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Motor Hum: A Story of Victory


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I thought I would throw this together for any others experiencing a similar issue - it may be common sense to some, but it sure helped me.

 

TLDR: Oil your motors and sub-platters!

 

I've had my current Pro-Ject table for about 8 years now, nothing special but it's been a solid performer and never let me down. Over the past year or so I noticed a very slight hum developing - this would occur only when the needle was in contact with a moving record. After searching high and low, attaching and detaching motor mounts, oiling parts, replacing the belt, isolating the table, etc., I could not get the hum to go away and over time it became more and more noticeable.

 

At this point, I had just about accepted this as part of my set-up when I stumbled on an old post in the blackholes that are audio forums from the early aughts. I was turned on to a small bottle of sewing machine lubricant and a few places to try oiling so I thought "what could it hurt?"

 

I started by oiling the base of the motor spindle, which immediately made a noticeable difference in sound, the hum had been reduced to about 60%. In search of the cleanest sound possible, I started poking around the table for more metal-on-metal action when I moved to the sub-platter. This was most likely the true culprit as there was very little lubrication on either the spindle itself or the surfaces inside where the spindle rotates. Just 2-3 drops of lubricant onto the spindle, a few manual rotations to spread the oil and my table is running as it did out of the box on day 1 – ZERO HUM.

 

For those interested, I used ProTeca synthetic oil per some suggestions to look into sewing machine oils – it's $8.99 on Amazon and the needle applicator works like a charm for those tight spots!

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041OXUZS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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  • 1 month later...

Nice. I am going to attempt to completely restore a non-running, old, Dual turntable that came with our new house. Watched a Youtube vid and the guy used 3 in 1 oil. Going to lubricate everything, deoxit, and pull apart the motor. I am not all that mechanically inclined, so if I pull this off it will be a minor miracle.

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