JVC QL-Y3f restoration

[Ant]

The abomination of a deck arrived today.
Looked awful in the pictures, looked like it was missing bits, and was banged up pretty well.

It's actually not as bad as it looked. Although it is covered in the nasty orange nicotine residue. It's vile.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

I thought it had had a bad paintjob or had been bought as a fixer and mugged off half way through, but actually it doesn't look like it at all.
It has the original platter mat which are impossible to find, the original ph8 headshell which costs silly money if you can find one, and the original counterweight, which is again impossible to find.

The feet are missing, but thats not a problem, there are plenty of alternatives available or I can just make some.

Now I thought it had had a bad paintjob from the photos, but actually its the original colour. In the uk it was only available in the high gloss rosewood finish, but in Europe it was also available as satin black. Its a European deck as evidenced by the 220v sticker and the shaver type plug which wasn't shown in the pics, and the veneer is actually black and not painted.

It also has the original cart on it which is a JVC Z1 eb. Usually I'd bin old carts like this, but the z1 was the shibata moving magnet. The Z1 eb was an elliptical on a beryllium cantilever. There are stylii available from all sorts of sources ranging from a spherical through elliptical and shibata to a jico sas, I think ill get a new stylus for it rather than binning it, it would be nice to have a completely original deck.

It won't end up being completely original as the trim around the platter is gouged up pretty badly, so I'll have to do what I did with the y5 and repair then paint it. I'll also have to repair the veneer in several places. I could cut the damage out and fill it with a skim of filler then paint over it all, or I could re veneer it completely. I'll decide that later.

The arm lifter is broken off which is a problem for the automatic functions, but handily there is enough of it left that i can use to make a new one. Ill have to mill one out of some acrylic or delrin.

the disc size button doesn't work so the deck currently thinks it is trying to play 7" singles, and the LED's that are supposed to light up accordingly don't light up at all. So that will have to be looked at.

After some faffing with the arm and the solenoid that activates the arm lifter I got the auto start functions to work, so the arm will move off the rest and drop where its supposed to. Where a 7" single is at the moment until i figure out the busted switch and leds. There are 3 leds in the arm base and some optical sensors that are blocked by a plastic cam to control the arm, all three appear to be working, and I can get it to traverse left and right, although it will only return if it is sat on the arm lifter. which it can't because its broken.
It can be hand cued and used as it is so it is actually useable as it is.

The platter mat and counterweight have gone onto the y5 for now.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

pleased with it, It will be a nice project. Daughter already has her eye on it.......

[Ant]

Fixing the arm lifter will be more complicated than i thought.
It is actually conductive and forms a circuit (its in the ground side) when the underside of the arm touches it which tells ic 804 on the main pcb that the arm has been lifted up off the record surface and that it can traverse safely.
It also forms part of the circuit that turns off the solenoid to allow the arm to lower, it doesnt need it to raise the arm but it does need it to connect the other side of the switch to lower it.
Neat solution, but an arse ache for me.
It appears to be painted with some sort of conductive silver paint.
Any ideas where i can get that sort if paint from?

[Greg]

I think most conductive paints are black but easily found on Google. RS have it.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/electron ... lsrc=aw.ds

[Ant]

Cool, ta greg

Ive managed to fix the switch that sets the disc size for the auto functions, nice alps switches that are handily easy to take apart, it was corroded inside. An utter pig to reassemble as there are 3 springs in it.

The main return spring shot off while trying to reassemble the bloody thing so ive had to take one out of the repeat switch. The repeat switch is also corroded, but im not bothered about repeat anyway so ive not fixed that one just pinched the spring out of it for now. The switches are available from a place in germany so ill have to buy one unless i can find the spring that shot off.

I also bodged a bit of busbar wire onto the remains of the arm lifter and taped it down with copper pickup tape to make sure the auto functions are now functioning correctly. Fixing the size switch has stopped the microprocessor getting confusing signals so it now works fine.

So, it needs the lifter sorting and the repeat switch fixing to be completely back in business.

I wonder how many of these have been binned because the conductive paint has worn off the lifter, the auto functions wont work without it

[Ant]

Found the spring that buggered off on its own accord, put it into the repeat switch and discovered that there are no contacts inside the switch

So that one needs replacing

Not an issue particularly, i dont think ive ever used the repeat function on the y5

[Ant]

Got a bit more done.
Had a go at making a replacement arm lifter using some 6mm aluminium plate.
As I have discovered, and not in the service manual (it really should be) the arm lifter is an integral part of the automatic system on the deck, and has to be conductive in order for the automatic systems to work. Not having any conductive paint, using the aluminium seems to be a no brainer

There is a little pad on the underside of the arm which is made of the same stuff that you find inside games console control pads and the buttons on remote controls which completes the circuit.

First thing was to measure the distance between the centre of the arm lifter bar and the centre of the pivot point for the arm so that I could machine the right curve onto the replacement arm lifter. If it is wrong then the contact wont be made between the pad and lifter to activate the lead in and auto return. In the case of this deck it is 44mm from the centre of the arm to the centre of the bar so that gives me the radius I need to machine.

Next was to do some work to the rotary table. I hadn't used it without the chuck yet so I indicated on the centre hole of the table and rotated it to see how many thou out it was. Not far out, so I lightly machined the hole by dropping the milling machine spindle into the hole the rotating the table to correct the slight offset.

That done, the centre hole of the table is now perfectly concentric.

Next was to make an insert for the hole on the lathe with a centre hole for an alignment pin. Very simple, and with the new toolpost it came out very nicely

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

Drop a gage pin in and you can then align what you are clamping onto the table very accurately if you put a centre hole in, and align the table to the spindle very accurately for cutting offset holes.

Much aluminium swarf later and we have a rough arm lifter.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

I was also able to mill the radius around the mounting hole for the lifter by first aligning the table to the spindle with the gage pin in the collet chuck, then aligning the part to the table using a drill bit in the drill chuck and clamping it in place.

I made a cock up on this rough part by not machining the raised centre section far enough across, It needed to be about 2mm longer, so it requires a little nudge to get the arm to start to traverse

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

It was a little difficult to work out all the dimensions based on the little bit of the lifter I had left, but now I have them all I can make the part properly. Small parts always have to be a complete arse to remanufacture, a couple of thousand quids worth of equipment required to remanufacture a little unobtanium injection moulded plastic part.........

With a little nudge to start it, It now works perfectly.
Still looks pretty awful, but once I have remade the lifter correctly it will be in full working order.

Onwards!

[Nick]

Small parts always have to be a complete arse to remanufacture, a couple of thousand quids worth of equipment required to remanufacture a little unobtanium injection moulded plastic part.........

I guess this is where 3D printer would come in helpful.

[Ant]

Yep a 3d printer would have made this job much quicker, at least i have the equipment to do it without a 3d printer

[Ant]

Remade the arm lifter properly today.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

Had to alter my order of operations to get it right, and also altered the design a little. The little tail on the original has a small pin that stops the lifter from rotating by dropping into a hole in the mounting plate. This bit is a little superfluous and positioning it perfectly in the hole would be a right nightmare, so I decided not to bother. There isn't really a way to get it positioned correctly because there isn't a surface on the remains of the arm lifter that is square to be able to take a reference off.

here you can see it marked out on the plate after cutting the front face, permenant marker rather than blue to mark it, works just as well

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

and here all the features are machined, just needs breaking off the tangs I left on it so that it stayed put while the last features were cut.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

Some adjustments to the lead in and the lifter height, and a cart fitted, and the old lady is singing again

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

as a side note the cart is an Audio Technica VM95ml in a RigB ally body. Think Linn k18 which I'm sure was an at95 with a metal body and a stupid bolt through the stylus. But not bloody awful. Im quite impressed with the cart.

Jvc ql-y3f restoration by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

It is sat on some great big rubber feet, they are 60mm wide tapered rubber cups that go under the feet on washing machines to stop them walking across the kitchen. They were stuck to the underneath of my Linn Mimik cd player when I got it, got taken off because they looked stupid and put away.
Its just sat on them at the moment, they need to be stuck to some discs with m6 bots in the centre so they can be put on properly. Thats the next job.

maybe some more ally and do it properly.

Still needs a bloody good clean before any cosmetic work is started

Onwards!

[Ant]

Gave it a good clean with a magic eraser sponge and a little water and it looks 10 times better.

Also found that musonic does an elliptical stylus for the z1 for 39 quid and a shibata stylus for 135 quid

I think the shibata for a vm95 is more expensive than that, and its half the price of the one on the vm750sh i have. Pretty good value

Ill get an elliptical for it first and see what it sounds like as this deck had the original z1 eb that it came with on it which was the elliptical version

The black plinth is growing on me quite alot, i think it looks rather nice in satin black. I also like the little slot in the arm base for storing another headshell, nice little touch

[Ant]

Got the last of the functional bits done on it today, got some feet made and got a new stylus on the cart.
I priced up some aluminium, some acetal and some brass to see about making the feet, and came to the conclusion that I could just buy some feet for the cost of materials.

However, as I am such a cheapskate git, while out shopping I saw a cheap nylon plastic chopping board for £2.50, and thought "that'll do'

Jvc ql-y3f restoration feet by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

First had to turn an arbor to hold the blank cut from the board, it's secured via an m5 bolt in the front of the arbor, then turned it down to diameter

Jvc ql-y3f restoration feet by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

It is then glued to the top of the big rubber foot

Jvc ql-y3f restoration feet by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

A lick of paint and a 6mm stud through the centre hole, and we have a functional foot (or 4)
I am debating wether to swap the new feet over onto the y5 and put its original feet on this as this one is much more original than the y5 is

The new elliptical stylus arrived from Musonic so I've also fitted that, I'm quite surprised how nice the z1 eb cart sounds. Smooth and detailed, is seems pretty neutral. The shibata upgrade will be done at some point if I keep it

Jvc ql-y3f restoration z1eb + new stylus by anthony cresswell, on Flickr

So, mechanically and electrically the deck is now spot on. It's just abit cosmetically challenged.

Onwards!