Rega R200 Anit-skate

[Van_Isle]

I am in possession of a Rega Planar 3 with a R200 arm that I am cleaning up for a local charity thrift shop that I help out at (yes, someone donated a Planar 3).

It seems it has suffered the infamous anti-skate belt failure. The dial spins with no effect.

I've read a number potential fixes including kits, glueing to a fixed setting, printer belts, VCR belts ...

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Planar3_1.jpg (118.54 KiB) Viewed 1920 times

Planar3_2.jpg (122.36 KiB) Viewed 1920 times

Other than the anti-skate, all seems to work fine. Needed quite a clean-up. Came with a Mission Solitaire cartridge. I suspect the thrift shop will price this in the range of $40 when I take it back to them!

[thermionics]

Hi, Here is my fix. String and hot melt glue.

This is very fiddly, however, it will result in perfect functionality and will last for ~57.8 years. This arm is well worth the effort I reckon.

It required 2 mods to the internal mechanism.

1. Break off a little metal tab near the knob. Procede gently with pliers.

2. Drill a small hole into the adjustment knob for the string to be retained. Feed the ends of the string into the hole "Glue and Screw" retention.

I used orange goo remover to loosen the nail varnish or whatever is holding the lower horizontal bearing together.

Get your head around the mechanism and the attachment points will become obvious.

One gotcha is that the edge of the teeth of the large cog sit in a recess so be aware of that when you glue the string to the large cog. Do this before attaching the string to the adjusting knob and check for free movement. Luckily for me hotmelt glue is easily trim-able.

[thermionics]

Or you could sell me the arm and donate the money to the thrift shop

[Van_Isle]

Looks interesting. Thanks!

[brassnwood]

Hi Van_Isle,
from a previous blog of mine ....
The anti-skate belt problem which I have also encountered, has been rectified by drilling [very carefully] a 4mm hole thro' the casting on other side of arm to the AS dial. Then, with patience, & a fine pair of tweezers, remove piece by piece of the old belt thro' this small hole. With a small screwdriver blade, the AS can be adjusted tooth by tooth on the cog now visible thro' new hole:-)
I didn't even take the arm off the plinth - but only recommended if you have steady hands
Cheers,
GC

[Van_Isle]

MARRS communications will make up a belt for the Rega turntables but they need exact dimensions. Mine's in tiny pieces - so I don't have exact length / no. of teeth.

But this is potentially a huge opportunity for all those R200 owners out there!

[guitarpicker]

New here,awesome site?Any know if pitch 1mm lenth140 mm. width 3.5 .old planer 2 deck.antiskate belt

[Van_Isle]

We are not 100% sure of the length. There is, by the way, a parallel thread I started on audiokarma.org: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showth ... p?t=446303

As noted over on Audiokarma, here are the dimensions I managed to get from the pieces of belt I pulled out of mine (from the AS knob - I haven't pulled the whole arm apart yet):

1mm pitch
width = 3.5mm
height of the belt (including teeth) 1.3mm

I also found a forum where one poster asked the question (unanswered of course) to confirm belt dimensions that they found:

1mm pitch (nominal)
no. teeth = 134
length = 138mm
width 3.8mm
height = 1.4mm

These guys here have 140mm long belts with 1mm pitch, 3mm wide -

https://sdp-si.com/eStore/Direct.asp?GroupID=342

Those belts might work with a shim on the side to act as a tensioner as per this ebay ad?:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rega-R200-Ant ... 30&afsrc=1

My summer break starts in a couple weeks so I expect to be able to put some serious time into a solution at that point.

[guitarpicker]

Awesome to here,I found the same belt at sdp-si.com. Maybe we can work this out for lot of Diys here. thanks for help.

[guitarpicker]

Let me know how you make out with this.I dont have time right now.

[Van_Isle]

The UK supplier of the kits has reposted on ebay. And I've just confirmed he will ship internationally:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/rega-R200-ant ... 0764126146

[Van_Isle]

I've ordered a kit from the UK seller. Seemed like the easiest route since sourcing a belt and design / fab is all done. I'll report back once it has arrived.