CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[jordie8472]

Hey everyone!

I've been enjoying my SKT-090 player, but the one thing that I notice is that the picture comes up just a little too late (usually cutting off the opening Selectavision fanfare). I'm curious if this is normal or not The player works like a champ other than that.

[RT9342]

I'm more familiar with the SFT/SGT models than the SJT/SKT models, so I may not exactly have the best answer, but it sounds to me like the tonearm is moved out a little too far upon starting. I don't know if the gears are out of alignment, causing the tonearm to not come to the front of the player far enough, or if perhaps the potentiometer is out of alignment and causing the problem. But I don't know for sure - I'm afraid I'm speculating, as I have not actually had that problem with the SJT-090 that I once had. But having a general knowledge on how that player works (and how it differs from the SFT/SGT models), I would suspect the problem to be somewhere in the tonearm's drive assembly. Or it could be the discs too (I've seen that a lot on certain discs that have scratches on the edges), but if you've tried many discs and they all do that, then it would probably be the player.

[jordie8472]

Well, it was recently refurbished before I bought it so I guess it's possible that a gear or gears could be out of alignment.

[rsrendfeld]

Try this: Load a disk then FAST FORWARD all the way to the end of the side. When the player goes to reject remove the disk.
This should reset the radius sense control gear.
Now load a disk. It should start correctly.

[jordie8472]

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a shot tomorrow and let you know how it goes

[jordie8472]

Tried it and didn't seem to do anything. Still starts up slow.

[7jlong]

From my experience I'll say that the J/K series seemed remarkably resilient with regard to finding the home position of the tonearm. Tom has mentioned in the site proper and the old digests that the F/G series have a stylus landing adjustment, but I have found no evidence of one for the J/K series.

There is a Landing Switch in these players that, if I am understanding this correctly, tells the player when the tonearm is in proper position to drop the stylus. This may be out of alignment?

I've never had this problem over a few machines with similar designs, but that's what I'd look at. Someone with more experience with this kind of problem may be able to extrapolate from the above what I'm getting at and let you know what might be done - or point out why I'm being crazy.

This info was had from an SJT 400 service manual, so there may be some slight variation when it comes to your 090.

Anyone?

In the meantime, if you think the stylus in your SJT 100 has any life to it, have you tried swapping it into your 090 to see what happens? They're completely compatible cartridges, so it might be worth a shot.

(p.s. I have an 090 that I'll try to take a look at tonight and see if I can make sense of my own hypothesis)

[jordie8472]

Hey. Just to let you know, the player is starting from the beginning now. I've done about three run-throughs of movies and it's working much better. Maybe the 090 has a mind of it's own??

[toasterking]

[jordie8472]

I'll keep it in mind. Thankfully it's running nicely now. Just watched the first part of Star Trek The Motion Picture this morning and it started up from the beginning

[7jlong]