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View Full Version : Technics 1210 mk5 tonearm



schmidtee
06-22-2012, 07:59 PM
Hey all, today I finally received a Technics 1210 mk5 I had ordered off of Guitar Center from a store out of state. I paid in total with tax/shipping, $425 for this unit. I get home and finally unbox it and discover the tonearm is snapped off right at the base. I'm assuming it was damaged during shipment. What I'm trying to decide now, is if it's worth returning and trying to find another unit at this price? Or buy a new tonearm. If it's worth keeping and fixing myself, are 1200 mk2 tonearms compatible with this unit or do I have to purchase a 1210 mk5 specific part? I'm thinking the only difference is the color between the two tonearms which doesn't bother me at all.

Nicadraus
06-22-2012, 11:13 PM
Sorry to hear that.

Return it or charge whoever is responsible. Never settle on something new which you paid for and got them broken; or you can claim from the shipper to cover the expense for the damage. :)

djlotus
06-23-2012, 10:04 AM
Sorry to hear that.

Return it of charge whoever is responsible. Never settle on something new which you paid for and got them broken; or you can claim from the shipper to cover the expense for the damage. :)

^^This. Never accept something like this. If it was damaged in shipping, GC will replace it or pay for it to be replaced.

MeowMix
06-23-2012, 12:36 PM
Cant you just take it to a GC store and let them deal with it?
If you provide the printouts of the receipt wouldnt any store take it?

schmidtee
06-23-2012, 02:12 PM
Thanks for the replies, everyone. I called my local GC and the guy just said they would refund my money. I really wish they would just cover the damage cost and fix it for me. They would most likely just fix it themselves and turn around and sell it anyway. It's not like this is just a new table that they could replace for me. I searched for quite a while and would just like to fix it myself instead of having to find another table for this price.

DJ CirKutCision
06-23-2012, 08:31 PM
You could have done that. A seller on eBay has loads of spare tonearms (interchangable between MK2s, M3Ds, MK5s, all the same) for $45 shipped plus tonearm replacement is easy if you're comfortable soldering.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Technics-Tone-Arm-SL-1200MKII-SL-1210MKII-SL-1800-/120900120841?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1c26357109#ht_500wt_922


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQK1FnHv9mo

VjQue
06-23-2012, 11:52 PM
You could have done that. A seller on eBay has loads of spare tonearms (interchangable between MK2s, M3Ds, MK5s, all the same) for $45 shipped plus tonearm replacement is easy if you're comfortable soldering.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Technics-Tone-Arm-SL-1200MKII-SL-1210MKII-SL-1800-/120900120841?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1c26357109#ht_500wt_922


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQK1FnHv9mo its not really easy. burn the board and your thru. I just repaired a guy who tried to do it cos he watched that video.

now I got a friends to do monday 2 tonearms. he took them apart to paint them.

he lost parts and damaged part.

I get his decks from the powdercoated monday and now I gotta put 2 tonearm kits back together on top of our friend took his decks apart and put all the screws together for both decks. WTF.

GC will get it back and sell it as is. they wont get it fixed or they would of said they will fix it.

DJ CirKutCision
06-24-2012, 02:57 PM
its not really easy. burn the board and your thru. I just repaired a guy who tried to do it cos he watched that video.

now I got a friends to do monday 2 tonearms. he took them apart to paint them.

he lost parts and damaged part.

I get his decks from the powdercoated monday and now I gotta put 2 tonearm kits back together on top of our friend took his decks apart and put all the screws together for both decks. WTF.

GC will get it back and sell it as is. they wont get it fixed or they would of said they will fix it.

Really? That's probably just a lack of knowing how to solder. I'm very nooby at electronics repair and I was able to replace the tonearm on my old MK2 easily. Plus, if all else fails, the boards are on eBay for $10.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Technics-1200-1210-Turntable-PC-board-for-your-RCA-connections-SFDP122-22-OEM-/221054028390?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3377d8ca66#ht_2043wt_1189

djpenguin
06-24-2012, 03:29 PM
Really? That's probably just a lack of knowing how to solder. I'm very nooby at electronics repair and I was able to replace the tonearm on my old MK2 easily. Plus, if all else fails, the boards are on eBay for $10.

A lot of people melt one of the traces right off the phono PCB when trying to change a tonearm or phono cables. I've seen it way too often.

LJay
06-25-2012, 08:10 AM
I've seen melted boards too and also solderings that are done straight to RCA-cords. If you fuck up, it's possible to solder the thin wires elsewhere, but it will not look good. Result is same though.

nyquist
07-02-2012, 05:46 AM
The issue with people burning the tracks is they are using a cheap ass iron. Buy a temp controlled iron and set it to 280 - 300 degrees C no burnt boards anymore.

Synergy
07-02-2012, 06:23 AM
what kind of soldering iron? id be interested in doing these repairs.

Phildebowl
07-06-2012, 12:48 PM
I got my iron from radio shack. It was on sale for $70. A friend gave me my 1210's years ago cause he wasn't into djing. One stopped working about 6 months ago, so I figured if I'm gonna keep em, I should be able to fix them. I opened it up and the pcboard had been fried by him, and so he'd just soldered wires to eachother, which is what was wrong, the connections broke. The pcboards are were only $15, so i went ahead and got 2 figuring the other was probably f'd too. I also decided i might as well upgrade the tonearm wire while I was doing it, so I got some 33awg. I've never soldered in my life, and read that I would need to be able to control temp soldering such small wires without burning them, so that's why I got the radio shack kit. It's usually 100, but was on sale for $70, and was well worth the purchase. I practiced once on my old pcb after watching a couple introductory soldering videos and it wasn't a problem at all, so I went for it and it was fine. Came out pretty damn good actually. I found around 450-500 was the best temp for me with the fine tip. Mainly make sure you have fully covered your tip with solder and have a little ball of it drooping off the tip. You want to use that ball of solder as your working point on the iron, and kinda touch the parts to be soldered with that ball of solder on the tip, and put your fresh solder on the other side of parts to be soldered, and let the heat attract fresh solder to the heated little ball on the tip of iron, and remove iron as soon as job is covered.

You'll most likely need to do other work on them in the future, so might as well practice while parts are easily available and cheap in my honest opinion. I just replaced my pitch faders and man, like brand new turntables now :)!

Good luck!

VjQue
07-06-2012, 04:06 PM
I got my iron from radio shack. It was on sale for $70. A friend gave me my 1210's years ago cause he wasn't into djing. One stopped working about 6 months ago, so I figured if I'm gonna keep em, I should be able to fix them. I opened it up and the pcboard had been fried by him, and so he'd just soldered wires to eachother, which is what was wrong, the connections broke. The pcboards are were only $15, so i went ahead and got 2 figuring the other was probably f'd too. I also decided i might as well upgrade the tonearm wire while I was doing it, so I got some 33awg. I've never soldered in my life, and read that I would need to be able to control temp soldering such small wires without burning them, so that's why I got the radio shack kit. It's usually 100, but was on sale for $70, and was well worth the purchase. I practiced once on my old pcb after watching a couple introductory soldering videos and it wasn't a problem at all, so I went for it and it was fine. Came out pretty damn good actually. I found around 450-500 was the best temp for me with the fine tip. Mainly make sure you have fully covered your tip with solder and have a little ball of it drooping off the tip. You want to use that ball of solder as your working point on the iron, and kinda touch the parts to be soldered with that ball of solder on the tip, and put your fresh solder on the other side of parts to be soldered, and let the heat attract fresh solder to the heated little ball on the tip of iron, and remove iron as soon as job is covered.

You'll most likely need to do other work on them in the future, so might as well practice while parts are easily available and cheap in my honest opinion. I just replaced my pitch faders and man, like brand new turntables now :)!

Good luck! good way to fuck up the board by letting a ball drop to the tip.

add to much solder and that ball will damage the board or get solder on other parts that now you need to get off.

now comes the fucking up the board.

look at how your friend fucked up the boards already.

450 to 500 temp wow.

Phildebowl
07-08-2012, 01:39 AM
Despite the sound of horror you've represented, I've replaced both of my pcb's, both of my pitch faders, and pitch faders on 6 other ttb's without any issues, including upgrading my tonearm wires, stripping them with the iron without any damage to the copper and soldering them to my new pcb's without any issue or burning anything up. Maybe "ball" was the wrong term to use, as it's just a tiny bit extra than just tinned, but from your response of horror I would think at least one thing out of all of those replacements and upgrades would have been burned?

Just trying to say, it's a good idea to figure this out, as you may not always be able to depend on someone else doing this work for you. Practice on something else to figure it out and you'll be fine, even if it's a $2 pcb from radio shack.

As far as temp, it's dependent on the solder you're using. I've been using silver which requires a higher temp than others.