1960s power cable

[Cornwal60s]

Hi, newbie here looking for some help. I've recently picked up a late 60s record player and it came without a plug.

I'm based in the UK and the power cables are not coloured so unsure which is live and neutral!

One cable has a thin black and white striped thread within the sheathing, obviously identifying something, but I dont know which! Being an electrical novice I dont want to wire the plug incorrectly.... anybody come across this before and can help?

 

[Cornwal60s]

Not too bad at all. A couple of resident moths, but that's fairly standard for machines of this age!

 

[Avo Mk8]

As a child playing with electrics from the '50's, who inherited a Lenco L75 turntable from dad, I can vouch that those white wires in the first posting are the original mains cable (if you Google you will see others like that).
Back then nobody much cared which was L or N!
It would probably be on a 5A round 2-pin plug anyway.
There was no earth other than through the audio cable.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be rewired, but suggestions it's replacement cable etc are not right. It's just how things were!

 

[stewartrossinv]

Good to know that the cable is indeed original and simply what was used. Back in 1976 I installed a stereo system made by Dynatron in a customer's home. It had a GL75 turntable in part of the system's very ornate wooden case, but I never saw the original wiring.

There's a thread on the Lenco forum about providing proper earthing for the chassis, available at Earth Wiring - Lenco Guides - Lenco Heaven Turntable Forum - https://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=71.0

 

[static zap]

Clocks wires in clear "Bell wire "like material.
(plenty of cable did come from Woolies thought )

 

[pc1966]

Yes, I remember Woolworths in the 70s/80s had a great selection of cable by the meter/yard, and various bits to go with it. Alas, they dropped all the car/DIY and eventually went completely. Along with the pick'n'mix sweets.

 

[Cornwal60s]

Yes, good to know it is the original cable so before rewiring later this week I can give it a quick power up now I know which cable is which. Certainly don't fancy using it properly with those cables though!

 

[lozarus]

As above don't even bother with that flex - just replace it, you may not even need to buy any flex as you'll likely have a suitable power cord around the house you can repurpse.

As an aside, having dealt with vintage record players a lot in my time, that mains flex may well be original. They didn't always use the standard red/black/green - see here for a brief bit on fig8 cable. It was often found on very low current appliances such as electric clocks and turntables. It was a bad idea all around as the insulation can get damaged just by looking at it.

Top tip if it's any use to you - I would say that 90 percent of decks I recieved as "no signs of life" were simply down to dried grease around the spindle - it really doesn't take a lot to stop the platter moving. This can be remedied by heating the grease up and thus extracting the spindle for cleaning and re-greasing

 

[pc1966]

I think that type of original cable now would fail the regulations - it has exposed primary insulation.

As @lozarus says just replace it with something new. Also those decks are metal and should be earthed, that was not always done then either! So 3 core cable is needed, with a 3A fuse.
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You may need to put a ring terminal under some suitable screw for earthing if there is no dedicated terminal (as I suspect).

 

[DPG]

One thing to watch is earth loops. Turntables are very susceptible to this because of the very low (circa 3mV from a moving magnet cartridge) levels involved.

Often if you earth the deck you will get a hum loop because of the earth to the amplifier. If this happens you may have to remove the deck earth and connect a separate earth lead to the amplifier. All decent amplifiers that have a phono input have an earth terminal specifically for this purpose.

 

[pc1966]

The other way to reduce "hum loops" is to use screened twisted pair cable so the screen is earthed at both the deck and the phono plug, but the "ground" pin of the cartridge is connected via one of the twisted pair and earthed only at the phono end.
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The basic idea:

For stereo you need 2 twisted pairs of course!

I have never been very happy about removing protective earths for noise reduction...

 

[DPG]

The above is a food good solution. In theory should work fine, but turntable/amp/cartridge combinations can be very unpredictable!
Definitely preferable if it does work though.

 

[pc1966]

Having both deck & amp plugged in to the same outlet is a big help, and a length of heavy earthing cable between the two (as mentioned by @DPG before) can also help. But try it first and see how much you need to do to get it acceptably quiet.

If you have a modern amplifier that is double-insulated (i.e. not earthed itself) then you should have no problems!

 

[Avo Mk8]

I was a bit out in my earlier post - I have been reminded that the original wiring had a separate yellow wire to chassis, that ran out with the mains lead, that you were expected to attach to the amplifier earth. Lenco thoughtfully also provided a tag strip under the lift-off platter, where the PU arm wires are terminated, isolated from the chassis (and with a chassis earth tag there with the yel. wire on it), so you could play with the cable screening arrangements if you needed.
Upgrading the unit to current earthing arrangements might undo some of the original flexibility, but I guess must be safer!