Fidelity 'Westminster' Record Player

[Mark Hennessy]

Calm down, it's only a record player!!

Honestly, I'm perfectly calm...

It's not going to be used in any environment other than the home and there are loads of these things about and being used. They do seem to be in vogue right now as well and none of todays idiots have died.

I'm not sure how relevant or helpful this is. Please, let's not call non-technical people "idiots", especially in a public forum. Some of us are occasionally paid by non-technical people to repair their equipment.

We don't even know whether it's valve or transistorised (probably valve) let alone what model it is, Some Westminsters don't have a deck that is metal but I would put a X rated capacitor between the deck and neutral.

Actually, we know that it is an AC-DC valve set, very similar to the schematic Joe posted. Further details have been given, but easily missed if the thread is quickly skimmed.

The one colour cable is illegal of course and if you've removed that, like I do, honest guvnor, then make sure the chassis is at neutral.

There's been no mention of "one colour cable" here. Presumably you're saying that's what the deck probably originally came with? Not uncommon today, of course, with reversible figure-of-eight leads, but insulation standards are much better today...

It came to the OP with a 3-core mains lead, with the earth connected to the metalwork of the deck, albeit perhaps crudely. The metalwork of the deck is not connected to the amplifier chassis, which is connected to mains Neutral (hopefully!). By disconnecting the earth but retaining the 3-core cable, the OP has made the deck less safe! And it will rightly fail the earth continuity part of the PAT test.

The earth was disconnected because of a hum problem. Hum problems are very common in all audio areas - pro and domestic - and lifting earths is common practice to eliminate them, but the practice is strictly not allowed, apart from temporarily as part of the fault-finding process (and even that isn't really allowed!). This subject is my bread and butter - I know about this. My experience and knowledge is no less useful because we're talking about vintage domestic gear.

Also, the pick-up arm goes to earth and the grid of the first valve, so make sure this is of good order and the valve can't short out in any dangerous way. (I've never had this. Ever.)

I suggested that the risk of leakage from the screen of the pickup cable to the arm might be a remote risk, but the OP said that the arm is made of plastic. So, I'm no longer worried about this, and made no reference to it in my subsequent message.

Also, put wax over any grub screws.

The OP has already said that the potentiometer shafts are plastic.

You'll never get something of this age to conform to modern safety standards. There is risk in any electrical equipment, and you minimise this as much as you can. Isolation transformers can in the wrong circumstances be more dangerous! If there's a tape socket on the machine, for example, and you connect a tape recorder or computer.... Bang!

From the information supplied by the OP, this deck virtually does meet modern standards - with the exception of insulation and creepage perhaps - though a PAT test wouldn't pick this up. If the OP replaced the 3-core mains lead with a 2-core mains lead - especially one with a moulded plug as I suggested - then I would be entirely happy.

I'm very interested to learn how adding an isolation transformer to a record deck with a tape output socket can make it less safe.

Modern houses have an ELCB so any problems and the mains should go off. This is more dangerous at night...

The age of the house is no indication. My Victorian house has an RCD (that doesn't take out the lighting circuits). My last house, made in 1979 did not. A lot of houses lack RCD protection, hence my earlier suggestion to include a plug-top RCD if the two-core mains lead didn't use a moulded plug top.

I don't know the model, but the above applies to all of them. I'm sure that

a) Mark's heart is in the right place

and

b) Old Sparky would never leave anything in a dangerous state.

Yes, my heart is in the right place. Not just for the OP's benefit, but for the good of the end user. Which might include small children who are more vulnerable to the 30mA/30ms shock than adults - my 6 year old son operates my Bush SRP51. Also, this is a public forum, and anyone searching for information about the electrical safety of old record players in the future might stumble across this thread. Our disclaimer might not protect us fully from legal action, and even if it did, I want to be able to sleep at night.

I also agree that the OP wouldn't knowingly want to leave anything in a less than ideal state. But as it stands, he is. If someone PAT tests this record player after his repair and it fails, that leaves him open to all sorts of complications.

No amount of PAT testing or safety measures will ever leave a piece of equipment 'complete idiot proof'.

But that's not a reason to knowingly fail to meet standards!

It's also worth bearing in mind that neutral and earth are tied together quite often anyway, especially in the country.

Yes, depending on what type of incoming supply you have (TT, TN-C-S, et al). But, forward of the meter, they become separate. If you have an RCD, a downstream N-E short will trip the RCD because inevitably a small voltage builds up on the N cabling in the house because of the current taken by other appliances. I had just this a few years back when my old boiler developed an intermittent N-E short (you can imagine how long that took to pin down!).

Sometimes it's best to agree to disagree, as I see both your points of view here, I think that's the best way forward here.

I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate your efforts to smooth over things.

But while you're obviously being pragmatic, which I'm all for that in other walks of life, I don't think we have that luxury with the electrical safety of a repair for a non-technical member of the public. It might be different for our own collection, provided we (or our heirs) never sold them to the general public.

Here, the disagreement is about a 3-core mains lead with an unconnected earth. It would take less time to replace than it's taken to debate it. Hell, I'd even post the OP a 2-core mains lead with a moulded mains plug if he was willing to use it!

And I would again make the point that this is a public forum that Google indexes, and that not withstanding our rules and disclaimer, we should not allow ourselves to be anything less than rigorous with safety matters concerning the general public. Let's not give us - and our hobby - a bad name.

Disclaimer is here: http://golbornevintageradio.org/disclaimer.htm

Once again I apologise for this - regular members will know is fairly out of character for me - but at least I can sleep at night. This will be my last post on the thread for the time being.

Mark