Merry Christmas to all of you. Christmas brought new speakers. Another modification and a huge improvement of sound. But the speakers need a case that fits better to the design of the Sound Machine. More later, in the meantime enjoy your holidays with your beloved.
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Game over for unit #4
Well as described in my last post one fly wheel of the capstan was broken. It is impossible to get one and quite an effort to create new one. However, I rebuilt the wheel just to be able to check other functions. Of course my wheel is not stable and would lead to horrible wow and flutter parameters. It is […]
Unit #4: Houston we have a lot of problems…
To finish unit#3 I have to wait for the new CPU rev.F PCB and for some silicone oil. Everything else is working and already assembled. Thus I thought let’s go with Unit #4, you know, the Sound machine that was sold to me as “working” and mint conditions. Well it is neither in a mint condition (some white painting on […]
Soft Eject and the search for oil…
The last weeks I was and still am searching for a replacement oil for the soft eject mechanism. I have no idea what material it exactly is. It is very simple, only a rotating plastic wheel with some oil, which is similar to a glue, that slows down the rotation process. More expensive devices contain a hydraulic cylinder or similar. […]
Trying to figure out the current position of the tape
Well, one idea to figure out the current tape position was to measure the current of the motors when playing the tape. There were several devices I had in history which I can remember that did it that way. I expect a difference in the current when the tape is at the very beginning and at the end of the […]
Tape Counter Button
It took me a while to design and print a button for the new tape counter. Whilst the first approach was working it was not so stable and too thin. From four prints I was able to use two. Need to figure out the best way to add supports for a better outcome. However, I had to redesign it. I […]
CDM2 of Unit #3 repaired
After the uProc and the CD-Player keys are working it was time to have a look at the CDM2. A short test revealed that it was not able to read the TOC or to play tracks. I sometimes had the problem that the TOC failed to read but it was possible to play some tracks. Mostly above certain track the […]
A digital tape counter? Aye, a digital tape counter!
I recently recorded a tape and had to rewind and then to go back to the previous position. With the analog counter that was quite a challenge. Thus I thought by myself it would be great to set a marker and go back and forward to the desired positions. And to see minutes and seconds would be even better. Well,just […]
Fixing the microcontroller board
It was time to fix the microcontroller board. Since the display sometimes showed the correct segments it was clear that the serial bus of the CPU is working and the CPU itself might be ok. There can always be a toasted input/output but I have never seen such a failure. It was obvious that the CPU sends a command to […]
Progress at unit #3
During the last days I made some progress on unit #3. Writing posts and cut videos takes some time and is way behind – what I can tell is that unit #3 is already fully working. In this episode I show and explain the power supply panel. The panel gets very excited if you replace the capacitors. In case you […]