A not quite step-by-step guide on how to replace the belts in the Philips FC931 cassette deck. The same basic technique applies to many other decks from the 1990s, such as from Sony and Pioneer.
This is probably obvious, but I take a bunch of pictures from multiple angles whenever I disassemble stuff, and sometimes even shoot video of it (slow and steady!). Sometimes those pictures are invaluable when I'm trying to get it back together again. I also got a pair of those magnifying goggles Adrian Black uses, and they make a huge difference; repairing things is almost fun again!
Yeah pretty obvious, but still needs to be repeated, as I (like Afzaal Khan.M i'm old now 60) and forget stuff. Took something (I can't even remember that) apart a few months ago and forgot where the bits I took apart went. Had to throw it out. EDIT Took a few hours, I remembered it was a toaster.
I bought belts from the same eBay guy in Portugal. He has good quality belts, and you don't have to do any work. Yes, generic belts are cheaper. But for under $20, it's not a big deal. I'll order from him again if necessary.
The Web Spare Parts seller is active on the TapeHeads forum (Julio). Has a good reputation for decent quality belts at a reasonable price. Great for decks like these that aren't ridiculously sensitive to w&f specs.
I've had good luck boiling belts for 5 minutes in water and than wiping them good with belt / rubber conditioner. I did this on a couple of CD Players I have and it fixed the issue with the tray not opening.
Handy video. Belts are a nightmare sometimes especially on radio cassettes which are not really designed to be fixed as they were sold as throw away items. Proper decks like this aren't so bad. Good job on the swap and relatively straight forward thankfully.
I just want to say Vwestlife that you're one of my favorite RU-vidrs hands-down. You're down to earth and straight to the point, and I as well as many others appreciate that greatly. Keep it up! You're the reason I love stuff like this!
Very nice demonstration of belt replacement on clam-shell design cassette mechanism. I recently attempted to do a belt replacement on a Maganavox all-in-one stereo that had a plastic mechanism that was held together with brittle clips and adhesive, no screws in sight. With it's disposable-by-design nature, my project was a failure, and the vid got shelved.
Just replaced the belts in a Philips FC731 thanks to this video. Unfortunately it didn't resolve the problem I.e. the deck won't fast forward or rewind. If anybody has managed to fix this I'd be grateful for the solution. Thanks again for taking the time to make this video.
One thing those Sony's have that I like very much is the "Auto Cal" button that sets the decks bias to the tape exactly, it works great and makes any tape sound great. I think that is what that "Auto Bias" is on that Philips of yours. Nice deck Kevin. -Kevin
You have created an excellent how to belt replacement guide. Better than most I have seen. I wonder how long it would take most people to find that small Phillips screw that was still holding the thing together. Great video, interesting as usual.
Oddly enough I just replaced a drive belt, although mine was in a vacuum cleaner. The old belt was stretched so badly the lettering on it was visibly stretched. Replacing it was stupidly easy, it would be great if cassette belts were that easy, too. Fortunately all the cassette equipment at my home seems to be working fine now. Although if I had known about cassette belts years ago we might have been able to save my father's old Harman Kardon deck from 1984.
Good one, very wise and helpful. A bit of advice to all users of mechanical things. You need to use them once in a while or they have troubles. Case in point; CD/DVD decks on your computer. Most have a little belt that is the part that opens and closes that drawer, if it sets for to long it gets stuck in' it's egg shape and will just spin there. Cars can also have their problems, if they set to long.
Thanks. I have two identical decks to re-belt. One is branded Pioneer and the other Optimus but they are identical. Maybe like you said I should practice on a less important deck, but all I have is a 90's Sony Boom box and they are often very hard to expose the mechanisim well enough to work on it because they are so tightly packed.
Beautiful, but it deeply saddens me to see high quality tape decks reduced to the status of rare finds. Man too often throws out the baby with the bath water when he moves ahead technologically. If only a new Edison could arise and figure out how to control both spindles and the capstan with three dedicated motors. Do away with belts altogether. Although the electronics would obviously be highly advanced, there would be a beauty in resulting simplicity--no more clockwork mechanisms to go haywire in a few years. We could finally return to our beloved format using machines that sounded great and no longer ate tapes.
There's no way that WOULDN'T be possible. Look at the engineering that went into the controls for the laser on a CD player. If we put that much effort into tape decks, we'd surely have switched by now!
Direct drive tape decks exist, it's just a price vs. performance thing. And adding more motors brings more complexity and less reliability in other ways.
I'm so glad my two main Technics decks are quartz locked direct drive without any belts whatsoever.. well apart from one of them has automatic eject and close which is belt driven but that belt is very easy to get to and near enough any similar sized belt would do its job
I've got a Tascam CC-222 Mk II introduced 10 years after your Philips and it's interesting to see how much better quality your 10yr older deck is. The Tascam does not even have weighted capstan flywheels, so the wow & flutter is horrible, even with a fresh belt.
I bought a Clarion ADX5655z at a junk yard. It’s a car stereo with a full logic tape deck. I modified the power to support a cigarette lighter plug, and wired it with an aux out cable to play in my ‘04 Envoy. I still use and MAKE mix tapes in 2020.
What I really don't like about this kind of mediocore transport is the lack of real weight in the flywheel, just hollow plastic or a thin piece of stamped sheet steel. It must be mechanically perfect in order to have W&F just within its tolerance. Once the belt had aged up (like in this case) W&F will be immediately gone busted.
I have a SONY Tape Deck I purchased brand new at Best Buy's in 2005, and it uses no belts except for the take up reel. The Capstans are actually tips of the direct drive motors. Never had any problems with it, since the belts are eliminated. Wish they used similar technology on older decks.
Convenient, but the belts are not there by accident - they _could_ have been designed out (as you see on yours). For one, it's a torque limiter -- mostly in case something bad happens. It's one way to stop the tape from spooling if it binds, the end-of-tape sensor isn't working correctly, etc. More typically, it's a buffer between the motor and the drive mechanism, so any small variations in speed cause contractions and expansions of the belt and reduce the impact to the speed of the tape.
What a nice design on those decks!!! I have changed a lot of belts,,, never anything this simple.... I have a fisher deck that has five,, dam belts in it...number five is hidden inside the mechanics.... and I would have never seen it if I hadn’t of ripped the entire deck apart... total nightmare
That tape deck looks like it was made in the last batch of quality machines that manufactures put out right before they started to make crap, unfix-able poor spec tape decks. But Philips is a pretty good company. I bought a 32 inch flat screen Philips TV in 2007. I use it every day for at least an hour and it works perfectly. It also has "front firing" speakers that helps with sound clarity. Most flat screen TVs now have the down or side firing speakers which always sound muddy to me.
On my deck an Onkyo TA WR 255 on the recording sise ot seems that it tends to sounds like it needs batteries and wants to eat the tape i notice with a couple of tape. The other side playes just fine... I have no places near me that can fix this problem. Any ideas as to it might be.
Very informative video! Got a few vintage portable stereos with faulty cassette decks. How difficult is doing this process on them? I know they're full of spaghetti wires.
I just bought belts for all my machines. The only one working are a small sony cassette corder and an RCA desktop cassette recorder. All my other machines have weak belts but they do work but rewind is very weak and I have to do the pencil trick.
Very similar to my Harmon Kardon CD-91. Except there was an additional belt for the analog counter. out of the 4 decks I have that all needed belts. I ended up choosing the HK because the other three would require extensive levels of disassembly.
Un buon lavoro.le cinghiette vecchie,da cambiare,ma perfettamente intatte,questo fa vedere e CAPIRE il livello qualitativo della philips,altro che il pastrocchio di colla di cinghiette fuse che ho visto spesso
Great hand to eye dexterity in reverse engineering i do like your tutorials .l was wondering if you know of tanberg 3014 i do have one in mint condition original owner my plight is im afraid to turn it ON maybe the belts have melted what should i do?
Love the counter on that Philips, the look is different than the Sonys with those dotted lines. I have a couple of Sonys I need to replace the belts on, not looking forward to that!
A direct connection to the camcorder's microphone input via an attenuation cable.
11 месяцев назад
Amazingky good work. It is impossible and reallly expensive to get belts in Patagonia Argentina, and no servive for these things at all, so we have to recycle them or go to the trash *sighs*. You have to work +12 hs to get one belt.
Can you tell us how you removed the black cable with the pins going to the mechanism (shown at 4:32)? The white plastic piece that holds that kind of cable is difficult to lift.
I started to try and change some belts in a few old decks I have. None of them have kits available so I have to use generic belts. I am not sure on how tight the belts are supposed to be. Is there supposed to be any slack or do they have to be super tight?
Did you ever find a fix for this? I've just replaced the belts in mine hoping it would be the solution for the same problem you were having but no luck.
Thanks - I’m going to attempt a belt replacement for a Fisher ph-w803 cassette deck and hoping that it is NOT a clamshell design because this didn’t look easy at all
10:55 But I care for all cassette decks... And I found the "Somewhat Straight" Easter Egg at around 11:27 and the "Tapes Tapes" at 12:42 in this video. Do I win a prize?
Nice video. It was made in Portugal I suppose in a Grundig factory: at that time Grundig was controlled by Philips and some audio and videorecorder in Philips european catalog were made in Grundig factories. Inside is not Phlips at all, it is 100% Grundig.Tape deck is Japan made.
clean head with spirits ...and run it on fast speed a few times. i never hear stupid things like this. but rubber ...is just like a new track boots it have to break in alittle.
Tenho um FC 731 ele toca normal mais na isso não avança e nem retrocede girei uma engrenagem que fica na ponta ele avançou e retrpcedeu mais o play ficou avançando. Tem alguma idéia
I got a old Onkyo double cassette ta-rw313 I got a new one 1993 with a matching receiver tx-sv313pro and I still got it it was my first real stereo before that I have my father's old quasar self-contained stereo that had an axillary input that I use my first cd player
I remember one time I was adjusting the speed on my technics deck and when I inserted the screwdriver the whole thing died! Instead of running the motor faster it just murdered it.
