Vestax pdx customization

[NickyJ]

I wanted to customize my turntables, Vestax PDX, for a custom table build project.

Plan:
-self ground
-Paint white to match the table
-include all text on the turntable so it looks OEM
-add halos under the platter and start/stop button
-upgrade tonearm

Taking it apart:
-Undo the 2 screws holding in the platter.
-I cut a hole in a cardboard box to be able to flip the turntable upside-down without damaging the tonearm.
-Unscrew all of the screws at the bottom of the turntable (don't worry about the legs)

When done it'll look like this:

Notice all of the empty space to work with

(Special thanks to st3pupdj on youtube for demonstrating this in a video)

[NickyJ]

Self-grounding:
to find the wire responsible for the hum when not grounded, I took a wire, held it onto one of the obvious grounds, and touched it to each of the different wires connecting the turntable to the circuit board:

I plugged the table into a mixer without connecting the grounding cable and listened to the hum. When I touched the wire attached to a grounded pin inside the turntable to each of the different wire leads in the above pic, I found that when I pressed it to one, the hum disappeared.

Below is a pic of the wire lead I found which cuts out the hum:


I will take a wire, attach one end to one of several obvious grounds inside the turntable and solder the other end to this lead and I won't ever have that annoying hum only relieved by using ground wires.

[polo]

hi do you still have the pics pls? they are not on the forum

[NickyJ]

Next, in order to paint it, you have to remove all of the components which are attached to the top.

I took a million pics of each part, every screw and wire connection before I took it apart so I knew how to put it all back together when done. Eventually you end up with a piece of plastic ready to sand with 400-600 grit sandpaper, tape off and then spray with a plastic spray paint. I chose glossy white.



The piece with the writing on it comes apart from the rest of the table. I took that part and put it into a scanner and got a perfect life-size image of the part I want to get the text from.

Then I scanned it as black & white:

I popped this into photoshop and hand vectorized it (pixel by painstaking pixel) to get a pure black & white image and sharpened the edges of all writing.

After some research, I landed on this stuff called Inkjet Waterslide Decal paper which I ordered from here. I chose this stuff because it's so thin and can slide around a bit before securing so you can play with it to get it positioned properly.

[NickyJ]

Here is my final piece printed onto the special glossy decal paper


Then apply a solution to seal the ink into the plastic and cut after dried:


Once applied onto the part:

[NickyJ]

I ended up painting the part I left silver in the above pic and repeated the decal for the text over that section

[NickyJ]

Vestax turntables have 2 basic types on their PDX line.

ASTS which is what my turntable had anyway:


And Dynamic Balance Tonearm which is harder to come by and has added skip resistance optimum for scratching:


I happened to find an individual dynamic balance arm on eBay. The problem was it had a curved arm & being a scratch-man, I prefer straight.
So, I swapped out the curve and popped in my straight which was fairly straightforward

[DTR]

More nice work

[NickyJ]

Thank you. I think I'm most impressed with that inkjet waterslide decal paper. It makes the whole thing come out really nice and professional.

Its amazing what some paint can do to change a turntable and with that decal paper, it makes it seem OEM & legit.

This weekend I plan on finishing this project. I have to apply 1 more decal then clear coat, then put it all back together & wire in halos & maybe a custom switch.

[NickyJ]

Looking at these pics, I'm noticing imperfections I haven't been able to see with my own eyes which are sort of bothering me. I might take it apart again, do another layer or two of clear coat, wet sand with 1200, 1500 & 2000, buff and blow another day making it perfect.... but that might have to wait for some time a ways down the road. Feeling a bit fried after today, haha.

I also want to do a halo under the start/stop button which I didn't get to today because the wire connectors I had sucked, but I'll do it someday.

Sorry I forgot to take pics of the wiring which took some trial and error figuring it all out, but I can open it up easy enough to show & tell sometime soon.