can afford. One line I started using is, "think of analog as infinite bit rate." That seems to jar something loose in their brains.

Thanks, Rich!!!
 
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I saw one of these on a local internet ad site. The ad states the unit works fine except for the automatic functions.Googled the table and found this post of Rich's. I have used Rich's posts before to rebuild my CTF 1250 & 950. So when I saw this post I immediately responded to the ad. I will be picking my 630 up tomorrow and look forward to restoring it.It looks like quite a technical marvel.
Thank you, Rich.
Great stuff!
 
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The good stuff like this turntable, and in general most vintage equipment, always deserves to be saved from the scrap yard. Good thing tech knowledge is now much easier to find.
 
Got my 630 and service manual. Plan to do the full meal deal. Don't trust service manuals and would rather open the tt up only once.
Does anyone have a list of caps and values that one should replace?
Will want to put an order together and get it right and complete.
 
I'll throw this out here as a fair number of you have followed Rich's great guide and restored a PL630. I've got the recap/ reflow and cleaning done. No real problems until now. I have 2 problems.

My auto functions are misbehaving. I think position of everything is right. The plate with the slots is set so the adjusting screw lines up with the service hole on the plinth at the LP position. The white cam that get's driven by the rubber wheel is postitioned where it's just about to catch the antiskate lever. The led/sensor tests ok, but the signal that the tonearm is at 12" 10" or 7" never gets processed by the microcontroller. The result is cueing up just makes the arm go up then to the end of the record. If I wobble the arm when it's there, it will autoreturn. There was a tantalum 1uf cap I replaced with a Panasonic ECQ MPF cap between the sensor and the microcontroller. Perhaps it's nature is too different for the design. I pretty much replaced all Tants with these Panasonics so I hope this isn't the case.
All the caps are correct polarity. Solder joints are good. Anyone experience this symptom? I need to figure out how to power this up without the platter needing to run. I don't see how a bench tech could work on the arm controller board without needing to yank everything out, still the platter would be in the way.

Problem 2. The service manual is wrong, or I have a problem with no symptom. Checking the DD motor operation on the scope, in 45 I get 1 square wave for every 2 pulses. As described. For 33, I get 1 sqare wave for every pulse. What am I looking at here? I can position the square wave at the start of the pulse, but it's supposed to be 1 every 2 pulses. Fortunately the platter spins so maybe I just forget it and focus on my tonearm issue.


I can't grasp the microprocessors and what kind of signals they expect. This is a big step up in troubleshooting from what I'm used to.
 
Sorry I can't help you. Well I was given mine last June and been troubleshooting mine in surges, the latest was about two weeks ago. I got the tone arm to work, but the return function and platter spin won't work. Any thoughts. I checked for voltage like the guide said, i seem to get 27 volts at asst VCC spots. Any thoughts?
 
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