ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi,
Newbie here that just picked up a wonderful Beogram 3400.
I got it home and enjoyed side A of a favorite album and on side B lost the left channel. After wriggling cords, determined that the RCA cord was bad. Upon further inspection (removing the dust cover), noticed the power cord had a cut due to someone putting this thing back together poorly, and it actually shorted out and blew my circuit breaker when I moved it.
I pulled the platter, flipper her over and took the rear panel off. I soldered in another RCA, cut the bad section out of the power cord and re-soldered the power (minus 6"), put it all back together and flipped it over.
I fired it up, tossed on another LP and wow what a difference. The sound was beautiful. Played a couple LPs and was loving every minute of this amazing machine. Switched to a used LP I've never played before and felt like I needed to adjust the weight on the tone arm (lots of static suddenly) via the slider. That's when all heck broke loose. The cartridge tried to sit directly on the LP, so I lifted it quick before I did any damage. That seemed to make the Beogram angry.
At this point, I can press the TURN button, and the tonearm will move over to the record, but will only randomly sit all the way down on the LP and play again. Pressing start sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Not sure what got messed up here- but I think it's in the tonearm or some sensitivity with the tonearm placement.
I flipped it back over and if I remove the connectors at the control board and re-seat them, the buttons work correctly when I turn it back on (for a while)- but, when I hit start the tonearm moves over the record, but does not move down to make contact, and the platter doesn't turn. Press the TURN button and the platter turns.
I downloaded the service manual, but it's not really much help on adjusting a tonearm with the weight slider.
Any suggestions?
I searched the forum, and didn't see anything that would help. Thanks in advance!
I ended up fixing it within an hour of posting my question. I simply made small adjustments to the tonearm manually (just barely moving it with my hand) and then would test with the TURN button.
After what felt like forever of making one small adjustment at a time, then hitting TURN to see how it would react, I got it to play a record. After that, I was able to release TURN, and it would continue to play. I'd hit STOP and the tonearm would auto-return just fine. I'd hit START again, only to have it do nothing, but TURN would bring the tonearm out and it would start playing.
I let it just play through an entire side of an album. The second side, still had to start it with TURN- but I just let it play, thinking maybe after a few cycles, everything would "self-adjust" back where it needed to be. After about 3 auto-stops and returns, it finally worked with the START button again.
Now everything is fine, all controls work as they should, and I'm back to enjoying that beautiful warm tone!
Delighted to hear normality restored!
Peter
Well it quit again. Just the start button though. It clicks, like the mechanism in the start button is fine, it just doesn't do anything. Any suggestions?