I have a Beogram 8000 and when I press "play" the tonearm moves to the correct position and lowers onto the record. But the platter does not turn. Any ideas?

Very complex piece of kit, the 8000! I would suspect it need a capacitor kit from Dillen and probably a new tacho disc.

Also consider the solder joints at the connectors. These are prone to failure. Along with new caps, most problems will thus be solved.

Do the coils hum at all?

Coils don't appear to be humming. The record seems to play fine if I turn the platter by hand. Which is more likely the responsible culprit for the platter not turning, the tachodisc or capacitor failure?

If you don't hear the coils, then the tachodisc is probably not the main problem. If it isn't metal, you'll have to change it someday anyway.

Have a look at those connectors please!

Can you test voltages and components (especially transistors)?

The platter will always spin freely by hand. That's normal.
There is no belt or conventional motor in a Beogram 8000. It's an Eddy-current system
so you will feel no resistance when rotating the platter by hand (unpowered).

I agree with the above comments. Cracked solder joints, bad capacitors and if the tachodisc
is still the original photographic type it will need replacing to a metal type.
All repairable.

Martin

Dillen:

I agree with the above comments. 

Martin

Well you have to Professor Martin, you taught us all!

Is there any special trick to getting into this unit?

Oh yes! It is complicated.

You MUST find the service manual though (pages 7-1 and 7-2). First remove the plate underneath the arm (do this when playing a record). Turn the large plastic scew with a coin. Press stop. Unplug the deck.

You have two screws underneath the deck, precisely under the left edge.

Remove the platter and subplatter. You may use toothpicks for the platter!

Then you have to free the suspension, by pulling the 3 hooks away from the leaf springs (take them up, then move them slightly on the side). You can press the springs while doing this.

Have a break now.

Gently pull the entire upper part up, it opens the deck like a car bonnet, it is hinged on the right side. You have to let the arm go through and that's the difficult bit, because you MUST slightly move the subchassis to the left (with a slight clockwise rotation) while pulling up the bonnet! The main danger is to destroy the arm, no less...

Once the arm is freed (so be veeery careful here, it shouldn't even rub!) you may open the deck completely. You must now keep the lid closed and find something to maintain the deck open (with a 90 degrees angle), like a big book. But you will have to be able to open the lid to let the transformer go... just push it up from the under side, it is connected to the main PCB. Nothing to unscrew here.

While it's open, you might want to stabilize the suspension hooks at their base with a drop of neoprene glue. It'll make re-assembly easier... those have a tendency to fall inside the deck when you have almost finished... which will have you open it again!

Glad someone else finds taking these apart a complete pain! Compared to the 4000, the 8000 is just wilfully difficult! Having to un-mount the suspension is simply daft.