Technics Repairs - they last for ever!

Marc from Scratchworx has been investigationg the rumours of Panasonic the worldwide monster that manufacturs 1200's and 1210's stoping production and support for certain models.

This may well effect our ability to carry out the same level of Technics repairs in the workshop in Edinburgh in the future. For now we have not experianced any problems in getting parts for the main models.

See the whole story here and an extract below:

the 1200s.com forum:

So
it seems the wonderful people @ Technics, actually Panasonic, or even
more so Matsushita Corp (the parent company of them all), has decided
to start discontinuing parts for the famed SL1200MK2 / SL1210MK2
turntables. They've started by discontinuing all of the Circuit Boards,
asking technicians to repair any issues at the component level on the
board. The problem is that some of these components are now also being
discontinued. More specifically they are discontinuing some very
important IC's (Integrated Circuits), which are pretty much what makes
this unit so powerful.

So, now what? We have a lot of Technics
1200 series turntables just sitting in the shop, waiting for repair,
but we can't do anything because we can't get parts. We are trying to
see if the MK5 or M5G parts will work, but haven't performed any tests
as of yet.

Common issues with the main board that affect these units are irregular pitch / drive issues:
- spins too fast
- spins too slow
- extremely slow start up
- washing machine affect (back and forth jerking)
- wont stop when the start/stop button is pressed

All
of these issues are directly related to one or more of the ICs on the
main board. So if you are experiencing any of these issues, I thought
it would be good to know what your up against.

Not sure what
the plan is, but we were told by a sales rep @ Matsushita, they
eventually want to phase out the MK2, and even the MK5 - which is the
purpose for the MK6 release!