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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hello guys! First time poster, long time lurker here I have come across a well preserved Beogram 1202 that needs some love and care. The problem that I'm having is that the platter spins too fast, resulting in a highly irritating pitch. Ella Fitzgerald sounds really ridiculous! I have fiddled around with the speed adjustment control but even at the slowest setting the record still plays too fast. I did some reading and I narrowed down the list to the following suspects: - The Belt: It was replaced about a month ago. I don't know the origin of the belt and therefore it is my primary suspect. - Idler wheel: Is it possible that the rubber contracted so much to have such an undesired effect? I guess if this is the case… well I'm screwed ... - Pulley: Although the motor is supposed to be 50Hz, I haven't ruled out the fact that the pulley could be for 60Hz. Does anyone know what's the diameter of 50Hz and 60Hz pulley? Since I am not that hardware davy (software is my expertise), I am asking you how to tackle this problem? I was thinking something like from easiest to the hardest. I guess replacing the belt is the logical first step. And also, is there maybe some other reason for this problem I might have missed? Thank for your help, Casper
The 50 to 60 Hz failure you can rule out, if the deck has been converted to 60 Hz it would run slower on a 50 Hz connection.
Probably the speed change mechanism will need a proper cleaning, the idler wheel has to move a little up and down when you turn the speed adjustment actuator. The only way to clean the speed change mechanism is: Take it apart in detail clean all parts, assembling, apply sewing machine oil or Liquid Bearing on moving parts, Keep the idler wheel rubber (clean it with IPA) free of oil and grease.
While at it, give the rest of the deck a clean and lub, clean off all old grease and apply oil where needed.
Come back with follow up or more questions.
And welcome to the forum
Collecting Vintage B&O is not a hobby, its a lifestyle.
Hi Søren!
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I was planning on cleaning and lubricating the turntable. I do know where to lube the motor. But what exactly do you mean by lubing the speed change mechanism? Where is that mechanism even located?
Sorry if I asked a silly question ...
Silly questions do not exist, take look here . I was thinking about your problems, you may have a problem with the change from 33 to 45 rpm, when changing the idler wheel must move up or down about 10-12 mm.
And her taken apart
Thanks Søren for your kind help.
Today I'm at it again. I'm trying to figure out how this speed change mechanism works and whether it works properly. I've recorded a short video demonstrating this functionality on my Beogram. I should mention that the video was shot with the speed adjustment rolled all the way down (to the slowest setting).
Is the movement of the idler wheel as seen in the video ok? What's the logic behind it? I'm guessing that if the idler wheel is touching the top part of the conical brass rotor, the speed should be slower (33 rpm)? And if it touches the lower half the speed should be faster (45 rpm)? What confuses me, is that the idler wheel never even makes contact with the upper half of the rotor.
Here is the video I spoke of earlier. I hope the rotor is visible enough in the background
Speed Chaning Test
Anyway, by the time someone reads this the motor assembly will be already out of the case and being thoroughly cleaned and lubed …
Well I did it. Sort of...
I took out the motor assembly, disassembled the motor itself. There was no dirt or gunk in the rotor bearing and it was already thoroughly lubed. I assembled the rotor bearing back together. I lubed the idler and the pulley shaft, cleaned some dirt with a q-tip and that was it. I didn't disassemble it any further since I was not sure I would get it back together.
Anyhow, I assembled and soldered the whole thing back together. The problem is, that the spindle now seems stiff. It's hard to turn it by hand and even then the spinning does not stop gradually but it stops rather abruptly. When I plug the turntable in the mains there is a certain noise heard from the motor, but no motion from the spindle. Could it be that the stator bearing in the motor is blocking the motion? I saw some pictures on the internet how the bearing should be assembled and it might be I turned that funky looking plate the other way around.
So, I'm done for today. I'd really appreciate if anyone would direct me in some direction...
Here the motor assembly, when assembling the motor, the bottom cover has to be adjusted so the rotor is parallel to the stator,(I use 10 x 80 mm. acetate strips inserted through the openings in the bottom cover), and the rotor has turn without, or very little, resistance
Thanks for your help Søren!
Ok, so here's the update. I did some exploratory surgery today on the drive assembly. I tried to clean the whole thing.
I fiddled around with the leverage that moves the idler wheel up and down and noticed something... There was a spring between the pulley and the idler wheel. At first I thought it is supposed to be there for whatever reason. Then while I was looking up for something in the service manual, I noticed by chance that there was no spring between the pulley and the idler wheel listed. I removed the spring, cleaned and lubed the shaft and the speed changing mechanism now seems to be working properly. It appears that the force of the spring was too great for the lifting arm to overcome. Therefore the spring always pushed idler wheel downwards toward the 45rpm part of the spindle even when the idler wheel should be positioned on the upper half of the spindle. Here are the pictures of the said culprit:
Does anyone have any idea as to why this spring was even there? I think it shouldn't be there but I still wonder where it came from. Could someone verify that this is the part of some other system on the turntable?
But some problems still remain. After centering the rotor of the motor and plugging the turntable into AC, the platter started to spin immediately, even when the selector knob was in OFF position. When I moved the selector knob to ON, 25 or 30, the platter was still spinning.The platter was spinning smoothly and the speed changing worked as it should. So except the latter immediate spinning, I guess the whole drive system is now in order.
Also a new problem appeared when I pressed the LIFT button. The arm did lift but did nothing from that point onwards. It did not move to the left over the record and it did not lower. It just remained lifted. I plugged everything off and tried various combinations of selector knob and LIFT to get it down but to no success. It is still lifted as we speak as I didn't want to force anything and risk any damage. Maybe it is worth mentioning that I did press LIFT a few times while working on the drive assembly and testing out the selector knob. Any ideas on this topic?
As always, your help is greatly appreciated
PS: forum moderators, should I open another thread for my arm lifting/lowering problems?
I have seen that spring, but even after a rum and coke I cant remember where.
Disconnect from mains and connect again, select manual, if the motor start, move the PUarm to end of record, the arm should then return to rest pos, If the motor do not start move the arm to end of record and turn the platter by hand until the arm return to rest pos. Now try again to see if the "lift" function is there, and start and stop works
With the speed selector in automatic (45 or 33) and pressing "lift", the PUarm will lift off and the motor stops, pressing lift again the motor starts and the PU lowers at the same point, where it lifted off. With the speed selector in manual the same happens, but the motor do not stop.
Take off the pickup when working on the deck. I normally also secure the PUarm with a piece of tape
Pressing lift 1st time will actuate the relay sitting near the cam gear and the cam gear will rotate 1/2 a turn actuating the lift mech. moving the lift lever (Blue arrow), go to next pic.
The lift lever actuate the the lift shaft, pushing it upwards, Check that the lift shaft moves up and down, pressing it upwards there should be some resistance as it is spring loaded downward. go to next pic.
If the lift shaft is OK, and spring loaded, (I wonder where the found spring came from), you will have to check the relay, inside the relay there is a capacitor and a diode, check both, the cap is known to fail, be careful there is a small spring actuating the relay arm, sitting outside the enclosure, it comes off easily and flies away when the relay is opened. Took me half an hour to find it, and half an hour to find out where to place it.
It's me again with a daily update
Today, I tried to tackle the arm lowering problem. As described in my previous post, the arm only lifted but did not lower when pressing LIFT. I then noticed that the brown wire that was coming from the relay to the voltage selector was unhooked. I resoldered it back and regained the arm lowering function. Hooray!
However, there are still two problems I'm facing. The first is the fact that even with the selector knob in OFF position, the platter starts to spin immediately when connected into mains. I'm 99% sure that the wires from the motor were correctly soldered to the voltage selector. Any ideas as to why this occurs? Turning the selector knob to ON, 25, 30 or 17 does nothing different... the platter spins continuously. To stop the spinning, one has to disconnect the turntable from the mains. Could someone provide a wiring diagram for the voltage selector?
The second problem is that while in automatic mode, the arm does not move onto the record automatically. It does lift and lower properly, but that's it. I think the arm assembly also has to be taken apart, cleaned, lubed and then reassembled back together. I must confess that the prospect of doing this procedure kind of scares me. How hard is this procedure? Is it really as hard as I'm imagining it?
And thanks Søren for your patience and your helpful guiding. It really is greatly appreciated
Casper
Drawing: Adjust and clean the manual on . off switch, sitting in the upper left corner at the end of the lever coming from the selector switch
If I remember right, if the on.off switch is engaged the pickup arm will not move, so adjust that one first,
To take off the pickup arm and dismantle the mechanism you will have to desolder the wires coming from the cartridge take a look here (look in the last part), you will only have to take out the swinging chassis if you want to clean the muting switch.
BTW, you should get yourself a manual, available onsite for silver and gold members
Hm, today I got my hands on the service manual and I inspected the manual on-off switch. I must admit I did not know what kind of function this thing has. Here are my findings:
When the selector knob is in OFF mode, the two wires should not be in contact. Am I right? But when the selector knob is turned to ON mode, the lever pushes one wire towards the other, connecting the two wires and making the motor to start running. When the selector knob is moved further to automatic, the lever moves away and disconnects the wires again. Am I assuming this correctly? I studied the circuit in the service manual but my knowledge about circuits is sort of limited and I would like to confirm this before proceeding
Here are the two photos I made. The first one is with the selector knob in OFF position. Note that the two wires are in actually in contact with the small metal arc. Could this little arc be the reason why the turntable starts spinning immediately when plugged into mains? I checked and double checked the wiring of the voltage selector and everything appears to be in order there.
Here is a photo of the selector knob in ON position. You can see that the left wire was pushed closer to the right wire.
And on a more cheerful note... I did a test run today. I played a record on the turntable for about half an hour in manual mode and the playback was great. However nothing works in automatic mode . When the arm reaches the end of the record it does not lift and returns back to initial position. But that's a topic for some other day .
And I can't thank you enough for your help
I'm trying to be as careful as possible while handling the turntable since getting spare parts would probably be a mission impossible, so I hope you don't mind my questions :)
The automatic will not function because the switch is always closed, in the off position, the middle "finger" must touch the right most finger. DISCONNECT the BG from the mains. Set the selector in off mode and adjust the switch until it switches to off, you will hear a click and will be able to se it move. With the BG disconnected select on/off a couple of times, the switch must move every time.
When this works, the BG will also work in automatic, and the arm should return automaticly. Nice to hear that your pickup is working and sounding good. Remember to always set the selector in "off", when you stop playing record, if not, the idler wheel will be damaged, when resting too long on the motor drive cone.
Checking your pics one more time, The lever with the black plastic on it, most move away from the switch when in off mode, check that the lever is correctly attached to the selector switch.
Found it, I knew I had a pic somewhere, you see my switch is in another position, and the screw holding it is in the other hole
Hi guys! It's update time.
Thanks again Søren for your kind help. You are single handedly responsible for fixing my Beogram .
Yesterday I fixed the ON/OFF function. The problem was indeed the manual on/off switch. The middle finger was constantly in contact with the left finger of the switch and thus keeping it always on. The lever also had to be adjusted a little bit, I just pushed it back and it backed up for a few milimeters. After that I had to adjust the white plastic that holds the whole switching assembly. It was a bit tricky to adjust it, because even the slightest touch would move the wires from its sweet spot rendering it non-functional.
In the end everything is alright, but I can't help but wonder, whether there is maybe some sort of modification that would make this ON/OFF switching more robust? Have you guys ran into any problems with a long term usage with this switch?
However the problem still remains with the automatic mode. Unfortunately, the arm does not move towards the record and neihter does it return after the playback is finished. Even the pickup stays lowered on the record after playback... and this is sort of not good...
Søren posted a link to a thread that contains some information about the tone arm dissasembly. But still, are there any other basic stuff I should know about and be vary of before I start this procedure?
Have a great Sunday
Does the arm lower and raise when starting and stopping, Sounds like the relay is not working properly, or a part is missing or not connected properly
Regarding the On/Off Switch (Manual) I had a similar problem a few months ago. I posted it on a thread on here and Soren kindly helped me then, and it was the same switch you are talking about that needed adjustment.
I know what you mean about whether this is a long term solution but I haven't had a problem with mine since then so I think you should be OK!