Anyone else curse replacing a cartridge?

Just spent a day trying to replace my Rockola cartridge.. Why? Because of those pesky tiny tiny tiny wires the tone arm has. The 3 wires just kept on breaking as I tried to prise off the small connectors on the rear of the cartridge, I then spent hours soldering the wires back to the connectors, breaking the wires several times, then when finally they were soldered with a firm fix, as I pushed the connectors on the pins the wires just broke.. it was like something from a comedy movie... After numerous attempts the cartridge is now in, and working.

Any tips from others would be appreciated. Could I not use thicker wire next time without affecting the sound... Or should I just buy a professionally made up tone arm wire kit!!

Just seems I wasted a day on something I thought would take 5 mins... Hey Ho!

Mark,
It's all a mater of experience--next time it will only take you 2 hours ---
I doubt you can find a "pro kit"--and yes, wire needs to be that small there !
Ron Rich

Hi
I find with a lot of jukeboxes its easier to remove the tone arm plus the tone arm cable and work it then. I use a small clamp to hold the tags in place while i solder the wires on and then attach to the cartridge, depending on the cartridge some of the tags need to be widened slightly, its back braking work to try and do it in situ. Its also a pain to share the negative wire between two cartridge negative connections.
Clones

It can be fiddly, as Ron says, its experience more than anything. I originally found it frustrating, but like a lot of these jobs I now find them easy. Though you may mess up in the process of course

I hope you are removing the tone arm, as doing it in situ must be a nightmare!

I place some pieces of insulation tubing between the underside edge of the tone arm, and those ciricular clips, and feed the cable through that to help keep it in place.

For tags, if you're using the regular shure carts, modern cartridge tags readily available on ebay will be fine. Cut them off leaving some wire, solder to the original tone arm wire, and use heat shrink insulation to neatly conceal the join

Thanks for the suggestions.. After trying in situ, I did eventually remove the tone arm and the whole cable. I think I will in future do as suggested buy the ready made connectors with wires soldered, then splice the originals on.

Lets hope I don't need to do this too often!!!!!

It is even more fun to do on-location.

Google: "helping hands tool" This good for this sort of tiny, close work.

Rob/NYC

As a servicer of vintage phonos, I've worked on hundreds of cartridge jobs through the decades.
Custom-mounting, retrofitting, modifications, and of course re-wiring.
It's part of the job in my field.

MattTech wrote:As a servicer of vintage phonos, I've worked on hundreds of cartridge jobs through the decades.
Custom-mounting, retrofitting, modifications, and of course re-wiring.
It's part of the job in my field.

So, describe your technique...make it edacational-like.

Rob/NYC

Rob-NYC wrote:

MattTech wrote:As a servicer of vintage phonos, I've worked on hundreds of cartridge jobs through the decades.
Custom-mounting, retrofitting, modifications, and of course re-wiring.
It's part of the job in my field.

So, describe your technique...make it edacational-like.

Rob/NYC

Aww now, that would take forever, since each brand requires its own specific tactics.
What would suffice for one unit would not work well in another.
Retrofitting a different cartridge sometimes requires machining, sometimes preamp/amp mods of different flavors.
And due to the unavailablility of original parts, this is a frequent job.
So a thorough knowledge of consumer/commerical electronics is a key tool that most people just don't have handy. - and limits the success factor.
There is no common element other than the end result has to perform as good or better than the original design.