Lenco

I’ve rebuilt and modified quite a few Lencos over the years. I was clearing out some junk in my office and came across a Lenco project I started some years ago and decided I needed to finish it. It started out with a conveniently sized sheet of 5mm aluminium that I milled out with the help of a good friend.

I had intended to turn up a complete new bearing and I think it was the length of time I took chewing it over that put the project on the back burner. Anyway over the weekend I sorted out a bearing for it. I decided it would be easier to simply beef up an existing bearing and I had just enough brass stock to that.

The mods included machining 5mm or so off the bottom of the original bearing housing as the original thrust plate and circlip are no longer required. The brass end cap makes the bearing oil tight for the first time in its life :slightly_smiling_face:

With brass sleeve epoxied to the original bearing housing the finished bearing looks like this.


I’ve also turned up a pair of mounting rings for the bearing.

The bearing will mount directly into the plinth and not into the top plate.
I started the plinth yesterday and it’s being made from three sections cut from an old work bench that came out of a building at work. It’s dense plywood and quite heavy. Could be Permali or something similar. I’ll post some pics of that later.

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Watching this with interest. Run a PTP stainless steel split top plate bolted to a piece of slate; the lenco motor could power a tram…

With the PTP the idler mechanism is still attached to the bearing so I decided to separate the bearing from the rest of the drive mechanism.
This is the Lenco in my system atm showing how I separated the bearing.

FWIW everything’s bolted to a big lump of wood so I do wonder how much decoupling there really is?

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Incredible :clap::clap::clap::clap:
I can just about wire a plug :disappointed:

I think the main thing is to improve the rigidity of the bearing mounting over the original thin pressed steel. I don’t think your bearing is going anywhere.
Consensus seems to agree that idlers like mass over decoupling. I like the simplicity of the Lenco, my PTP has even fewer bits to go rong; I can focus my OCD on the arm and cartridge.

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Just to show other readers what a PTP top plate is.

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I was looking at some PTP builds last night. I do like the stainless bearing housing he makes :+1:

Contemplating a bearing at the moment.

If it helps, ime the TT platter spins better with one than without and, even better, it’s measurable.

You objectivists…

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I’ve made some alterations to my top plate.

The idler is now fixed at 33 rpm and the redundant mechanism has been altered to disconnect the idler. You can just make out the monofilament that I’ve used to connect the idler rod to the control arm.
I’ve made a template so I can mark out where the cut outs will be in the plinth.

I’m not 100% sure about this yet. I might cut some 8mm steel plate yet and bond that the top plate so I only need to cut out the plinth for the motor and the bearing. I do have some acrylic sheet but I think steel will damp the top plate better.

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'Eavy. Cunning repurposing of the speed change gubbins.

Not much done today but I managed to screw the three layers of the plinth together.

Tomorrow I’ll cut the apertures in the plinth and glue it together.

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That is some workshop you have there :ok_hand:

2000 sq feet :slightly_smiling_face: It’s a bit of a mess atm but there’s a lot going on.

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I’ve cut the hole for the motor and the bearing and glued and screwed the three layers of ply together.

I’ve also glued three M8 nuts into the top of the lower layer for the adjustable feet. I now need to leave it for a few days for the PVA to dry.

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Sttely progress. What was the plinth wood dong before repurposing?

It was top of a work bench in our maintenance dept. It’s bloody hard stuff. You can’t put a wood screw in it without a pilot hole.

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Try a bigger hammer :hammer:

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He is not fettling a cartridge @J_B

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