Can you improve the stock techie bearing???

[UV101]

After a few email exchanges with J7, I'm now in possession of some of his super slippery oil.

I decided to set about my techie bearing. Having been inside the techie on more than a few occasions, it didn't take long to get to and remove the bearing. On inspection it was obvious it was long overdue service. Although the shaft didn't seem tight, you could see the sticky residue tell tale of old oil well past its best.

I disassembled the bearing and thoroughly cleaned it including giving it a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner.It was spotless when I'd finished. When I put it all back together, I used the thicker oil on the shaft as well as in the bottom of the bearing I could see the bearing appears to be a "total loss" type set up and I assumed the thinner oil would disperse away from the bearing fairly quickly. Unfortunately the shaft did not spin as freely as I'd expected. I cleaned the shaft again and reapplied the thinner oil that came in the origami kit. The shaft now spins much more freely.

Looking a the base of the spindle where it sits in the bearing assembly, there is nothing to keep the oil captive. I wonder if some improvement to the baseplate in order to maybe keep a very shallow bath of oil would give any long term gains???

Am I barking up the wrong tree or am I just barking??>???

[jagdesign]

I think adding an oil bath and changing the thrust pad setup pretty much equals the vantage audio bearing upgrade, I may be wrong though.

I'm intending to do the same with mine at some point.

[UV101]

Found this on google as well as a picture of the vantage bearing. Looks like I'm not the first to have the same idea!!

[Dingdong]

The standard Techie bearing is not exactly an engineering masterpiece. When I had one briefly I use some slightly thicker oil with some moly in it That would hopefully stay on the shaft of the spindle longer, and then removed the circlip so that I could lift the spindle now and then so that a little oil dropped to the bottom of the spindle. The bottom of the spindle sits on a pad of summat slippy (technical term) so I reckoned it wouldn't need as much oil around it as summat with a metal to metal contact.

You could always ditch the bearing and get summat like the Mike New bearing, if you fancy splashing some cash.

[DSJR]

Viscous oil will cause more drag, but the torque in the motor is so high, it probably wouldn't make any difference. The plastic thrust pad should be very low friction and pretty long lasting even with no lubrication I reckon. Only if you lot insist on using heavy clamps would the existing bearing be stressed I think.....

Is Vantage Audio up and running still? There were some great and not expensive updates available from him.....

By the way, wasn't the captive-oil thing something the Timestep bearing attended to?

[prestonchipfryer]

By the way, wasn't the captive-oil thing something the Timestep bearing attended to?

Yes it was. I had one but moved it on when I had the MN bearing.

To be honest the stock item was as good as the TS in my opinion and listening experience.

[DSJR]

I don't think the stock bearing is bad in terms of tolerances, as platter rock wasn't an issue ever as I recall. I appreciate the far better custom-made MN bearing though, but the TS one just seemed to develop what was already there, even if it wasn't strictly necessary for audible improvement. The ope part of the casting was a throwback to the auto days of some models, the cam-gear using the apature to connect with the spindle shaft on these models. The SL150/1500's I've had were fully enclosed and the bearing tip and thrust plate (plastic on these too) could be bathed in a pool of oil.

[chris@panteg]

Dave , the Timestep bearing had a separate ball bearing , which if you think about it is not a great idea ? You're increasing the surface contact are as DC keeps stating but also increasing noise with an additional boundary surface , I found it tended to exaggerate bass notes and was easily outperformed by the Vantaged bearing , recent problems I've had were down to cartridge set up .

[DSJR]

Is Vantage now up and running again????? I keep asking, but either don't get or miss the answers I do think Richard has good understanding of the deck and, away from demands for this or that at huge prices, seems to do properly researched and reasonably priced updates for the techie.

[chris@panteg]

Is Vantage now up and running again????? I keep asking, but either don't get or miss the answers I do think Richard has good understanding of the deck and, away from demands for this or that at huge prices, seems to do properly researched and reasonably priced updates for the techie.

Not at the moment , but should be in the new year , will update you Dave , when I know more .