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Old 19th Oct 2011, 10:06 pm   #9
Darren-UK
Retired Dormant Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Blackpool, Lancashire, UK.
Posts: 4,061
Default The deck, specifics Part 5.

A brief insight into Collaro decks

These decks differ to the BSR and Garrard types which this guide has featured so far. Quite fascinating to watch in action are the Conquest and Studio models; the tonearm itself feels and sets the record size before the actual play cycle begins.

Michael Maurice has produced a very good illustrated guide to servicing the Conquest here. It is therefore not intended to go into any great detail herein, so what follows is merely for comparison purposes with other decks within this guide. This website may also be of interest.

Michael has also produced a most frightfully useful guide to the Collaro Studio here.

Collaro also manufactured decks which were more conventional in operation; the RC54 and RC456 to give two examples (of those two, the former is 3-speed and the latter 4-speed). Despite the relative complexity of Collaro decks, possible faults and their cures are pretty much the same as other makes of deck.

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This image shows a tatty old Portogram record player fitted with a Collaro RC456 deck. This deck differs to the Conquest in that it has a more conventional 'finger' to detect record size, otherwise it's essentially similar. Of interest is that this Portogram has a 110V 60Hz motor, for the USA market, but has been converted for use in the UK. See next images.

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The lefthand image shows a Collaro speciality - twin idler wheels. The wheel on the left drives the turntable, that on the right drives the auto cycle. Although this makes the mechanism somewhat more complex, the idea was to allow the cycle to operate at the same speed regardless of turntable speed. Nice idea because other makes of deck look quite absurd during the autochange cycle at 78RPM; BSR decks in particular can be prone to tonearm bounce, as a result of records dropping, at that speed due to their relatively soft suspension.

Mention was made above about the USA - UK conversion; note the stepped pulley is a blue colour. This is part of the conversion and compensates for the difference in motor speed due to the 10Hz difference in mains frequency, so should you come across a blue pulley this is the reason for it. "Pulley", incidentally, is a misnomer but it's in common use nonetheless. "Stepped drum" would be a more accurate term. (It's appropriate to mention at this point that BSR sometimes used a different pulley arrangement; 78RPM was a seperate component whilst other speeds were machined into the motor shaft.)

The centre image shows the mechanics on the underside of the same deck. Note the relative complexity and also the cam mounted on the underside. The righthand image (courtesy of Mike Phelan) shows the underside of a Garrard 3500 deck and is included for comparison.

Towards the bottom of the centre image can be seen a brown Bakelite switch, this feature is common to all autochanger decks. As will be obvious, this switch connects and disconnects the power to/from the motor. It is operated via mechanical linkage from the Start/Auto/Reject control when starting and via the mechanical shutdown mechanism at the end of play. These switches rarely give trouble although it's not unknown. So if power is there and the controls feel like they're working OK yet the motor won't start, it's worth checking this switch and the wiring to it before looking at the motor itself.

Once again, due to Michael's post, linked to above, we needn't say anymore here about Collaros. However, should you encounter a problem which this guide or Michael's doesn't cover then please create a new thread for that purpose.

Finally for this post, something of an amusing irony quoted from a service sheet concerning Collaro decks:
Quote:
The autochanger mechanism is designed to be as foolproof as possible. In addition, liability to breakdowns due to wear and tear is reduced by utilising the minimum number of actual working parts.
Minimum number? compare the Collaro to the couple of other makes of deck illustrated in this guide! In fairness, however, as relatively complex as Collaro decks appear to be, they tend to give less trouble than other makes of deck. The Trip Pawl mechanism, in particular, generally operates reliably and with little need for attention.
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