Digital Analog Therapy - Nationwide Repairs, Brooklyn, NYC, NY

The following tutorial is to help you with your installation of our RCA TERMINAL BOARDS for your Technics Tonearm and RCA cables.  The original board, manufactured by Technics is no longer available, and the substitute part is priced at way more than it should be priced for an inexpensive printed circuit board (PCB).  So, we sourced these terminal boards, which make a PERFECT alternative in replacing your RCA PCB's.  Instructions on how to install this board with HI-RES images are included for your assistance.

If your looking at this tutorial, then chances are you've already gotten this far in disassembly, but somehow DAMAGED your RCA PC Board and ordered the replacement terminal board from us?  Correct?  Regardless, we'll still go through the steps...

diag 1.1 (click image to zoom)

1) Expose the RCA / TONEARM base section - if your not sure how to do this, please take a look at our TECHNICS DJ TURNTABLE - DISASSEMBLY PT 1 and PT 2 VIDEOS

2) The part we are replacing is the green circuit board where all the wires come together.  The thicker wires are the RCA Cables / Leads, and the 5 very thin colored wires are from the tonearm.  You must be cautious with these cables, as in some instances Technics just made them long enough to reach the board.  Any shorter and it might be a pain to install.  You can extend them by purchasing a similar gauge cable and attaching.

3) The RCA Board is where all of the magic occurs.  It's not a terribly complicated set up, in fact, it's a very nice board to work on, given it's tight configuration.  However,when you have an un-experienced user who has never soldered in their life, or has VERY limited soldering skills... well, it's just a recipe for disaster.  The main problem is when you apply too much heat to the board, the cables, or the solder and seriously burn or damage the electronic trace/path of the circuit board.  This can be repaired, but if you burnt it, chances are you wont have the skills to repair it.  So, replacement is the next option for novice do-it-yourselfers.

TIP: When soldering, all you need to do is heat up the solder FIRST, then insert the wire into the solder.  You can prep the wires by adding a little bit of solder to the tip, allowing for an easy and quick connection.  That's it!

4) Go ahead and de-solder the existing wires from your PC Board.  But first, write down it's configuration, so you can keep track of where everything goes.  If you already did this, and don't know how to wire things up... don't worry, just look at the pictures! 

TIP: L- (Blue) / L+ (White) / R+ (Red) / R- (Green or Brown) / BLACK = GROUND (Earth)
The ground can be placed where either screw is mounted, as long as the external Ground cable that you connect to your mixer is connected to the same screw.

5) Remove the old RCA PC Board from your turntable - KEEP THE SCREWS!

6) Take your RCA Terminal Board and prep it by following these steps:

• Add solder to the top and bottom of the terminal posts
• that's it

7) Attach (solder) your thin tonearm wires first from Left to Right

8) Secure the RCA Terminal Board using the old screws from your RCA PC Board (we include 1 screw with your board - use it if necessary)

9) Solder the RCA cables to the top of the terminal posts, make sure that the color scheme matches your RCA cable configuration. L+ White / R+ Red - this color scheme is different on each cable - this all depends on the brand. Sometimes there is no color scheme, you just have to figure out which is left and which is right. If you can't figure it out, visit our FORUMS for assistance.

10) Test the signal by connecting your RCA cables to your mixer, and just tapping each terminal post. You should get a signal when you touch the 2 (+) Positive connections.  The finished installation should look like the first image (DIAG 1.1)

11) Everything good? Great, now put everything back together. Your done!

12) Everything NOT good? Oh oh. Go to our FORUMS and get some help! Or pay a professional to do it for you.