Refurbish FAIL: 80s Alarm Clock With Cassette Deck & Radio

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Refurbish FAIL: 80s Alarm Clock With Cassette Deck & Radio

Рет қаралды 750

Күн бұрын

Hi guys and welcome back to yasminecollects! Today we're taking a look at the quintessential GE 80s Alarm Clock. This model, of many during the time has a cassette recorder, AM/FM radio and is also very dirty. I grabbed it whilst thrifting, as I couldn't resist the woodgrain moment, and featured it in my last thrift with me video! We'll be going through some restoration and I... attempt to troubleshoot. As you will see, it doesn't really work especially the cassette deck. But no worries, it's final resting place as a decor piece will live forever in my strange little apartment.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:31 Old electronics manufactures
02:04 Cleaning up
05:15 Opening it up [SORTA]
06:46 Battery pack
07:41 More troubleshooting
10:40 Cassette mechanism overview
12:24 Powering it on
17:26 It's final resting place
18:11 Subscribe!
#80s #cassette #radio #retrotech

Пікірлер: 41

@bratwurst2923 4 ай бұрын

Ooh its got one of those 4-digit GE date codes! Your code, 5121, would be the 5th day of the 21st week of 1981. So this unit was assembled on Friday May 23, 1981

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

holy balls this thing is ancient!

@bratwurst2923 4 ай бұрын

@crazywarp36 yours was manufactured on Monday, December 1st, 1980

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

@me3head electronics years is like dog years- or vice versa. Don’t feel bad 😂

@tommylambert 4 ай бұрын

Ohhhh if I'd seen that on the shelf, it would have been coming home with me, INSTANTLY! It's gorgeous! 😍

@OnTheRocks71 4 ай бұрын

One of my weird early 90's childhood memories was the woodgrain Panasonic alarm clock my dad had purchased (probably before I was born, green LED's). It was just an AM/FM job, but I remember its big snooze button, and trying to tune in stations... I will always have a soft spot for 80's tech because that was the brand new stuff my pops was buying at my age.

@TorontoJon 4 ай бұрын

3:35 Whenever I clean vintage audio equipment freshly purchased from thrift stores, garage sales, auctions, church rummage sales, etc, I simply use a slightly damp microfiber cloth (with water only) to gently clean away years of gunk without damaging printed letters or causing scratches, etc. It really does the trick and I also use slightly damp microfiber cloths to clean vinyl records, CD's, DVD's, Blu-rays, as well as VHS and book covers because they grip the grime and gunk without damaging any surfaces, especially playing surfaces, so if they can leave a CD unscathed, for example, they really are one of the best tools to use when cleaning vintage gear. :)

@EmperorKonstantine01 4 ай бұрын

Nice Catch Yasmine. I had one of those old vintage mechanical Flip clocks made in the 70's, their is a Modern Electronics company that have recreated these flip clocks but they're not quite the nostalgia because of modern electronics in them. So yeah I have a soft heart for these things. I believe they should be saved and taken care.

@KeritechElectronics 4 ай бұрын

Probably a vacuum fluorescent display, a lovely one at that. Joy for ever. I would persist in fixing it.

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

It won’t be leaving anytime soon 😊

@RetroPlus 4 ай бұрын

There is something so satisfying about cleaning and repairing old technology, it's such a good feeling

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

I love it. Meditative!

@IN-rf1pv 4 ай бұрын

That beautiful and romantic blue-green glow as some have mentioned is actually a vacuum fluorescent display. And almost anything with a nice VFD is worth saving. As the name suggests it’s a sealed piece of glass in a vacuum with electrodes and phosphors excited to illuminate the given segments. The technology shares some characteristics with CRT TV tubes which makes it even more interesting.

@XMguy 4 ай бұрын

I have a Radio Shack Chronomatic 309 that I bought with my own savings in 1997. It is a stereo cassette recorder, green led, dual alarm, forward and reverse time controls, bass and treble, and a lighted dial string. I’ve always been a fan of clock radio cassette units. I haven’t seen your video though yet, but few things are truly a lost cause. Love your videos. :)

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

Appreciate your comments so much 🩷

@TomIannucci22 4 ай бұрын

Despite the cassette deck not working, that is one wicked awesome alarm clock. I have a few similar ones, 1 no radio and 2 radio but no cassette. All wood paneling-cased. I absolutely love the blue numbers on yours!

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

It really is sweet, there was another one too sans deck but I left it. Someone grabbed it the next week

@DTCHANNEL8590 4 ай бұрын

Very good and meaningful video, thank you for sharing, always accompany you ❤

@CompactDisc_700MB 4 ай бұрын

Good video! I have a GE clock radio that's a bit newer its from the early 90s. You keep mentioning that you think it is broken, but to me it looks perfectly fine, the display is a VFD (Vacuum florescent display) and it still looks nice and bright, they just have that glow around them nothing to worry about, The cassette mechanism looked great I bet it still works fine, worst case scenario it might need a new belt. The AM/FM switch is just dirty, all you have to do is switch back and fourth a few times. You should be able to find the manual for it online to tell you what the buttons do, they are pretty easy once you figure it out. That thing still has lots of life left in it, no need to be afraid to use it.

@azn1011 4 ай бұрын

my aunt has the same clock just without the tape deck

@XMguy 4 ай бұрын

That radio is awesome. I would do my best to get it all working. But down the the separate on and off buttons. Look up the Chronomatic 309.

@StanMurray 4 ай бұрын

Nice! I got a vintage morphy Richard alarm clock radio at the Salvation Army for £2. I tested it and it didn’t work. I tried and failed to fix it. The buttons on top didn’t click anymore so I opened it up and noticed that the metal contacts had came of so I cleaned it and stuck them back on with sellotape. And it still didn’t work

@XMguy 4 ай бұрын

Stripped screws are the worst. Try a flat head of similar size and see if that works. If all else fails just break it open. Then you can reglue the bosses back to the case after you get the screws out.

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

I Iove the speakers on the 309. I will try a flat head!!

@coletrickle-km7cl 4 ай бұрын

There are still some independently owned radio shack stores scattered around the usa. I've been in one. And they exist online. So you can still get radio shack batteries if you want. It was the corporate stores that died.

@foundatlantis 3 ай бұрын

when the screws are stripped like that and made of some brittle/soft metal the only way to get into the thing is to drill them out and replace with some sensible screws which are not total crap.

@XMguy 4 ай бұрын

I think that GE is a near clone of the Chronomatic that I have. Minus the stereo sound. It has all the same buttons, controls. That tape reel is held on with a c-clip likely.

@TorontoJon 4 ай бұрын

GE has always been a fairly generic brand (It's not called "General Electric" for nothing), but I do like the vintage look of their alarm clocks, answering machines, etc, particularly with the fake wood veneer. GE is a major multinational conglomerate, of course, that has been around since 1892 and today, it is an $18.3 billion business (BILLION with a B) which employs over 50,000 people. :)

@CompactDisc_700MB 4 ай бұрын

They sold of their consumer electronics division in the late 80s to a company called Thomson. they don't really make any consumer electronics anymore, in fact no one does anymore since smartphones killed everything good.

@chickenfoundation9323 4 ай бұрын

Fortunately mine works perfectly fine after taking it fully apart replacing a bad cap and changing the melted ff belt

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

That’s awesome!

@chickenfoundation9323 4 ай бұрын

@@YasmineCollects if you ever get those screws out you will need to remove the volumn slider and the tune knob and open the cassette door for the top half to come off , but to remove the cassette mechanism you will need to Desolder the motor wires

@maiconvengrzennunesbusolog4864 4 ай бұрын

👏👏

@stefanegger 4 ай бұрын

I often use a flat screw driver if they are stripped. I dont understand why you make it worse and worse, you need the right size and some pressure, if it does not turn, you strip it. The cassette drive looks a bit strange -> EDIT: It has Rewind, so I think the second spool or however that is called is missing.

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

I actually cut this part out bc I don’t wanna harp too much but I asked myself why I made it worse too. My answer is because I’m very autistic and just get too excited “maybe if I keep going it will work” lol. 😭

@stefanegger 4 ай бұрын

@@YasmineCollects haha well, we all have been there. As I said I often find a flat screws river to "bite" better or maybe it kinda gets stuck in some position and with lots of down pressure (to not slip) it may come out. Also it sometimes helps to heat them up but that's not a help when you can't reach them.

@trr5291 4 ай бұрын

It's sexy. I have a new Sharp alarm clock. I hate it. I had an old alarm clock but it finally died.

@coletrickle-km7cl 4 ай бұрын

G.E.'S old tag "we bring good things to life." Only in this situation it's Jasmin brings awesome old tech to life! You can wait until midnight (or 12 noon if you don't care about the am/pm part.) then plug it in and the time will be correct then. I got a couple of these i use for a clock but they don't have the cassette player. The alarm clock story i have is that I got woke up by my clock radio on 9/11/01. The wake up alarm turns on the radio and It woke me up...sort of. And i was trying to ignore it half awake when i heard the radio DJ started talking about the airplane hit the NYC twin towers. AND THAT GOT MY ATTENTION! Turned on the 📺 quick. And after that, in a way, whatever was left of the 1990's died that day. I wonder how many other people woke up on that day the same way?

@coletrickle-km7cl 4 ай бұрын

Yasmine. Oops. Misspelled your name. Please forgive me.

@YasmineCollects 4 ай бұрын

No worries about my name! That’s a great idea haha, I suspect it’s gonna have more issues so I want to get it open at some point. It’s really sad how things changed so much, it’s a very distinct difference

@XMguy 4 ай бұрын

Display looks VFD.