Cassette Changer Repair
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- I bought this absolute nightmare of a cassette changer with the plan to bring it back to life.
Man did it need a lot more work than I thought! I recorded the intro before I did the repair, it was much worse than I thought it was going to be. The most frustrating thing was really just that the repair-test cycle was so slow on the decks because of how many cables there are in the way. If it hadn't been for that, it wouldn't have been so bad.
I still don't know for sure what the previous owner was trying to do that made them tear the whole thing apart like that. Nothing was broken in the changer area. Perhaps they were trying to extract a cassette that was stuck in the deck of the changer. That's my best guess for now.
It's fun to have it working though. It's a stupidly complicated device which makes it all the more fun.
Gear image reference: i.imgur.com/Pu...
And if you're crazy enough to want one of these like me, you can get one through here ans help support the channel:
eBay: ebay.to/2I5h7zJ
Playlists of more stuff like this:
Audio: • Audio
Repairs: • Repair
1990s: • 1990s
Other Links
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Github: github.com/AkB...
Thingiverse: www.thingivers...
Patreon: / akbkuku
Discord: / discord
the intro is so cheesy i cant do anything but like it.
John Cena thank you john cena
@@silicongraphics Oh hey! A silicon graphics? That sounds old..
John Cena I can't see you
i nearly didnt watch all the video because im thinking i cant listen to him like that all the way through lol
L i n u x _ m i n t
Resurrecting an obscure piece of hi-fi equipment, full of gears and switches?
Techmoan would be proud.
I wish I had just a portion of his patience. Such wonderful work there.
Not shown, the constant terror of that hair getting caught in drive belts.
I think you solved the mystery of why cassette changes never really caught on.
Your *PATIENCE* is the true star of this Session. I am in awe!
7:08 for the magic mains plug that disconnects by itself
It was a safety plug ;-)
Great video, well done to fix several issues. I just finished a belt change on both and was able to do them with both decks in place, one hour each. For the multi, the protector plate is removed from bottom, then the large ribbon cable is removed to give access. Note, the connector is a "push in" lever with one hand..one finger push on white bar, and other fingers tug on ribbon. Then take 4 screws to open motor plate. Careful placement of new belts with tweezers and small hook, then reassemble. The single side is the same but the one screw hidden partially by the protecton plate can be loosened enough to change the belts. Ribbon connectors are both push and lift each end type behind the motor assy. Speed adjust is on the board not the motor.
Weird Al Yankovic Confirmed.
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN How is that mean?
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN Sounds like a compliment to me.
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN Weird Al is awesome
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN Jokes about receding hairlines and weak jawlines would be mean.
What beautiful equipment Shelby (@Tech Tangents).. look at all that machinery.. the movement.. the precision.. the engineering.. these things were alive.. absolute beauty.. .. we have now.. a rectangular chunk of glass (smartphone) that looks like the one that everyone else has in the hand around us ..
1no- there is a non-slip spray (in my country it is called "Delta Compitt Antideslizante") to put on the belts.. you can clearly hear that you belt is skating/sliding on the engine bronze pulley)..
2nd- the tool to remove the cables it is called scissors.. LOL .. and to rejoin them soldering iron.... I never manage to removed or put any of those ribbon cables back on.. and unlike the current flat cables that they are impossible to repair.. those can be cut and re-welded.. you don't even need to insulate them.. the wires are far enough apart.. to just solder them and leave it like that... you know.. 1 or 2 Centimeters over the useless conector..
18:06 thats just an instant vaporwave button clearly
more like instant satan button
druaga1 looks wierd without the mustache
Stop with the druaga comparison... Akbkuku creates such good and well researched content that it's a shame you guys always compare him to the mess that druaga always makes. Don't get me wrong, I love druaga1 because his videos are so messed up that it's really fun watching him destroying operating systems and all the other crap he does and I certainly don't want him to change. I just don't think akbkuku deserves to be compared to him just because their voices sound similar. Thanks for your attention
Geez, it's called a joke... they're both great guys, never mind the fact that they've done videos together. To be fair, I watch AkBKukU more since he generally knows what he's doing :)
The jump cut after 22:30 is my favorite thing all day. The number of times a project I’m working on ended up at that tone of voice 😂
You delivered that intro perfectly! Did it take many takes?
Left changer somehow reminds me a little of an ink jet printer head moving back and forth. I picked up one of those Pioneer changers at a local thrift about a year ago ; right side transport functioning, left not changing. May or may not be the same model ... Didn't have time to determine the reason the changer non- functional and stored the deck. I'll need to retrieve it from storage and take a second look now that I have your comments combined with the video's much clearer view of the mechanism in action. Thank you very much for posting the very interesting video !
U have a great voice ! And a great way of delivering .
I have not seen on in a thrift store for say over 10 years now. Most of them was 100% dirty, broken, beat up, plastic floating around in them and seemed horrible to repair. Now after watching your video about the belts. I can't tell you how many BPC decks I have thrown away because the belt was impossible to get at. Without a completed tear down. Once again stuff from 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's. Pull the top of and remove a screw or two. perhaps a wheel weight and boom. Access to belt for replacement. Plus easy to grease spots too.
bpc, such a hellword :) brings soundlab dj decks to mind
I would have given up so many times trying to fix this. The fact someone tried to fix it and it was fixable is unusual. That opening!
thank god "pt 1" wasnt in the title
Hahaha, I liked your intro, it was pretty funny!
"It's been fixed with TAPE!"
The commercial at the beginning was better than most today! Good job man!!
Hocus Pocus by Focus is awesome! But it sounded slowed down a bit. Maybe the deck needs some fresh grease?
Projects like these are for me multi-month or multi-year affairs. I always do a bit and put it on the shelf, after some time became curious and come back to do another little bit and again put it on the shelf. I just don't have the patience and time to do it in one go but this method works for me pretty well.
You're my man today. You helped me reach the problem of that micro stop sensor switch on the top of that slide hanger or sth. Took me 1 minute to get right by bending the metal tab towards that switch. And voilà !
Thank you, subd.
I own the Sony TC-C5 Carousel style 5 cassette changer version and I absolutely love it! These machines definitely makes playing cassettes in 2019 cool again!
*Animaniacs tape plays*
+Respect
Cheers and thanks for your complete analysis of the changer mech, as I am in the middle of repairing one and was a bit stymied, even with the service manual.
But i will say this: you took the hard way in removing the single play and changer transports. the single will actually come out without dropping the face, and the changer transport is just four screws after removing the shield without removing the changer. I just did the belts on both the changer and single transport. Forceps are advised, but a piece of stiff wire like a paper clip with a hook to grab the belt will do. After cleaning off the goo, the belt change and re-installation took about 40 minutes. The single deck works great now. Can't say that about the changer transport as the I am hitting the same issues you are with it loading and not stopping. It also will not go back to rest and there is a cassette trapped in it's clutches! :D
Wonder how much swearing had to be cut out of the video.
if it was me every other word would be "BEEEP!"
I bought one which is a little better designed. It's not dual deck, its a CT-M6R. Having seen the design flaws you mentioned, I've noticed that mine has some addressed.
The changing of the belts is partially obstructed by that metal plate cover. the M6R doesn't have this, meaning the belts are clearly visible and accessible from the back once the unit's cover is off.
Its got a fairly good tape transport mechanism.
The belt itself for the tape transport(not tape shell transport) is a ribbon/flat belt, which may be less prone to slippage due to higher surface area against the capstan flywheels and possibly less wear due accordingly, it also has two motors. One for the tape winding spindles which are direct drive from the motor via cogs and another motor for the two capstans which encompases the ribbon belt drive to link the speed of the two capstans. This design means that the FF/REW function can be higher speed and less prone to wear affecting the performance.
This higher ff/rew speed however mandates an extra sensor aside the tape head which I think detects the end of tape to give it half a chance of saving the tape from being ripped off the spool due and primarily it reduces the changeover time from one side's content to the other as the full leader tape does not need to be played.
Mine wasn't working either... I found that the white ribbon to the tape shell transport had the end wire dry jointed where the ribbon connects to the cassette shell carrier as power to the motor wasn't connected. Lucky for me I guess the teeth weren't chewed from this fault, because the motor just stopped moving with the lack of connection to it.
Another problem I had was an earth noise accompanying the music. I poked around looking at earth wires missing or unconnected and to no avail. In the end I found that earthing the changer cage to the units main chassis did the trick.
The problem of the inaccessible heads is a difficult one to remedy at design time because the changer must have front access to the heads and its either you or the changer that gets the access.
One oversight for this unit was the Dolby manually switched. This means that the cassettes you play must all be recorded in the same Dolby system. Later on the CT-W504RS dual well deck had logic that automatically selects the best playback setting depending on the noise profile of the tape being played. This would have been very useful in this deck because any tapes can be put into the tray and they might need different settings. At least they could have put a dolby settings button on this unit's remote control.
One thing I noticed on this unit was that it has an extra sensor right asside the playback heads. It seems to be an optical sensor that detects the leader tape of the cassette, making for a smaller wait time at the end of one side and the start of the next side to play. It also helps the unit to stop rather than ripping the tape right off the spool as the very fast rewind of the twin motor version can be tortuous on the leader tape as it hits the end of the tape.
One way around is to access the heads with very long cotton bud tips of say 150mm. but yeah... it is a downfall of the unit.
because these units are designed for hours and hours of play in a session without the need to touch them, the heads are likely to suffer wear due to high usage compared to say a dual well or single well. So I'd always recommend swapping the heads of a second hand unit for one that is not a 6 cassette changer.
I appreciate the time it took you to work on this , having done similar to these units. incidentally on my unit the long gear track that was worn on yours is located underneath the cage roof alongside the metal shaft that guides the shell transport, I think yours was in a different location , or you had the cage turned on its side.
I'm going to go further with this unit, having replaced the heads I'm interested to interconnect it with a Dolby S unit so that I'm using the multi changer and transport of this M6R but I'm using the preamp and Dolby S of a dual well pioneer, thus I'll have the benefits of Dolby S and multi changer. ... Mad, yeah probably, but I too think these units are really cool. Interfacing via the cd deck synchro to the 6 disc cd changer, allows a cassette tape junkie to rapidly put 6 cd's onto 6 tapes and if all goes well, in Dolby S, which if you've heard it, does have similar punch to digital music due to the noise reduction in the 100kHz band and its designers philosophy to achieve more with less processing.
nice detailed video well done to you. The item I have is one of a series of CT-M6R, CT-M5R,CT-M7R.
You are a brave brave man sir. I will remember your fearlessness, and spread the word...
I like how pioneer named tape deck "cd-deck" :P
Me:
Wife: Why are you playing through the commercial? Can't you skip it?
Me: This is the fun part!
... keeps playing ...
Me: I stand corrected, THIS is the fun part
... keeps playing ...
Me: Who botched this beautiful piece of engineering and gave up half way through?
Thanks for posting! This must have been hell to edit it to less than 35 minutes.
I love your tenacity. I would have quit in day 2... one of your best videos so far
You owning the Animaniacs theme on cassette is reason enough to subscribe to your channel.
The extra mechanism for the tape changing has its own belt and fragile plastic gears?
I'm so sorry
Crap, I've called but the number is out of service... I suppose the offer is over. Damn, I wanted one... :(
plenty around.. some are called CT-M6R , CT-M60R, CT-M66R, CT-M55R,CT-M5R,CT-M77R.. just keep searching. ebay , amazon, gumtree etc.. They're great and with the remote control, they're brilliant. some, like mine have two motors on the tape transport so that ff/rew can be set at a higher speed I think. The one in this video has only 1 motor and does its magic with more gearing.
I like how this cassette changer features Regret :p
yes, the random play is a great way of mixing up a well known set of tapes. you never know what you'll get next play. The cd deck synchro is great of quickly putting 6 CDs to 6 tapes...just because you can. Some of them are designed better than others so don't shitcan all of them by the poorer ones.
I think this tape deck alone accelerated the advent of MP3's or any other form of a vehicle of delivering music in a less absurd design as this thing. You have some serious patience and an uncanny ability to diagnose and fix things.
That reminds me, in my nan's loft is a Panasonic 50(?) disc CD changer that won't change discs. I'd love to try getting that fixed one day. It's an awesome bit of kit I'd love to have on my desk.
What's really funny is that Dolby Noise Reduction A did exist at one point in time. It was just so ineffectual that it actually ended up mangling the sound more than it helped, so it was quickly deprecated and B followed shortly after to much better reception by the listening public.
This is the best thing I have watched on TH-cam all week! What is that awesome little screwdriver you are using. Who makes it?
18:15, what are you talking about, that's a Disco/Death Metal compilation tape!
Nice work. I know what you mean about expecting worse with those. I had the jvc carousel tape changer I got at a flea market for 10$. I knew I was screwed when I took the carousel out and found someone had added a detector switch in a very weird place with hot glue, parts were cut and melted and there was horrible botchery on the control board. If I remember right it couldn't find it's home position but could load cassettes and play them if you forced it. Held on to it as long as I could but had to chuck it out.
You have the patience of a saint.
Good morning my friend here is newton! all good, I have 3 tape deck of those of 7 tapes each one different model I bought 3 one working and the other two without working but it gave me a lot of work too that is a lot of mechanics
18:07 Fool! You just unleashed the creepypasta edition of the tape. Put it back now before you bleed hyperrealistically.*-
That's a beautiful mechanism, I always enjoy seeing this kind of over-engineered single purpose thing.
The most frustrating part of repairing devices like this is taking it apart (and seeing a spring bounce out of nowhere), trying some maybe-this-works fix and having to put it all back together, for it to be able to do what it's supposed to, only to find out your ingenious fix did bupkis. Or snapping some aged 1mm thick plastic clip that practically holds the entire universe together and game over. Or in the worst case you may just observe the gadget putting end to its misery in front of your own eyes.
Now you know why most repair shops refused tape decks! They were rarely economical to have repaired outside of warranty..which kinda makes you feel sorry for whoever had to sit and do the warranty repairs at Pioneer! Eek! D:
Cassettes are awesome. I was a teenager in the 80s and cassettes were the only way you could bring music with you. CDs were a fortune and they really had not developed good CD-walkman technology at that point. Though I have lifelong hearing issues, I always thought they sounded fine. Very high quality metal tapes were available for sound that is more or less indistinguishable from CDs.
Man, just think about having a stack of these, with your entire commodore 64 cassette collection at the push of a button!
Imagine the pain some of the engineers went through designing this beast, yikes tortured souls..
I'm pretty sure I've seen this video before, but the mechatronics of the deck are so interesting.
If you ever run into a situation like that gear rail where the plastic is badly stripped you might try mixing fiberglass and epoxy resin to fill out the ground teeth and then cut them down from fresh.
Fiber Glass and Epoxy Resin should be stronger than the original plastic.
This is gonna sound weird, but where did ya get your screwdrivers? I like the mechanism to stick a bar in the end of the driver to give it more torque when unthreading the screws
looks like its from ifixit :)
for what a pain in the double asterisks it was to fix, the technology was actually amazing for the time!
At first I was thinking this wasn't worth repairing either, and I don't think I would have bothered with it. But I like your non-waste attitude and congratulate you on fixing it, and if you don't want to keep it, you should earn yourself some nice bux by selling it back out as a good unit!
why did they always use belts instead of just gears?
Belts allow for some slipping if there is a problem like how the black part was jamming.
@@TechTangents yeah that's it. If there was a gear system and something got jammed, the teeth on the gears would probably break off, while a belt would just slip, get knocked out of place or in the worst case snap. And I can tell you, a snapped belt is a lot easier to get a replacement for than a gear with broken off teeth
gears are also loud and cause wow and flutter.
@@TechTangents Sometimes they have used a gear mechanism, and then they were adding a simple friction clutch to prevent breaking teeth when something had jammed. But gears are loud and "stiff", while belts are quiet and have some elasticity, which allows to minimize the vibrations from motor (brush type DC motors doesn't have constant speed, they are like pulse engines).
As @@Evan420 mentioned, belts run a lot smoother. They even correct some high frequency flutter, a bit like a mechanical capacitor.
Your like a mash up of Techmoan and LGR cranked up to 11.
That's a perfect comparison
With the difference that he has a lot more knowledge. (Programming, electronics... Etc).
But techmoan and LGR are also very cool channels, just a lot less technical.
@@TheRailroad99 Agreed. He is the ultimate retro tech youtuber, with a youtube name that is darn near impossible to remember. I think I subscribed originally because I knew I would forget the name and not be able to find his channel again.
@@peterlamont647 I found him because of the Win98 LAN events with druaga
@@TheRailroad99 Same, actually.
31:19 THOSE SHOTS YAAASSSS, you're doing so well with the filming of your videos lately tbh. And omg this tape deck is so great yet so terrifying.
Btw how's the server working?
That tape position on the display tho. Excellent.
Another great video. Love your content, so satisfying to watch. Greetings from Brazil!
heh I have the exact same model dual deck cassette deck (a Pioneer CT-W604RS) as the one he shows at the beginning. Great deck, BTW, one of the few that supports Dolby S, so it was a really lucky find that I've found at Goodwill some time ago.
yeah I have the CT-W703RS, with Dolby S. I'm going to interface my CT-M6R with the 703 and thus multi tape playback n recording together with Dolby S and flex capability. both great decks although the CT-W series have no mpx defeat switch. This means that playback of Dolby S cassettes is not limited to 16kHz but recording is limited. So to get the true capability from your 603RS you just need to disconnect the mpx circuit unless you are recording from fm stereo radio. playback is not limited in frequency range.
+1 for the intro alone.
this is a LOT more interesting than ANYTHING on TV!
I'm addicted.
I just saw one of these at a thrift store, glad to know passing it up was a good idea..Not from Pioneer's best period.
I do like that you are appearing in your own video! You do a great job with the content.
And I thought that Sony’s 90s mechanisms were the worst... clearly, Pioneer has done a “better” job in that regard. On the other hand, the most service friendly mechanism was the one in the Revox B215 (or B710, they are very similar). 4 direct drive motors, no belts, everything is mounted on a single cast alloy base. Swiss engineering at its finest.
21:20 I wish my Sony deck's mechanism was that simple. I had to almost completely strip the mechanism to replace the belt.
Well done, I really enjoyed watching this. If this were mine, I would dismantle the front panel and clean the inside of the display. This usually results in a nice bright, sharp output.
Love the intro. Also, you have the patience of a saint.
I've only taken a few decks apart, but I've always found them to be an absolute pain in the ass.
Love that intro - hilarious! I'd say it was worth it because you got a video out of it, and don't tell me you didn't have fun on some level fixing this thing! :-)
BTW, had no idea that 3D-printing drive belts was a thing.
This is the coolest video you have done yet.
Extremely well done.
we need the return of the shiny hat!
man! you really have radio voice.
That intro was awesome. But wait, there's more!
Nice work..... Didn't even know they had multiplayer cassette decks.!!
Great selection of music.
28:33 Those holes on the base, do they align with the screws? I think you were really into the disassembly thing here...
Focus! You would like a TH-cam channel called 12voltvids, Dave does heaps of repairs on these things (one on this model as well) and also has that album on vinyl and uses it for turntable testing now and then
Awesome video man, you are very tenacious 👏
Dude.
You have a great taste in music.
I wanted one of these real bad when they were new.
lmao that begining bit was halarious
I loved my Pioneer multi Tape player!
Loved the intro!
Nice work om the whole video aswell, as always.
I used to have that dual cassette player :-)
Damn I really want that changer after that intro lol
have one of these - an extremely reliable unit! love the sound quality
Abit late and maybe its been mentioned before but im pretty sure those connectors you had problems with just requires to be pushed down while yanking the wire out. Had some "fun" repairing several Pioneers myself before i figured that out.
20:00 those maybe push-to-release connectors -- got myself into trouble with those in a DJM 500 mixer -- kind of destroyed one before learned it's secret
The display is beautiful
Absolutely smashing that bit. Well done.
Pioneer made a couple different flavors of these. I have an CT-M6R (no front loading cassette, changer only) and a CT-WM62R (like yours but a different version, I guess). I bought them off of eBay years ago and both worked at the time I received them. I don’t use them to much anymore and frankly I’m a little afraid to after seeing what you went through. And . . . Thanks for doing the vid.
The intro like a.... Commercial
Am I the only one who grinned as he just flopped the cassettes into the changer tray? Just the way it looks like he's 115% done with it...
I've never heard disco sound so good!
This is the quality content I subbed for
1:01 i miss the usual "allow 82 days for delivery"