Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Chris, How do you envision your replacement Lenco motor? Would it drive the underside of the platter directly with a vertically oriented "rim"-drive wheel, or would it drive the platter via the Lenco idler mechanism or some facsimile thereof? Anyway, I for one would be interested to learn more.

By the way, why was/is it necessary to develop a remote mechanism to flip the Verus motor against the inner rim of the Garrard 301 then away from contacting it when the motor is not in use? Would it not be sufficient simply to turn the motor on and off and let it lean on the inner rim at all times?

Thank you for having the guts to introduce a paradigm shift into the competitive belt-drive marketplace.

First I want to be clear that I am "contemplating" doing a Verus motor for the Lenco. This is not a commitment.

I can see a few ways to do a Lenco/Verus. I suspect that the best approach would be to create an assembly much like what we did for the Garrard. The Garrard assembly consists of a mounting bracket, a pivoting motor block and a motor with a 2" drive wheel installed on the motor shaft. The drive wheel rests against the inside rim of the platter. The motor block has a pivot that allows the motor block to tilt away from the platter. The weight of the motor block establishes the drive wheel pressure. Thats the general idea. A picture would probably help. For this to work on a Lenco the inside of the platter rim would need to be true and smooth.

Another option would be a replacement for only the motor itself. From the pictures I have seen it looks like the Verus motor would fit inside of the existing Lenco motor housing. The tapered shaft could probably be fitted to the Verus motor shaft. I expect that this would be sonicly inferior, but some may wish to retain the original idler.

We have not developed a mechanism for tilting the motor away from the platter for the VRD-Garrard but will probably do so. The motor needs to be tilted for platter installation but not for normal operation.

Chris

There's no way that you can use the inside rim of the Lenco platter. It has vertical extrusions all around. Mine anyway (L75).

I have a couple of Lenco platters, one has ridges around the rim inside and the other doesn't. No way you could design a "universal" Lenco motor using rim drive, you'd have to drive the underside of the platter.

But the other question about the Garrard motor, when the original motor is off the rim drive wheel is moved away from the platter to prevent a flat spot - that's one of the functions of the linkage.. The Lenco doesn't have that problem because the wheel is metal with just a thin rubber coating. How does the Verus motor prevent flat spotting if it is rigidly mounted on the Garrard?

Chris, Since you have already stimulated responses from some Lenco-lytes, let me add another possible bone of contention: "We" tend to think that the Lenco drive system, where the underside of the platter is in contact with the idler drive system, not the inner rim of the platter, may have some inherent superiority over conventional rim drive. (This may be correct thinking or it may not be; I'd be interested in your comments.) Rightly or wrongly you might have a hard time converting "us" to rim drive for that reason. Now, if you can conceive and execute an idler drive system that is quieter and utilizes a motor that is superior to that of the Lenco, you may have something. As I suggested earlier, there may be a way to mount your drive wheel in a vertical orientation such that it can directly contact the underside of a Lenco platter. There are attendant problems related to how to maintain the proper and constant pressure against the platter in such a set-up, but not unsolvable ones.