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Technics SL-10 forcibly dragging needle during playback

mortau

New Member
Hey all,

Sadly my Technics SL-10 with original 310MC cart has developed some more trouble. I previously put this out for professional repair to get the tonearm wiring replaced after I was experiencing trouble with intermittent stereo audio (would cut back in about half way through an album).

The table has started forcibly dragging the needle from roughly the 10" play mark to the 7" mark while a regular 12" record is playing back. Very nasty indeed - brings with it the usual horrible scratch sound you would expect. I can get it to repeat itself but the problem is definitely a little bit intermittent as well and doesn't trigger 100% of the time.

So far I have pulled the platter and cleaned the windows, cleaned the LEDs in the bottom half of the unit, and used isopropyl on the photo sensors in the lid. No change in behaviour. I replaced the little rubber belt about 4 years ago when I picked up this unit and it was not replaced the last time it was repaired.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to what I should look for at this point? I'm reasonably proficient with soldering and electronics but given the rarity of this table I'm a bit loathe to work on it myself.

The arm appears to track cleanly and smoothly until it just suddenly veers left - I don't see any visual indication that it's triggering the servo to 'catch up'. Given it happens consistently at the same point of playback when it does trigger, I don't really think it's the servo malfunctioning. Presumably if it was malfunctioning it would just veer left at random.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!
 
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First things first, remove the 310 MC cartridge and put it away for safe keeping so that you wont risk it being damaged. It would be a tragedy of something were to happen resulting in the loss of a fine, irreplaceable cartridge.
Then buy a cheap technics p-mount cartridge and stylus (you can always sell it later), and use an old LP disc before/while you attempt to fault find the deck.

Now this has been bumped perhaps someone will chime in with some repair advice ?
 
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