Platter stops when back scratching

There's a variable resistor with the name pitch besides it... first clean it and then you put your pitch fader in the middle and turn it with a screw driver, put your platter on the unit, the plastic black plate you only have to unscrew and take off , nothing else., but like i said , but the platter on it and watch the strobe lights. Determine first which way you have to screw, it's just whole the time :taking of platter and turn screw a bit(don't forget to take of the electricity when you remove the platter), put it on and do that until the strobe stays steady.
greetings richard

Try spraying the slider with Servisol Video 40.

The large dots tend to be for 33. Records will not maintain constant speeds as they play so you have to get it the nearest you can. You can keep adjusting it, but it's only needs to be done if you notice the loss of speed or increase.
There are 4 sets of dots due to the variation in power. 50 or 60 HZ. You select the dots for your national grid output.

how do you know theres power to the unit if theirs no strobe light pitch adjuster light & the platter doesn't spin?
the power comes in & to the transformer first,then through the strobe switch, the transformer is what blows when you short the target light out.....i've seen this many a time when people try & change the target lights to blue neon.

It seems like you need to adjust the pitch control. Try looking at the platter strobe light and seeing if it is at the correct speed. If not adjust the pitch control until you can see the dots align. As for the not returning, your automatic motor may be busted.

You should be fine with this. Here is the spec:

Quartz lock large blue LCD display showing: speed, pitch & platter direction, locking platter reverse button, located in battle position, 3-speed design: 33, 45 & 78 RPM, 7 grams of anti-skate adjustment, adjustable pitch control+= 10 & pitch bend buttons, locking reverse button, hi-tech tone arm with height adjustment, feather-touch start/ stop control, strobe illuminator, pop-up target light, headshell, slipmat and dustcover included . 115V/230V switchable. 17.75"w x 6"h x 14"d. Weight:27lbs.

You need to calibrate your pitch control. This requires a small precision screwdriver (similar to something you would repair eye glasses with). If you look under the turntable where the pitch control is you will find 2 small holes, 1 marked 33 and 1 marked 45. Turn the turntable on and set the pitch control lever to zero pitch. While the turntable is spinning insert the screw driver into the pitch calibration hole under the turntable and twist the potentiometer back and forth until the turntable pitch is zero (I believe clockwise is faster, counterclockwise is slower as you look up from the bottom of the turntable). This is a fine tune adjustment and will not require much turning to adjust the speed (1 or 2 mm's) either way should start to bring you into zero pitch. The platter speed can be verified by the little dots on the rim of the platter. They should appear stationary in strobe light on the power switch when you are at zero pitch. When you are adjusting the speed you will observe the dots on the platter rim spinning clockwise and then counterclockwise as you adjust the fine tuning. Fine tune the speed until the dots appear stationary and you will be back to zero pitch. You have to adjust the turntable at both speeds 33 and 45 using the correct fine tuning hole under the turntable. My personal experience is it is easiest to do this with 2 people. 1 person to hold the turntable level and running, while the other adjusts the fine tuning. Hope this helps.

I'm having a similar issue - except my panasonic sl-hm42 platter is moving too slow on 33 1/3 settings (don't have any 45's to try). It's a DC model, so I would think there would be some kind of pitch control settings or screws somewhere on it but I can't seem to find them.
Does anyone know if it's possible to adjust the pitch on this model turntable? Thank you!

THEY HAVE THE PARTS AT PANASONIC.COM. THEY SHIP ANY WHERE....JUST TYPE IN MODEL#...

Sounds like it may need a motor calibration. You would have to seek out an authorized service center to this adjustment done. It's a quick and easy fix though.