Shure M105E phono cartridge

On 11/16/2010 2:41 PM Tim Schwartz spake thus:

Cue N. Cook with nonsense about opening up cartridge and repairing open winding ... or at least endless speculation about *why* it failed ...

N. Cook obsession noted. And laughed until breathless at.

Rewinding the cartridge coil(s) with wire saved from old, disassembled tape recorder heads.

-- Cheers, WB .............

False , I've never opened a magnetic cartridge. Only crystal cartridges , where the crystal is hygroscopic in the damp UK and does not survive 40 years and that includes NOS of course. They revert to paste or powder. Matter of replacing with piezo-ceramic transducer

Awww. That's not very kind ...

Arfa

Not quite sure why you find this something to jibe at. I love trying to fix things which most would simply replace. Gives a great deal of satisfaction putting one over on the makers.

Faced with the OP situation I would suspect an owner has removed a connector using pliers and has twisted the pin in the plastic and so internal broken wire at the output. I would .5mm disc grind in and/or melt in around a suspect pin. Then consider chucking if break is within a coil, but would certainly explore the construction because I don't think I've seen inside a magnestic cartridge.

On 11/17/2010 2:37 AM N_Cook spake thus:

See? See? What did I tell you?

Look; I'm as DIY as anybody. I've fixed, or at least have tried to fix, all kinds of things, some of which many people would consider hopeless.

But I recognize there are limits. N. Cook does not.

Repair a lousy magnetic cartridge? Are you serious? I'll bet he would actually get out his .5mm disc grinder if this equipment landed in his "shop". Sheesh.

Hey, he's free to broadcast the results of his bodgering here as much as he likes. I'm free to ridicule him. See how that works?

You're what, 11 years old?

On 11/17/2010 11:07 AM Meat Plow spake thus:

Hmm, that's odd: I remember you posting earlier in this thread:

Guess we just caught you in an off moment, eh?

Yeah, we see, David. But be careful. These things have a habit of boomeranging right around, to bite you on the arse ... :-)

Arfa

This usenet group is called sci.electronics.repair not how you would like it sci.electronics.chuck_it_and_buy_new

So? There is a fine line where it is a matter of ego, instead of repairing something.

Really? This comes up all the time on a one make classic car forum I read. I'll open up things like switches and relays and clean them if they give trouble. Most there seem to think it's better to buy new or used. And of course 'new' parts that are 25 years old can have corrosion on the contacts too. With a hobby, it doesn't matter much if it takes time to fix something like that out of all proportion to the cost of replacement. It's the satisfaction you get from doing it which is priceless.

like it

The silliest, normally uneconomic, job I ever did was for someone with cerebral palsey . (first time I came across that situation where you can comprehend someone's speech only if you do not look at their face and get miscued by distorted vestigial "lip-reading"). He drove (as far as i could tell with only the use of 2 fingers on a heavily modified car) 15 miles and back , twice , for me to repair the motor of a silly 12V fan that plugged into the car cigarette lighter. This fan kept his pet dog/ gofor/ assistant happy sitting in the passenger side foot well. It had a unique clip arrangement so any old fan would not do. Before the days of mobile phones so he had a distinctive car horn beep sequence and I would go out to him. It apparently took about 1/2 hour , with assistance from his dog , to get in and out of the car.

Hello again all,

When I posted my request, I was trying to save a customer some money on a repair that was getting expensive.

ONE person actually sent me an e-mail with some useful info on a web site that had a similar cartridge at a reasonable price, and thanks to him for that.

I had NO INTENTIONS of starting a thread on bashing an individual.

IF YOU CAN'T STAND POSTINGS FROM A CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL (including me) DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. Instead, either skip over posts from that person, or learn to use your browsers' features and block posts from that person.

While I do find some people attempt repairs that I would not, I also find that sometimes they have something useful to say, or have found an reasonable way to repair something that I thought could not be repaired for less than the cost of replacement.

Regards, Tim Schwartz Bristol Electronics

P.S. I had my brands wrong. The cartridges I used to see open windings in all the time was Micro Acoustics, not Audio Technica. My apologies to Audio Technica. (My memory is getting sort of foggy.)

Original post:

Hello all,

I've got a customer's turntable here with a Shure M105E p-mount cartridge in it. The stylus is fine, but the cartridge itself has an open winding. I've seen this in Audio Technica and Grado cartridges over the years, but never before in a Shure. Any chance you've got a good body without a stylus you'd part with? (In the USA preferred. I'll gladly pay shipping.)

Thanks! Tim Schwartz Bristol Electronics

Great. When someone takes that effort to get things done the least one can do is reciprocate.

About 20 years ago I made up a deaf aid for a favourite uncle. He did have two very expensive pro deaf aids but didn't like them one bit. He was house bound so only usually had one or two visitors at a time.

I made up a small battery amp with a compressor and peaked at around 2kHz. Driving a set of ordinary walkman headphones. And a lapel mic on a long lead. With that clipped on the visitor he could at long last carry on a conversation easily.

I got the idea because he used headphones to listen to the TV and radio, and said they were so much better than using his deaf aids with their speakers.

it

Yes, really. Even in a hobby, some things waste too much time and money. Those switches, for instance. If the insulators are cracked and the contacts mostly burnt away your time would be better spent finding one in better condition and refurbishing it.

That 25 year old NOS switch would be easier to refurbish, unless they were all total crap when they were made. I have seen NOS thumbwheel switches that had tuned to mush from the contact lubricant used by the manufacturer. How would you fix that?

I've scrapped new PC boards that cost us $8,000 to build, after finding internal shorts on the 16 layer circuit board. The board house was paid to test every blank board before shipping them to us. They had to pay for the scrap. There was no legitimate way to repair it, and still meet our standards so it would never be shipped to a customer.