Technics SP-10 TT motor capacitors?

Pryso, I saw that UK site; in fact you may be the one that originally supplied me with the URL. Due to the devaluation of the pound vs the dollar, it's become a more reasonable proposition. Certainly, for anyone who is not into DIY and who has an SP10 Mk2 chassis but no PS, this is the easiest way to go. I had raised questions about their copper mat, which does LOOK delicious; at over 2kg, its mass could affect the servo mechanism, I think.

Strathorncat, Your observation is in agreement with my thought that there are probably a lot of SP10s (and Denons and etc.) that "work" fine, but could be working a lot better with fresh electrolytic capacitors.

There are more small value lytics in the onboard electronics module. You will have to turn your tt chassis over to unbolt the tray that covers the PCB in question in order to find and replace them, if you want to do so that is.

FWIW, While I am an old hand at DIY, I have too many projects and so farmed out the capacitor change to Bill Thalmann at Music Technology in Springfield, VA. Bill is very experienced and way way more knowledgeable than I am. He thought it was prudent to replace them all. We used Panasonic FC types, which Bill likes; they have lower ESR than any that were made back in the day. He is so much more skilled than I and works so fast that the cost was quite reasonable. My Mk2A had been completely refurbished by Technics in 1989 and was never used thereafter. Ergo the lytic caps were "new" but 20 years old. For a unit that has been in constant or even occasional use all these years, one might justify replacing only the bad caps. Unused caps go south quicker. Now I have to go do income taxes, yet another night that I cannot work on my SP10.

There is a certain piece of mind in knowing the lytics are not going to leak and take out an irreplaceable IC. (Most of the ICs in that circuit are no longer made, and some of them were custom built for Technics specifically for that circuit, so not easy to find subs.)

Raul, I think you have the completely wrong idea in this rare case. For me, the reason to change the electrolytic caps in ANY device that has been sitting on a shelf for 20 years is simply to avoid a failure that could damage other, much more irreplaceable parts, NOT to make the turntable "sound" better in any way. If you read what I wrote, I did say that for a unit that has been in constant or intermittent service all along, probably this is less of a risk. Further, forget what I may think, Bill Thalmann agreed. He spends his days fixing broken electronics. Also, he did not solicit the work; he is snowed under with repair jobs. He had/has no ulterior motive whatever.

Having vented on that subject, I admit there ARE some sp10 users who think it is necessary to install Black Gate electrolytics in the PS, for reasons you suggest. I used Panasonics that cost less than a buck apiece in most cases.

Strathorncat, Sounds like you know how to read a schematic and have an SP10 service manual. You will therefore know or be able to see that the external PS is far from "state of the art", even for 1980. I think this means that Technics built it as good as it had to be for the job it has to do: supply 5V and 32.5V regulated voltages and unregulated 140V to the main circuits built into the chassis. If one were really a zealot, one could build a "better" outboard supply, with better more modern regulators, a reguated 140V supply, etc. I doubt it would make much difference. Still...... I think about it once in a while. This falls far short of externalizing all the in-board circuitry as well, which I would be very reluctant to do.

Raul, Sorry for the tone of my post, if it was too intense. In response to your latest, I can only say that there definitely ARE reports on the internet, on various other sites, of SP10s that won't hold speed, that have lost torque, that are plain "dead", etc. It is not unlikely that many of these problems were caused by old electrolytic capacitors that had become leaky and then destroyed downstream transistors or ICs. As Strathorncat said, I don't expect any "improvement" over the basic as-new performance of a fully functional SP10 Mk2A.

Stay tuned for the battery-supplied SP10, however. (Not hard to do for the 5V supply.) That would be cool.