removing pitch notch - a success story

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-- removing pitch notch - a success story

Posted by punchline on Oct-22-2003 05:50:

removing pitch notch - a success story

I did a quick search but I didn't see anything recent about this so I apologize if this thread has been done before.

I just wanted to share with you all, my suceessful experience with removing the pitch notch in my MK2s. I decided to do it because I had one too many battles against my tables over accurate pitch control near 0. Needless to say, I lost a lot of those battles.

I pretty much followed these instructions to the letter
http://music.hyperreal.org/dj/pitch_slider/

I was a little worried at first, but I am pretty good with electronics and figured that at the worst I could buy a replacement pitch control if I screwed it up.

Desoldering the pitch control from the circuit board was a nightmare. Not only is it soldered in, but some of the connections were twisted before the solder was applied, I figure to prevent movement in the slot. The bearing and spring which are the cause of the click are in their slot pretty tightly. I wasn't careful and they shot out of the pitch control and hit me in the face and went bouncing around the room when I attempted to remove them, so a word of caution.

After I removed the offending piece of metal, I put everything back and tested it. It worked like a charm except my zero point had moved. To fix this I calibrated the pitch using the method here...

http://music.hyperreal.org/dj/sl1200.html

While I was at it, I went ahead and adjusted the braking mechanism so that the table stopped nice and quick like my other one.

Overall, it took about 2 to 3 hours with the nightmare desoldering included. But the time was worth it since now I have a smooth pitch control.

Maybe I was lucky, but nothing went wrong the whole time. I wouldn't recommend it though if you are unfamiliar with electronics. I'm a gearhead for this kind of stuff, and I guess some people here can relate. I just feel better about something after I have taken it completely apart and seen how everything in it worked.

Posted by DJ1MK on Oct-22-2003 10:39:

I'd love to do that with the technic I have hear but wouldn't trust myself (and the table isn't mine...). Glad it worked for you That notch is indeed annoying.

Posted by Unknown DJ on Oct-22-2003 13:50:

do mk3 pitch faders fit in the mk2's? its a shame if they dont. would be quite usefull.

Posted by VIO on Oct-22-2003 15:04:

there is no mk3 it's an m3d. the m3d pitch faders do fit the mkii. they are about $35-$45 each though.

Posted by Rememberence_ on Oct-22-2003 16:59:

quote:
Originally posted by VIO
there is no mk3 it's an m3d. the m3d pitch faders do fit the mkii. they are about $35-$45 each though.

Actually the series after the MK2 is refered to as "MK3D", I guess that classification encompasses all series 3 models.

Posted by VIO on Oct-22-2003 18:15:

Posted by VIO on Oct-22-2003 18:21:

if the pics don't show up in my last post try these.

http://www.freewebs.com/dj_vio/1200m3dser.jpg
1200m3d service manual

http://www.freewebs.com/dj_vio/technics1200m3downer.jpg
1200m3d users manual

Posted by T:REBEL on Oct-22-2003 18:47:

MK3D = M3D

Posted by VIO on Oct-22-2003 18:55:

well this is a dumb argument. but if panasonic/technics service and owners manual designate it as an m3d and it says "m3d" on the actual turntable then not only does mk3d not equal an m3d, there is no such thing as an mk3d. but regardless it doesn't really matter, we all know what we're talking about when we call it an mk3, an mk3d or an m3d. the point of the post is that a pitch slder from an m3d, mk3, mk3d will fit on an mk2. cheers.

Posted by T:REBEL on Oct-22-2003 18:59:

quote:
Originally posted by VIO
well this is a dumb argument. but if panasonic/technics service and owners manual designate it as an m3d and it says "m3d" on the actual turntable then not only does mk3d not equal an m3d, there is no such thing as an mk3d. but regardless it doesn't really matter, we all know what we're talking about when we call it an mk3, an mk3d or an m3d. the point of the post is that a pitch slder from an m3d, mk3, mk3d will fit on an mk2. cheers.

Yeah, it's a dumb argument. When I bought my M3D from Guitar Center a while back, it was labeled an MK3D.

Therefore, as you said...M3d, Mk3, Mk3d...same difference...pitch slider will fit on an MK2.

Posted by VIO on Oct-22-2003 19:16:

quote:
Originally posted by T:REBEL
Yeah, it's a dumb argument. When I bought my M3D from Guitar Center a while back, it was labeled an MK3D.

Therefore, as you said...M3d, Mk3, Mk3d...same difference...pitch slider will fit on an MK2.

well not that's just odd. my mate's m3d's are labeled as "m3d" on the actual table it's self. hhhmmmm.. i wonder what's up with that. i went to panasonic's website and it says "m3d" not "mk3d" but if you have a table that says "mk3d" on it then it obviously exists. how strange. now i'm really curious as to why that is. i have mk2s myself by the way. well it seems i was wrong then and there is such a things as an mk3d. i wonder if there's any difference (even a very minute one as in where it was produced or something) at all between an mk3d and an m3d. there would have to be some reason that penasonic would label the same table differently. does your mk3d have a voltage selector perhaps? now i just have to find why some are labeled as m3d and one labeled as mk3d. damn my curiosity!!!

Posted by nebbian on Oct-24-2003 23:17:

The pitch faders in my CD decks were shot, one of them required you to press down on it at some parts of its travel for it to work.

So, thought I, let's pull it off and replace it!

But pitch sliders are a weird beast... Instead of a normal potentiometer that has 3 legs, this one had a lot more. It turns out that they have TWO wipers, which are both at 0 volts when the slider is in the center position. When you move it in the positive direction, one wiper will start to slide up to 5 volts, and when you move it negative the other wiper will slide up to its 5 volts. So at any one time at least one of the wipers will be at 0 volts. This is pretty weird, and results in inaccurate pitch around the 0% mark -- moving it slowly in the reverse direction will have the pitch hover at 0%, then jump to -0.7%. I'm not sure if other CD players are like this, but my omnitronic decks just weren't good enough.

So down I toddled to Dick Smith, bought some normal slider pots, and an AT90S8535 (a programmable computer on a chip). It took me a couple of weeks to write the program for it (to convert a single 0-5V signal into two 0-5V signals), but in the end I got perfect dipless pitch! This has worked flawlessly for a couple of months now, and gives very accurate pitch control, even better than was originally on the decks when they were new :-)

Posted by Vert on Oct-25-2003 23:01:

quote:
Originally posted by VIO
well not that's just odd. my mate's m3d's are labeled as "m3d" on the actual table it's self. hhhmmmm.. i wonder what's up with that. i went to panasonic's website and it says "m3d" not "mk3d" but if you have a table that says "mk3d" on it then it obviously exists. how strange. now i'm really curious as to why that is. i have mk2s myself by the way. well it seems i was wrong then and there is such a things as an mk3d. i wonder if there's any difference (even a very minute one as in where it was produced or something) at all between an mk3d and an m3d. there would have to be some reason that penasonic would label the same table differently. does your mk3d have a voltage selector perhaps? now i just have to find why some are labeled as m3d and one labeled as mk3d. damn my curiosity!!!

No, he probably meant thats what guitar center called it (on their label or whatever), meaning they fucked up too. There is no MK3d.

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