@15:20, that head looks similar to that used in the TC-K61 and TC-K44. Note too the head block - not plastic! That sort of thing fills me with confidence. Here in the UK the asking price is around £300.
Very good work! I just got a bunch of tape recorders for disassembly, though there are a few that I would like to save. A good New Year to you and yours!
That was easy repair. what are you thoughts about "technical petroleum jelly (vaseline)" as lubricant for cd/casette players, such us laser rail where it moves back and forth. "Used for protecting electric contacts, lubricating bearings" btw it is now -20 degrees here, a bit chilly
Can I just say, I once bought a sec hand Sony TC-206SD and to my astonishment, I discovered (a day or two later?) the right channel was magnetized! How did I know this? Well, playing a pre-recorded tape resulted in the right channel track being partially erased with a roar-like sound. I did some tests later and yes, the right channel head ferrite core was magnetized! But how? Well, I can only speculate that since the deck had been left idle for years, it was later switched on, and solder-side cct board surface contaminants allow currents to run into the head, maybe it was left in a REC position? First and only time I've experienced that.
Thank you very much for all the videos enjoy watching them. I was trying to fix a pioneer cassette deck yesterday by replacing the belt. after I finished I realized I broke one of the tiny copper wire from a solenoid. I could not find the location of the broken wire on the solenoid... Is it possible just to solder the broken piece of wire from the board to the solenoid? Will this allow the solenoid to function? The solenoid is used to control to activate and deactivate functions of the cassette deck. Thank you
Awesome video thankyou! I have this very deck, and it will only play with the lid removed. Play activates but then autostops with lid on. Thanks for the tips!
@@12voltvids im so sorry, my model is the tcfx33 and has no light, but ive noticed when i sheild light from the workings of the tape counter it stops. Some kind of sensor.
@@tharkthax3960 will be a light bulb shining a light on a sensor turned by the counter belt that has some slots in it to break the light beam. Works the same way but that model has mechanical counter so they used that. This one has electronic tape counter that counts the pulses on the supply and take up so it can figure out where the tape is.
Is there any truth that pinch rollers shouldn't be cleaned with isopropyl alcohol? I clean my heads with 91% isopropyl and someone said it would damage the roller rubber. They said to use windex..... thoughts?
That is probably a myth originating from people who cleaned a degraded pinch roller with IPA. It happened to me, too. You start to clean it, and the cotton buds just keep getting black with no end, until you realize the pinch roller has developed all sorts of surface blemishes during the cleaning process. Now you might think you destroyed the pinch roller with the IPA, but in fact, the pinch roller was already garbage to begin with, because the rubber on it has degraded from aging. I have a small, battery operated playback-only tape deck to test second hand cassettes. It's great for that purpose because it doesn't need the cassette door to be closed during playback, and the door opens up ~ 90°, so the tape path is super easy to clean. In almost every batches, at least 10-25% of the tapes are either shedding, or moldy, or both, so that pinch roller ends up getting cleaned very often. Going through a batch of 50 cassettes, I sometimes clean it 40 times, just to always start the next tape with a perfectly clean roller, so I can know if it's shedding or not, and to prevent a moldy tape from infecting the next ones. I always use a special, dehydrated, residue-free denatured alcohol, which is chemically probably very similar to IPA (I am no chemist, so please forgive me if they are very different :) ). I cleaned that one single pinch roller probably over 200 times, maybe close to 400 times this way during the last 3 years since I own that cute little deck, and it's still in mint condition, despite being about 34 years old. I think this pretty much rules out that alcohol is harmful for rubber rollers.
Sir I would love to buy sets like these but I'm from Mumbai India. Is it possible to ship any of these vintage sets, what will be the landing cost to reach my end.
Head adjustment is not required unless it has been replaced or some amateur thought he could do better than the factory and fuxed with it. If the paint seal is still there and it isn't physically bent then it is correct.
@@shadabhusain6895 head adjustment should never be required unless it has been changed. Sure if you recorded on a machine that was out if adjustment then it won't sound proper on a factory adjusted machine. So people crack out the screw driver and tweak to make it sound better and then all the recordings they make are out of whack. Cassette decks were terrible to begin with. Just the pressure or position of the pressure pad will affect the sound and it changes every time you press play. Cassette tapes were and always will be tacky little plastic things. I would check decks with factory tape at the shop and the only ones that needed adjustments were ones that the owner or some other tech messed with. Ones that had never been touched were always within spec.
one more step to make before it go's on sale: installing a new O-ring on the cassette door rod that slides in the cilinder for a slowly opening door when eject is pushed.
Tape definitely FUBAR. At this point in time there's a lot of foobars out there and very little knowledge on how to spot them. Ask me how I know. Of course then people proceed into the sport and go on to think: tapes, they were rubbish.
Cassette tapes were always garbage. Manufactures were always chasjing the dragon trying to get better sound. Even nakimichi called their last attempt the dragon. They thought they did it and JVC outdid them one last time with the tdv 1010. That deck they pulled out all the stops. Personally i have never heard a better sounding cassette deck. Dual capatan, direct drive caoatan, 3 heads, switchable hxpro and frequency response with metal tape 20 to 22khz. Only good for the car as far as i was concerned.
@@12voltvids because you only used FUBAR tapes. Oh... on there is a deck with a CAR EQ on it. Don't really know what's about it but... perhaps I'll find that out. Got this deck to service, 1986 Yama-hahaha !
@@m80116 I have plenty that are good, and even a bunch of brand new never used factory sealed tapes. The ones that go in machines to test however are usually old tapes that have many miles on them and damage.
@@12voltvids Concerning good tapes... I was recording for myself a radio program the other day and had one of these browned red hub SONY UX, absolutely pristine shell and apparently good tape but I noticed straight away from the monitoring function there was something missing.... I could notice the difference. Radio program over I grabbed one of my trusty D and put that into the deck... SOURCE TAPE SOURCE... no difference. Shined light on the UX tape and sure enough... almost imperceptible scratch marks along the tape. And you need very strong light to spot them and only at a certain angles, in fact I've bought that flashlight exactly to inspect cassette tapes. I guess this happened to many but I am afraid it almost exclusively went under "tapes are garbage".
@@m80116 It's an smiley equalizer setting to record cassettes with an "adjusted sound" for car stereos. There was the TEAC V2RX and V4RX which had a parametric equaliser which could be used for playback or recording. and last not least the NEC K538A which even had a 5-band equaliser.
