One of my first posts in this blog was regarding the servicing of the Pioneer PL12D turntable, and that has proven to be the most popular by a significant margin. The Pioneer PL12D had its competitors, and probably the most popular alternative was the Trio Kenwood KD-1033 turntable. I use both names (Trio and Kenwood) as the company operated under different names in different markets. In the UK they were Trio, possibly because the brand Kenwood was most famous here for food blenders. 95% of a KD-1033 is similar to Pioneer PL12D, and servicing them is very much the same process. Both are belt drive , have an AC synchronous motor, mechanical speed change , a main bearing, sprung top deck and rubber motor mounts. the KD-1033 uses a different type of anti skate mechanism, employing a thread and weight. The plinth is shallower with an internal cross brace. One aspect that is different is the design of the main bearing, and servicing it is a little harder than a PL12D. The Pioneer main b
Repair a Thane H2O X5 Steam Mop
I volunteer at a couple of Repair cafes in the UK, and we have had a couple of these popular Thane H2O X5 Steam mops in with similar symptoms and fixes.
These devices generate steam from water held in a chamber and direct this to the head, to which a mop cloth can be attached. This steam is hot enough to break down dirt, grease while killing off any bacteria. The owners loved them and were very happy to get them working again.
The failed units no longer pumped water through the boiler chamber , and hence generated no steam despite the power light coming on.
The units will suffer with lime scale , as any electrical appliance that boils water will. However the "Catch 22" is that in order to pump a descaler through the pump to descale it, you need a working pump to extract water from the main reservoir via its umbilical hose.
I did a bit of googling and found this video from the always excellent bigclivedotcom
Clives video is the key to fixing these units.
First you need to disconnect from the mains and remove the handle which does not contain any power. It's also useful to remove the triangular cleaning head. To access the motor you carefully need to remove the rear panel. This was held on by around 8 screws, several with HEX fittings. This then enables you to very carefully open the unit
Inside we see the pump and the insulated steam chamber. Note the pump has two pipes , one at either end
a close up on the pump with its retaining screw removed. Once out you can remove the black retaining clip that holds the pump in place
With the black retaining bracket removed we can see it's very similar to the pump in Clive's video
First we need to remove the silicone pipes. I used tweezers to open the clips
Be careful, I found it very hard to remove the top (brown in the picture) pipe without splitting it and in fact needed to order a length of replacement hose online, having split the pipe in extraction. There is not enough slack to allow you to cut off even a short split section
now I can unscrew the inner section of the pump
gently remove the core
the moving part of the solenoid pump
photograph the O ring positions
separate the parts and immerse them in a descaler such as white vinegar
be very gentle with the spring loaded part of the solenoid
more washers and O rings
Descale all the parts, then rinse in water and reassemble
I made good the split pipe with some new silicone pipe , end-to-end. The size is 4mm inner diameter, with a 2mm wall thickness. Carefully refit the metal retaining clips to secure the pipes in place.
Once I had put everything back together, I ran some water through the steamer to prove that the pump was now able to pump water into the insulated boiler chamber. Once this was done I refilled the water reservoir with a descaling solution of acetic acid, or white vinegar and run the machine in bursts, so that descaler was pumped into the chamber , then allowed to work , then replaced. I did this over 4 hours with a few minutes on , then left off for 20.
I got back into vinyl records about 18 months ago, and have collected a few hundred albums, mostly second hand. I have a number of turntables (NAD 5120, Ariston QDeck, Pioneer PL12D ) which I got also second hand. I keep a few, some end up passed onto friends, some that are too far gone are kept for spares. In most cases they have required a little work to get them running again. Last week I was lucky enough to get a Pioneer PL-12D turntable from freecycle. The lady who offered it, said that she in turn had received it from freecycle , and had replaced the belt but couldn't get on with the springiness of it, and had got a modern USB turntable. I have previously worked on one of these decks, and know what she means about the suspension system used. While this blog is specifically about this particular model of deck, many of the concepts are similar to others from this vintage. Many Japanese belt drive decks throughout the 1970's shared very similar construction, so this ma
The inevitable problem, too many records. Turntable and amplifier on top Like many record collectors around the world, I have a number of IKEA cube cabinets from both their EXPEDIT (older) and KALLAX (newer) ranges. These are easy to make, cheap to buy and perfect for record storage. The system comes flat packed and uses bolts and dowels to hold the system together. If you follow the instructions the system is strong and should not collapse. You can augment the joints with PVA wood glue for extra strength. My turntable sits on top of an EXPEDIT 2x4 cabinet, laid along the long side, with some felt feet to support it from the floor, and you can use KALLAX in the same way. It's been great but has two problems I wanted to address : 1) Because the system has no back panel, the records can be pushed too far back. 2) While the structure is strong and fairly rigid, there was some lateral movement. With heavy equipment on top, I found that if I nudged or knocked either top side, this all
The Sonab 85S turntable You'll see from this blog that I'm interested in vintage audio equipment , especially turntables and speakers. I keep an eye on ebay for potential bargains, and saw this turntable listed quite close to me and for a very good price, £60 buy it now, including 45 adapter, dust bug, DIN adapter, record clamp and a very nice Shure M95 cartridge. Condition listed as very good and with the original sonab headshell. I've been interested in this deck for sometime, as to my eyes , it's a particularly nice design, with the very simple tonearm and deep chassis. I was aware that the model , from the late 70's was a cooperation between Swedish manufacturer Sonab and Yamaha. I don't know how much was contributed by which firm, but the same deck, or one very similar is also to be found as the Yamaha CP-500, though typically in teak rather than black. There were two Sonab models , the 75 and 85, the former being a manual deck, the latter an automatic, an
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