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Old 29th Aug 2012, 8:09 pm   #1
af024
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Default Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Well this one was such a pig.

I thought I'd share some of my trials and tribulations with you in the attached write-up.

No going to sleep now - there will be questions later!

Regards,

Andy
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Old 29th Aug 2012, 8:16 pm   #2
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Oh, I forgot to mention that the rubber feet were a pain also - they kept falling off. Some good old Evostick got them sorted too, the little monkeys.

I also forgot to show the 'before' and 'after' and darkened artwork on the paper labels.

Regards,

Andy
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Old 1st Sep 2012, 12:07 pm   #3
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Wow- well done for sticking with it Andy, the end result looks superb !

It must be very satisfying to achieve a result like that. No doubt it will be making it's Lupin Farm debut next year? Or do you not want to subject it to all that dust and grit?!

One question- what substance did you actually 'cast' the Dansette badge in?

Steve
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Old 1st Sep 2012, 1:30 pm   #4
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Hello Steve,

Thank you for your kind thoughts. Yes it was a bit of a pain to say the least. It certainly took my patience to the limit.

Perhaps a bit of dust and grit might age the newly polished bits and give the whole thing some patina back?

Oh yes, the substance, it was 'David's Fastglass Resin' to be precise. No doubt there are other similar products on the market, it's just that I happened to have some in the garage. I think it came from Halfords.
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Old 1st Sep 2012, 1:32 pm   #5
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

A photo of the stuff ...
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Old 2nd Jun 2013, 6:17 pm   #6
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

I have one of these, and found by removing the metal weights from the arm and under the cartridge the speed tends to play better instead of fluxing up and down when playing, only problem I have with mine is on gram it tends to be tinny, plenty of volume just hurts your ears, radio is lovely and mellow, not sure if there's something that can be changed on the gram amp circuit that would solve it.
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Old 2nd Jun 2013, 8:47 pm   #7
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Hello astro63,

What you say about the audio from the record player echos my own thoughts. I thought it was me, but it would seem as though this is how they are.

Does yours have the little separate pre-amp board shown in the photos below (that's strangely not indicated on the service information)?

Regards,

Andy
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Old 2nd Jun 2013, 8:49 pm   #8
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Very impressive well done sticking with it must try that resin .Mick.
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Old 3rd Jun 2013, 9:22 pm   #9
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Hi Andy,

Yep has the same little circuit board as yours. Held on to the deck board via a screw which goes into the pick up arm rest. Shame the decks are so tinny to the ear. I've tried different GP79 cartridges and replaced the ceramic stick inside the cartridge with modern but still awful. I still find the first track on a album plays slow so think it's just bad design via Staar who made the decks. The Princess was remade with bigger cabnet and used the BSR GU7 deck later on, but I can't remember if it had the same guts inside. What it needed was a tone control or someone clever who can say change this bit for A.... and solve it But if you still got speed problems I'd remove the weight under the cartridge and if there's a long one along the underneath of the arm.

Also on the motor there's a screw (two next to each other) turning a couple of mm clockwise will increase the motor speed, but don't apply too much pressure when you do it as you can bend the governor bit.
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Old 3rd Jun 2013, 10:02 pm   #10
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Thank you for the compliments Mick, it was a bit of a faff. The badged produced were very brittle, but at least they get protected once mounted to the facia.

astro63, so yours too has the little PCB. I did wonder whether it was someone's unauthorised mod to try and deal with the awful sound, but clearly not. I wonder if it's worth trying increasing the series input resistor value?

I also wondered whether or not to try one of the pre-amps described here https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...t=65007&page=2 (in my case for a Cossor 544 player) instead of that PCB, but I never did try it on this particular player. I might say that it worked wonders on the Cossor though.

My Princess does wow a bit, but it will hang onto a reasonable approximation of both speeds from start to finish, but if yours is assisted by the removal of the weights (and it still tarcks and sounds ok), then that's somethingt to think about. The idler wheel seems soft enough in may case and it seems to align with the motor pulley etc ok. If this is the source of your problem, then I'm not sure where you might get a replacement. Perhaps try stretching a suitably-sized flat belt around the circumference?

Good game.

Regards,

Andy
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Old 4th Jun 2013, 10:24 pm   #11
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Mine plays pretty well with the weights removed, there's the odd single which jumps but tends to be due to the beaty thumping of the recording, I can't say for later records like from late 60's onwards, also odd times one may slow down but that's down to slipping on the turntable. I also have a Cossor 544 not quite so tiny but as it's totally original with crystal cartridge I'm not going to hack around with it as it looks like new
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Old 6th Jun 2013, 9:34 pm   #12
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Default Re: Dansette Princess - Finally Conquered

Hello astro63,

If it's any consolation, mine skips occasionally too. I put it down to the Acos GP79 cartridge/stylus combination which doesn't exactly have much compliance. I find it's generally ok on old mono stuff or low level modern (not that I'd ever risk playing anything of value on it).

Regards,

Andy
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