Hi there I have a mish mash of a system that I obtained from a relative on top of which sits a Bush MTT1 turntable. Not the most exotic I know but functional. It had been working fine for around a year until yesterday (my birthday so typical), after a Sunday where I had purchased a lot of vinyl from car boot sales, it decided that it would no longer work. When I try to move the arm to place the stylus onto the vinyl it automatically ejects itself and no matter what I can no longer get it to play. I have tried pressing the eject switch at the front of the deck but it makes no difference. Does anybody have any tips as to what may be wrong and whether it is even worth the effort of trying to fix (in an ideal world I would buy something a bit classier but it isn't at the moment so I can't) I did get a Matsui unit from a local charity shop to fill the gap but this seems to leading with the front of the cartridge so I daren't actually play anything at the moment
At times automatic tables get caught mid-cycle. This normally occurs when the table as been moved but you can try the same remedy no matter.
Hold the arm lightly as you give the platter a good hard spin in a clockwise direction. If the auto mechanism is jammed, this should move the arm across the distance to the platter and attempt to lower the arm into the lead in groove. The arm will them move to the end of the disc location and raise before moving back to rest.
Obviously, you don't want to arm to settle down on the record so hold it above and provide only enough support to keep the arm from lowering. If you've given the platter a good hard spin, it will move rather quickly. You might even want to remove the stylus assembly for its own protection before you try this. Just the stylus, not the cartridge.
If you try this, say, three times and the problem doesn't resolve itself, then there are more serious issues which would require a technician's assistance. Unfortunately, these tables were not serviced due to the initial cost. When the broke, you bought another table.
Have you moved the table at all in the recent past?