Another Batch of Bearings from Mike New

[allthingsanalogue]

Nice to see you using your trade room, Mike. Keep up the good work!

Btw, posting some pictures of your bearings here now and then would also help generate interest in them, especially if you do it in conjunction with a picture of a stock Technics bearing, and let folk see just how much of a toy the latter is in comparison!!

Marco.

You might want to make this a sticky somewhere?

Hi Marco

Here are the photos I took with my camera when I installed the bearing.







I'm surprised the original bearing lasted without an oil reservoir, obviously it did as DJs abused them every night and still do!










Andrew

PS - By the way I'm keeping my 1210 and not getting the Gyro! I had a ground issue that's now fixed!

[aniki]

How come the bearing oil never needs changing?

My guess would be that the oil is not in an environment (read: temperature / friction / material deposits / contamination) whereby it can degrade.
Hopefully MN can confirm...

[allthingsanalogue]

My guess would be that the oil is not in an environment (read: temperature / friction / material deposits / contamination) whereby it can degrade.
Hopefully MN can confirm...

Well I know it's fully synthetic oil, if that makes a difference and the Mike New superb bearing uses a Silicone Nitride bearing.

I know mineral oil degrades such as the mineral oil used in Linn's. I suppose most TT's have never had an oil change.

[Mike_New]

Hi Adam,
The oil I use in the bottom well of the Bearing is a high pressure lubicant with an ultra high pressure additive this lubicates the shaft support which is a high precision ceramic ball resting on a carbide base.
The actual shaft bearing is a syntered oil embedded insert honed to fit the individual shafts.
As such this bearing insert does not really need any additional oil as the space between shaft and bearing is measured in microns.

What has concerned me for some time is that we tend to confuse the components in the bearing.
The common defination of a bearing is a rotating device which carries a load bearing shaft. note my emphasis on rotating.
there are many forms of this: crankshaft and camshaft bearings (if your a petrol head) wheel bearings, ball bearings, taper bearings.
A single ball is refered to as a "ball bearing"
In all of these the term "bearing' in the english language, is used in a very flexible and sometimes ambiguous way.

In the case of the technics "bearing" the whole assembly is refered to as "The Bearing" but in fact it consists of two separate parts which are also regarded technically as bearings!!! The support bearing which keeps the shaft vertical. Let us call this this the latteral support bearing. And the bottom bearing which supports the dowmward vertical load.
It is the latter which attracts the most attention but which is the least important in terms of the characteristics that we require in an audio Bearing supporting a platter which carries the recorded sound on the vynal.

However this is the cheapest area to fiddle with (in the OEM bearing) and impress the tecnically uninformed with all sorts of terminology that must surely radically improve the sonics, garnished of course with a variety of magic oils. WRONG!!!!
If the platter did not have to rotate then we would have the ultimate Bearing.

With the weight of the rotating assembly (platter, mat, centre weight, record ) always directed downwards through the centre line of the shaft, then
the rotating assembly is not going anywhere vertically no matter what sort of bottom bearing (within reason) we use.

What is so very important for us is that the platter does not "flutter" up and down caused by the actual looseness of the lateral support bearing and agravated by the music data being extracted.
If the shaft can move back and forth at the top of it's lateral support bearing, pivoting on it's bottom support. Then for 0.001MM at the top of the shaft the vertical movement at the edge of the platter will be multiplied to about 0.15mm. This will proportionally reduce as we get to the centre of the platter.
Further, the fact that the shaft can oscillate on it's pivot due to looseness in it's lateral bearing/sleeve, then the platter and recording are effectively being moved sideways by this movement.

So you see as I have said before the shaft can sit on the top of the bloody Tower Bridge or the most expensive ruby, diamond, ceramic or whatever available.
It will do little good (for our purpose) if the lateral supporting bearing /sleeve and shaft is not of the absolute highest precision fit, thus removing any possible movement of the platter.

My Bearing does not use any exotic ideas or treatment for the vertical support of the shaft. Just a precision ceramic ball supported by a carbide pad.
The cost is in the high precision polishing of the shaft and the very high precision honing of the latteral bearing to fit the shaft, and measured in microns.
This way we get as close as possible to a rigidly "fixed" platter as sugested earlier.
Further the use of a solid housing machined from brass bar compliments the precision of the bearing generally as can be seen from the excellent images that
Andrew has included.

[aniki]

Superb explanation. Thanks Mike.

[allthingsanalogue]

Yep, agreed, superb explanation. Thanks Mike. Feel free to use the pictures for your advertising etc.

[Mike_New]

Thanks Andrew,
It's a shame that there are far less people these days showing any interest in the SL1200.
Or could it be that there are now a confusing number of options and highly "complex" and involved opinions which scare away the
would be enthusiast from trying any upgrade.

[Ulysses]

Yes, that would apply to me I suppose (a confusing number of divergent opinions)

Thanks Andrew,
It's a shame that there are far less people these days showing any interest in the SL1200.
Or could it be that there are now a confusing number of options and highly "complex" and involved opinions which scare away the
would be enthusiast from trying any upgrade.

[Mike_New]

I guess from my point of view I call them "me-too" experts.

[NRG]

I have no dog in this race but that IMHO is uncalled for. There are viable alternatives wether you like it or not and some of them Mike may be better than yours, think about it....