DIY Direct Drive Turntable (Black Widow Project...English Only)

When the ʽthingʼ was finished I seated back in my sofa some minutes looking at it… I turned the platter with hand, I raised
the arm, I opened and close strobe… I liked it much… it was looking like a full-bred black horse ready to gallop…

Despite of this, I didnʼt give a horse name to my new love… I named it…** ʽThe black widowʼ**… no reason why…
I wanted to hear it playing… Would the endless nights of work, the selected materials and the way of manufacturing having
correspondence in its sound?

The turntable performs much better from the initial SR535, wearing much superior head… and of course **much better from the
Technics MKII…**
Comparing it with Nottingham 294 spacedeck there are lots of differences, however the last one wears a head
of double value and of course there is another approach in the way of manufacture, price level and all philosophy, being
Belt Driven and with 12inches platter and arm… No matter at all… I like to hear ʽblack widowʼ playing music…

Detail from the RCA plugs and the grounding screw

The point where the cable of PSU comes …

Strobe…

Huge motor

Shelter 501 II

The adjustment of tracking force…
The scale should be in the same level with the disk thatʼs why we weight outside the platter… here the reading of arm agrees with the scale…

The process of anti skating force adjustment… We never entrust the reading of indicator… we put in the platter a special disk without grooves and we place the needle in three points (centre, internal, external) in the disk, where the arm will be supposed to remain completely in place and not to slide!!!

The process of arm leveling… drop out those 3 cm plastic levels and get a big professional level… We begin with the
leveling of table-rack-bookshelf-base-platter and after all, with the level perfectly horizontal on the turntable, we lower
our eye so that coincide the lines of level and arm…

The black widow playing…