New Audio-Technica AT-LP120 does not work !!!

Same problem here, pretty angry with myself! If someone could email me the circuit diagram, I'd be very appreciative!

steve at steve dot net dot nz

Failing that, anyone know the component number of the problem microfuse (printed beside it on the PCB) and which of the boards it's on? Hope it's not on the top of the central board as that doesn't look like much fun to remove.

I'm taking photos as I'm doing this so can provide a guide given that this looks to be a not entirely uncommon people for those such as myself who were too impatient to follow the instructions properly during the initial setup.

Edit:
Nevermind, the fuse is on the top side of the central PCB which has the motor on it. The surface-mount fuse itself is behind where the 2-wire blue power connector from the transformer connects to the board. It's 1.5A rated. If you're brave you can just solder a jumper in instead, or use a solder-bridge.

Not particularly difficult to desolder & remove, the hardest part is getting the board off to work on as there's a fair few screws & cables to come off it. Really best to replace it properly however, although surface-mount components tend to be hard to come by in anything less than packs of 10 or so.

Pleased that a few cents of parts and a couple of hours of time was all that was needed to fix it rather than lots of money for a service agent!

HOWTO:

Before starting - remove; The cartridge. The platter. The balance weight. The SP adapter. The hinges from the lid.

Ensure the voltage selector is set correctly (230V and not 115V), that the power switch is turned OFF and that the power cable is definitely not plugged in.

Take the lid off & lay it on a table top-down and rest the main unit on the lid.

Remove the screws from the back, there are 8 screws total, each screw has a small brass spacer on the bottom of it which will almost certainly fall into the case when you remove the back, be VERY sure you retrieve them all!

Once the screws are removed, put the unit onto its feet and life the top off from the front as the USB & phono\line switch protrude through the case. You will also need to feed the RCA cables up through the hole as you lift it off.

Put the back\base aside, and rest the unit back onto the lid.

The main fuse is easily visible on a small circuit board by the main transformer. Mine had a rubber sleeve over it which lifts off, then you can remove the fuse by either hooking a fingernail under it, or gently prying it out from the sides with a small screwdriver. Don't lever against the glass part of the fuse!

If it is blown, you will probably be able to easily see a break in the wire inside it and/or burn marks inside the glass. You can also check with a multimeter that there is no continuity (infinite resistance) between the 2 metal caps.

Replace the fuse with another 240V or 250V 500mA slow-blow fuse. If you replace it with a fast-blow fuse then it'll probably blow every time you have a small power spike. Refit the rubber protective sleeve.

Put the turntable back onto the base, being careful with the RCA cables and feeding in the USB & phono/line switch, plug it in and power it on. If you get lights then you're in business. Put the platter onto the spindle and press "Start". If it spins then you are lucky and you have ONLY blown the primary fuse and can now reassemble the turntable!

Take the platter back off or it'll fall off during assembly.

The only parts to pay attention to while reassembling is that you may have to have the unit on its side while putting the base screws back in due to the little brass sleeves on them trying to fall off, tweezers can make this a little easier.

If the motor isn't working at this stage, then you've probably blown the secondary fuse on the central circuit board. Any wires that can be unplugged from it will need to be, you need to undo all the screws on the metal plate underneath where the platter sits - NOTE: Support the central board while doing this as it's fairly heavy and will fall off and may damage things further otherwise.

Once you have the board off, look on the spindle-side of it opposite where the 2 wire connector goes in and you should clearly see a labelled fuse, if you check it with a multimeter or continuity tester, you should get no signal which means the fuse has popped and will need to be replaced or bypassed. Do this as you wish then reassemble being careful to re-route the cables correctly.

All in all, not a particularly difficult job, just time consuming, and of course, given that you are dealing with mains voltage, if you're not confident with this, take it to either a proper AT repair agent or anyone certified to fix electronic audio devices.

Enjoy!
Brilliant thanks followed your excellent write up currently enjoying war of the world's on it .

Many thanks mate
 
Hi folks, need some help with this model. I have issues same as many in here. Voltage flipped by itself from 240 to 110, turned it on, main fuse burned. Finally rectified it, switched to 240. Replaced main switch. Theres power now but as usual, motor not spinning. Replaced the SMD fuse, still the motor stuttering. So i knew the voltage regulators and the driver IC fried as well. Replaced all the regulators on platter board including the driver IC. Motor spinning now but it has a problem like sometimes it spins but sometimes i have to push it for it to spin. But it works fine. Here comes the bigger problem. When i press the backward switch, it spins like really fast. But forward seems like in a normal speed. Any idea where else the problem is.? OMG, this turntable is a massive headache.
 
I had a similar problem, and the secondary fuse was blown (this happened spontaneously, no change in the 110/220 selector), the main fuse is fine, I get the 26.9V and 34.6V AC from the transformer.

So just changed the secondary fuse, I used a 1.5A 32V AC, and it blew immediately when I tried.
At this point,
- was I supposed to use a slow fuse?
- can I conclude the motor board has gone bad?
- or could it be the control board sending bad commands?

Thanks!
 
There are two fuses. One a larger one which can be easily replaced and the other on on the circuit board which is little difficult. Please PM me your email ID's I will try and send the circuit diagrams. The file is too big to be uploaded here.
thx jimmy i have the same problem please follow me to find the secondary fuse on the circuit board
 
There are two fuses. One a larger one which can be easily replaced and the other on on the circuit board which is little difficult. Please PM me your email ID's I will try and send the circuit diagrams. The file is too big to be uploaded here.
Hi Jimmy . Same problem here. I can't see the second fuse so any assistance would be great.
 
Had exactly the same problem (wrong voltage selected) and replaced the 500mA fuse. Lights are on but no motor. I cant see the second fuse although think I know where it should be. Will try again. I found the brass spacers too finicky so I left them off when re-assembling the unit. Will this cause any problems?
 
Hi all, What a read! Well I have exactly the same problem. Wrong voltage, change fuse, lights camera and no action. Anyone know of a service agent in New Zealand?

Cheers team
 
Let me tell you upfront, my knowledge of electronics is very basic. I did my engineering in Mechanical and repaired my TT in the same spirit. :)

Yes, you have to open the TT and you can easily identify the fuse. Its a small glass tube, close to 1 cm long. You can get this in many local electronics shop. (You can also try Automobile spares shop, since cars also use this).
But in my case, in addition to this fuse, there was a micro fuse which was damaged. I was interacting with Audio Technica folks and they send me the circuit diagram. Unfortunately, I could not find a way to replace this fuse since this was mounted on the circuit board. All I did was bypass this fuse the TT started working fine.

I have the circuit diagram , however the filesize is 6 MB. If you can drop me a PM with your mail-id, I will be glad to share the same with you.
 
Hi Jimmy,

Another 115v-230v switching incident with the resultant blown fuse. On replacing the fuse all now works well including all indicator lighting and sound output - but the turntable motor is no-go.
You mentioned that there is a micro fuse which I have looked for by removing and checking all circuit boards.
When I contacted Audio Technica they got back quite quickly but due to the age of my LP120 USB they could not offer any help.
Could you advise what circuit board contains the micro fuse and what the fuse looks like.
The turntable is actually grand new and never been used.

Kind Regards, Ross
 
Same problem here, pretty angry with myself! If someone could email me the circuit diagram, I'd be very appreciative!

steve at steve dot net dot nz

Failing that, anyone know the component number of the problem microfuse (printed beside it on the PCB) and which of the boards it's on? Hope it's not on the top of the central board as that doesn't look like much fun to remove.

I'm taking photos as I'm doing this so can provide a guide given that this looks to be a not entirely uncommon people for those such as myself who were too impatient to follow the instructions properly during the initial setup.

Edit:
Nevermind, the fuse is on the top side of the central PCB which has the motor on it. The surface-mount fuse itself is behind where the 2-wire blue power connector from the transformer connects to the board. It's 1.5A rated. If you're brave you can just solder a jumper in instead, or use a solder-bridge.

Not particularly difficult to desolder & remove, the hardest part is getting the board off to work on as there's a fair few screws & cables to come off it. Really best to replace it properly however, although surface-mount components tend to be hard to come by in anything less than packs of 10 or so.

Pleased that a few cents of parts and a couple of hours of time was all that was needed to fix it rather than lots of money for a service agent!

HOWTO:

Before starting - remove; The cartridge. The platter. The balance weight. The SP adapter. The hinges from the lid.

Ensure the voltage selector is set correctly (230V and not 115V), that the power switch is turned OFF and that the power cable is definitely not plugged in.

Take the lid off & lay it on a table top-down and rest the main unit on the lid.

Remove the screws from the back, there are 8 screws total, each screw has a small brass spacer on the bottom of it which will almost certainly fall into the case when you remove the back, be VERY sure you retrieve them all!

Once the screws are removed, put the unit onto its feet and life the top off from the front as the USB & phono\line switch protrude through the case. You will also need to feed the RCA cables up through the hole as you lift it off.

Put the back\base aside, and rest the unit back onto the lid.

The main fuse is easily visible on a small circuit board by the main transformer. Mine had a rubber sleeve over it which lifts off, then you can remove the fuse by either hooking a fingernail under it, or gently prying it out from the sides with a small screwdriver. Don't lever against the glass part of the fuse!

If it is blown, you will probably be able to easily see a break in the wire inside it and/or burn marks inside the glass. You can also check with a multimeter that there is no continuity (infinite resistance) between the 2 metal caps.

Replace the fuse with another 240V or 250V 500mA slow-blow fuse. If you replace it with a fast-blow fuse then it'll probably blow every time you have a small power spike. Refit the rubber protective sleeve.

Put the turntable back onto the base, being careful with the RCA cables and feeding in the USB & phono/line switch, plug it in and power it on. If you get lights then you're in business. Put the platter onto the spindle and press "Start". If it spins then you are lucky and you have ONLY blown the primary fuse and can now reassemble the turntable!

Take the platter back off or it'll fall off during assembly.

The only parts to pay attention to while reassembling is that you may have to have the unit on its side while putting the base screws back in due to the little brass sleeves on them trying to fall off, tweezers can make this a little easier.

If the motor isn't working at this stage, then you've probably blown the secondary fuse on the central circuit board. Any wires that can be unplugged from it will need to be, you need to undo all the screws on the metal plate underneath where the platter sits - NOTE: Support the central board while doing this as it's fairly heavy and will fall off and may damage things further otherwise.

Once you have the board off, look on the spindle-side of it opposite where the 2 wire connector goes in and you should clearly see a labelled fuse, if you check it with a multimeter or continuity tester, you should get no signal which means the fuse has popped and will need to be replaced or bypassed. Do this as you wish then reassemble being careful to re-route the cables correctly.

All in all, not a particularly difficult job, just time consuming, and of course, given that you are dealing with mains voltage, if you're not confident with this, take it to either a proper AT repair agent or anyone certified to fix electronic audio devices.

Enjoy!
Hi KnightNZ
Also had the 115-230v debacle with all not working on new and unused AT-LP120 USB. Replaced the 500ma fuse and also the 1.5amp micro to get the T/T going. Thanks for your helpful listing.
Regards, Ross
AKLD. NZ

 
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