I'm in the same boat this was a life saver

Hi, thanks for the comment! Yes, i dissolved the grease from the bearing, but unfortunately was the only option for me. A new part is a better option, but it is not cheap (approx. 80-90€ here, which is almost half the price i spent for the entire recorder plus the NR units...) The ball bearing is sealed, so you can’t really re-grease it, although you could take the bottom sealing off and do it, I decided to just keep it as it was.

Hi, i sprayed some contact cleaner before the calibration process.. unfortunately the contacts on the main board (that connects all the amplifier boards) were corroded after almost 30 years of neglect... recently i had to disassemble it again and clean the board in a isopropanol bath that fixed most of the contact problems. Part 3 is the “recording with tape” part, where i record a little song with the machine (i also made a little music video about it).

Hi, The procedure of adjusting the brake torque in the service manual only requires a caliper. The caliper I was using is no-branded (from china?) unfortunately..

Hi, thanks for your comment! Well, in my case, i knew that was not an electrical problem (the driver circuit for the vu was fine) because they did work sometimes, so I figured out that it must have been a contact problem. If in your case the VU are completely unresponsive (eg. no matter what you do to the contacts, the VUs don't move), it might be the actual driver circuit, which is separated from the amplifier circuit for the channel (although it's on the same board), so that could explain why you have a working amplifier but no VU movement. It could also be the actual VU itself.. try measure the resistance of the VU meter's coil and start by there. Hope it helps! Let me know Dave

Thanks Jack! There will be a part 3 for sure! :) Ps. I’m looking forward to your video about the Sony R2R! Dave

Very cool Dave, I am looking forward to it! I'm getting ready to have eye surgery real soon, so it may not happen for a short spell, but it will happen, I've never worked on one before, so I hope I am as successful as you are. Best Regards. ~Jack, VEG

Hi, i used a bicomponent glue for the pinch roller. You can actually use almost any glue made for rubber parts or plastic, as long as it does not have strong solvents (like acetone) that can melt your new pinch roller..

Hi, I can’t remember exactly, but i think it was RMS (the multimeter in the video can only read RMS values so I think that’s correct)

Thanks for the comment! Well, i depends.. it could be a faulty erase head, a bad contact (easy fix), or even a bad erase head driver circuit. If you have some basic experience in electronics, with a basic multimeter (or even better, an oscilloscope) you can check first if the erase head receives the signal. If it doesn’t, check the connections and cables and then check the board. Hope it helps :)

Dv555 yup I figured it out. The erase head connector had come loose! Easy fix. Thanks!

Hi, Well, on mine I had a similar problem on channel 7, it would not record, but it played back just fine. I knew that it was not a problem in the record head, because it played back fine with sync enabled (that uses the record head to both record and play back). I managed to trace down the problem to a faulty connection between the main connector board and the card of the 7th channel. As far as I know it's a common problem in those machines.. after all those years, the connectors tend to not make good contact anymore. I tried reseating the card, replacing it with another (good) channel card, spraying some contact cleaner, etc.. It came good for a while, but the problem eventually came back. What i did to fix it definetly was completely removing the main connector board, clean it with isopropanol (if yours is already clean, you can skip this step) and resoldering all the connectors. it's a long and tedious work to do (you have to pretty much dissassemble completely the back of the machine) but it was worth it. Now everything works as it should. Hope it helps! :)

Hi, from what I remember it was an rca to bnc cable and bnc to banana connector to the multimeter

Hi, i usually get parts from ebay

Hi, i can’t really remember the exact brand, but it was a cyanoacrylate based adhesive. I think even epoxy would do the job just fine.

Hi, your procedure seems to be correct.. from what I understand, the input/output calibration is ok, but the vu meter is out of tolerance by too much to compensate. One question: is your dmm a true rms meter? I would read the 0.3v directly from the oscilloscope and adjust the output accordingly. The peak value should be a little higher, so that would explain the vu meter out of range.

@@DaveElectronics thanks for the response. I think my issue may be due to the impedance of the oscope. When I attach the signal to my 10k impedance mixer and split it to the oscope it gets closer. I think the 50k load is needed, so I'll try to recreate that with a resistor between the output and the oscope.

You just have to unscrew the top aluminium cap.

Hi! Well if you have already replaced the vfd, and still it does not work (not even lights up?) it could be a power supply issue or even a bad contact problem.. from what i recall the driver chip for the vfd is located on the actual display board, so presumably if you’ve replaced the entire thing, the chip is working too. I suggest you to check the voltage rails on the power supply board and start by there.. if I remember correctly all test points locations are illustrated in the manual.

Dv555 will do! At the worst case scenario, will I have to replace that entire unit that supports the counter?

The worst case is a dead display driver chip, so yeah, you’ll have to replace the chip itself or the board..

@@DaveElectronics hey, coming back to this a year later and still no resolution. How should I be checking the voltage from the board to the vfd? Follow the harness from the connection down to the board responsible and then what points do I measure? Also, what chips could be the culprit in this situation?

Hi! So does the vfd even light up?

Hi! Thanks for the comment :) In my particular case it was a contact problem. The main interconnect board (on which are connected all the channel boards) was covered with a thin layer of coating. Over all those years (the machine is from the '80s), dust created a layer on top and it eventually became conductive, creating all sort of problems: from what I recall channel 4, 5 and 7 had problems. One channel would record and playback just fine, but no VU meter movement; another channel's VU meter was ok, but no playback; ecc.. Eventually, after turning the machine on and off a couple of times, for example the channel without the VU meter came back to life (and the next day it did not work again...). Contact problems. What I did to resurrect the machine was quite a drastic solution (and a huge pain to do): I completely disassembled the machine, removing all the channel boards and the main interconnect board. I washed the main interconnect board with isopropanol and cleaned all the residues of the conductive coating and dust layer. I resoldered ALL the connectors (on the main board) and reassebled everything back together. After that it worked fine. Unfortunately i did not film the process, but perhaps in the future i plan to do a video about contact problems in this machine, it seems to be quite common. With that being said, in your case it might be just bad contacts. What I suggest you to do first is to try the faulty channel by recording and playing back a tone and see if the recorder works. Reseat the faulty channel board and reseat also the (wire) connectors on the main board. If it's only the VU meter (so the machine records and plays back the tone just fine), it could still be bad contacts or a faulty driver. I would check with a multimeter if the VU meter's coil is fine. Hope it helps! :) P.S. You have a really great studio! I hope you can use your Tascam 38 again!

@@DaveElectronics thank you very much that helps a lot! I have now two days of recording sessions and I will start checking your points out on Monday step by step. Are you on Facebook? Maybe it’s a better connection to write for this problem. And thanks for your words! That’s very kind. Where did you see it? On the promo-video? You can reach me and my studio here m.facebook.com/artandlifestudiocologne/?ref=bookmarks facebook.com/steve.kuster Cheers 🍻

Unfortunately I don’t have Facebook, but keep me updated if you find the problem :) I really hope you can fix it, it’s a very nice machine. And yes, I watched the promo video on your channel ;) Cheers! 🍻 Dave

@@DaveElectronics greetings Dave! Hope all is well.. As I said, I checked my old lady and I figured out, that the income signal doesn’t affect channel 6, but with recorded source, it plays back on channel 6. so I guess I need to check the connections beginning downward from the input RCAs. Of what would you say? I did some pictures but can’t attach them here.. Regards!!!

Hi! So from what I understand, channel 6 plays back but it does not record. Have you tried reseating the channel 6 board? It could be just some bad contacts.. if it still doesn’t work you can feed a signal through the input rca and track it down the line. If you have an oscilloscope is much easier, but it can be done with a multimeter (having on hand the schematic diagrams). Hope it helps! :)