Dissecting a Schumann/Merula DB 200 ceramic cartridge

I was curious to see the inside of the cartridge, in an attempt to locate the problems with not giving any output on the B side.

I made a writeup on my blog and I welcome anyone to view and comment my findings.

[nsmprestige.wordpress.com]

With regards

Lars

Ceramic cartridges are not rare, they are still used in large quantities. The most common is nowadays the Chuo Denshi CZ800, used in those cheap retro record players sold in supermarkets.
Chinese copies of this cartridge, as used in some of the cheap players, are sold for less than 2$ on Ebay or Aliexpress. [de.aliexpress.com]

Thanks for correcting me. I will update the blog.

Lars

Hello Lars,

congratulations for the article in your block. I am impressed and like the great photos you show.
Yes, inside there is a lot of dirt and oxidation in your cartridge. I am about sure this is the problem for the not working B sides (next to a loose wire maybe).

What I think about ceramic cartridges: Maybe not ceramic cartridges are rare these days.
But these double-sided ones used in jukeboxes are not common today any longer. Record players use in general a singe-sided cartridge because they play the record flat.
So in my opinion you could edit saying that this kind of double-sided cartridge is rare these days. And finding a replacement might be possible today - a good used one - but of course will be limited looking at the future.

Other double-sided ones are used for example in
Harting M140 to M2000 - ceramic
Fanfare 60 and 100 mono - crystal
NSM 1961 to 1974 - ceramic, then magnetic
Seeburgs - always magnetic if original (there was an aftermarket ceramic one offered later)
Gerinvex, Treff, Jupiter, Beromat, some other French and Belgium jukeboxes - ceramic
Wiegandt Tonmaster - crystal
Atari and Europe Eléctronique (successors of Jupiter) - magnetic
Miniatur de Luxe - magnetic most of the times

For these models it is not easy to find a replacement. So if they can be repaired or overhauled by a good cleaning, this is often the only solution.

I am wondering if I should make a link to your blog in our archive - probably from the FAQ page of NSM. What do you think?
[www.jukebox-world.de] >>> ??? in NSM row

Kind regards - Hildegard