Check that the magnet in the solenoid is not jammed in the former.  I've never seen it but I'm told that it can happen.

Thanks Graham. The solenoid shaft moves freely.

It just came to me that the light for the platter is not on. I have no idea if this is important to the tone arm movement.

The bulb measures fine with a DVM. I found the drive transistor (T3 according to the schematic I have). The bulb terminals measure 11.6 and 5.5V, whether the turntable is in play or not. The transistor has 5.5V collector to emitter. The base voltage stays at 0V whether the turntable is in play or not.

There seem to be two issues:

1. Why is the transistor collector fixed at 5.5V, with 0V base? This seems like a very large amount of leakage.

2. Why is there no base voltage? This sounds ominous.

Steve

parchping wrote:

Both motors spin, the platter spins. Using the play button, the platter spins for about 5 seconds, the tone arm just sits there, and then it shuts down.

Manually, I can rotate the gear just behind the platter axis (driven by the gear on the platter).

 

 

a possibly stupid question: do you always test with the platter and at least one single record?

If not, the platter runs for a short time to determine the weight of the record, if there is no weight on the platter, the beogram switches off again!

Yes, try with a record on the platter.

The record area illumination only lights up when using the < and > keys.
Not during normal play.

You can test the lamp by pressing the > key while the deck is in standby.
The light will shine for a few seconds.

Martin 

Gandalf and Dillen, you are spot on. I did find the problem with an LP on the platter. What I overlooked was trying it that way after lubricating various spots. The tone arm now does exactly what it is supposed to.

Thanks much,

Steve