Fixing a cassette deck but Everything Goes Wrong...
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- A $15 cassette deck that died on me just after I spent $40 trying to get it working. Old tape recorders are known for mechanical failures, but on 1990s models like this Technics RS-TR180, they can sometimes have electronic failures, too.
Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:06 Repair cost
1:56 Replacing pinch rollers
3:23 Everything went wrong
6:14 The culprit?
7:15 Teardown
9:29 Fake restoration videos
10:50 Recommendations
#cassette #repair #fail 
Наука
![mgk - I Think I’m OKAY (with YUNGBLUD) (Sad Version) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7AC1uqQLIg4/mqdefault.jpg)
This makes me feel better about only having a boombox to play tapes. Not to mention that my boombox, as cheap as it is, with a Tanashin mechanism, is still far more reliable than this deck.
Another thing worth noting is that it's also a good thing to save the tape heads from a deck as they might be used to upgrade another and make it sound better (did that on my boombox) and those two speed motors can easily be hacked to run on one speed by sticking a trimmer (or better yet, a precisely calculated resistor) across the A and B terminals (or L and H, depends on the motor)
@10:24 - You can almost FEEL the quality of that "AC BTILT-IN" goodness on that machine.
Oh wow, a follow up video about this deck. I honestly thought you wouldn't try to repair it since you said it's not worth time and money. But I'm glad you did. Many thanks.
This video has me re-thinking my life pursuits, and the ambition to “save” a TASCAM from 1995. Thanks for the video and glad you could salvage the motors at least.
We used to fix those back in the 90s too. We had a contract with Panasonic. We used to get the boards the circuit boards and everything replaced. Plus the parts as you showed us. It was always fixable. We never had an issue as what you showed us. Back then our technicians they used to call that the bad lemon. As they say one out of a million will be like that. But technics under Panasonic was the best sellers for audio sounds. Especially as still today technics 1200 or 3200 with the needles(EPC-U1200) for the turntable are the best for the music using vinyl records 12in". But don't forget you can't complain about it, it's discontinued because cassettes are not around. If it's still continued you could just order the board and replace it. But your detailing it on the board which yes it is fixable but the parts don't really exist anymore. Because there's no more value to it.
Thanks for sharing despite the tape deck being unrepairable. It's a good lesson on when to cut one's losses and move on to something else at times. Also, thank you for sending it off to e-waste instead of punting it on eBay as parts/repair when they're that hopelessly broken. Been burned so many times by people doing exactly that, and I get sent a paperweight that only has a couple usable parts in it, not worth the time and shipping costs involved. I try to only sell parts/repair stuff on there that's either partly working or at least realistically repairable. Everything else goes to e-waste.
As a silly quirk of mine, I also tend to personify the things I'm working on. Give them a personality based on how well they're cooperating with me during the repair process. When I encounter a case like this, like when a sudden cascade failure happens or the item in question fights every step of the way, I take it as a sign that it's being obstinate and refuses to work again. That's the moment I usually say "Okay, you want to be a lazy piece of junk. Fine, but you're only going back on the shelf in pieces." That's when I salvage any useful components from it before sending it off for scrap/e-waste.
You brought up a point I had not considered. People destroying items and showing the clips in reverse to look like they fixed it. *SMH*
Even worse are the staged animal rescue videos... and the fake cooking videos which can set your kitchen on fire or poison yourself if you actually try to follow their ingredients and instructions.
When you let anyone teach you.
My tip for missing spare parts would be making 3D molds with plaster from the original Wheels and gears to be able to make some yourself from resin. This can be done at home with no problem. And also making a lot of photos from all sides and talking measures so 3D prints could be made too. Heck, it would probably also possible to make laser cutouts from METAL for actual high quality gears that will outlive the owner of the Tapedeck.
If you're willing to go with metal, then triangular-toothed gears can often be constructed with just a triangular file and sufficiently thick metal.
On one occasion I did exactly that (for an automotive window lift drive) way back, measured the broken plastic gear and had a new one cut out from a steel sheet with CO2 laser. Nowadays SLA printing is also available and likely gives useful result. But then again, as the video stated, sometimes it's just not a rational decision to put in the time/effort/expertise into a project that worth a fraction of that and may or may not self-destruct in two months anyways.
Issue with metal often in these cases is that you're transferring the wear elsewhere in the chain. You're almost always safer replacing like for like as much as possible.
you vvant meddle
the medäll
öFF götZ ^ ^
but itz diFFikvlt -:-
Pretty much summed up the entire repair experience right there. Some things were just crap to begin with, even back in the day and are not worth repairing. A crying shame too, cause technics used to make really high quality hifi equipment in the 70s to the late 80s. My technics sa-810 quartz receiver has a missing balance knob and a broken tuning needle light, but everything else still works. Can't say the same thing about their later receivers that I've seen in thrift shops that wouldn't even power up.
I used to have a Technics deck very similar to that one, except it had a dial to adjust the recording level and no headphone input. It used to belong to my parents back in the 90s, and it was definitely an upgrade from the Sony boombox I was using for tapes at the time, but it didn’t take long to run into problems.
The big issue was that it chewed up my blank cassettes (without pulling the tape out of the shell), but the pre-recorded ones still worked fine. I brought it to a repair guy who said that it was the belts causing problems, and that did seem to fix the issue, at least for a while.
What ultimately made me get rid of that deck was when it started having logic problems. I would press play for instance and it would start fast forwarding instead. I took it to another guy and tried to sell it to him for parts, initially asking for $20 and eventually $5, before just giving it to him. I’ve since upgraded to a JVC KD-A77, which has yet to have any problems.
It might be a very expensive lesson but the value of learning how much irreparable crap we produce is priceless. Thanks and keep making them. ;D
I made 3 videos, about 3 1/2 hours worth of video documenting 8 months of work rescuing a Toyota RAV4. Done all the welding, which started as two 3 inch holes in each sill ended up being practically the whole arse of the car. Anyway, all done, and the brakes failed. No leaks, and it had worked before when parked up, and I had enough. I scrapped it. But every other automotive YouToob channel would have you think that every rescue or every restoration goes well even with the hiccups. It doesn’t, and it pisses me off (like you mention) all these people faking the rescues or restoration. But hey, you tried even if the tape deck was an ungrateful bastard.
Excellent, thorough repair effort. "In Situ" - there just isn't enough Latin in RUclips videos these days!
When I was 14, I dreamed longingly that I could afford a cassette player some day. That was 1970. Now I still have a few nostalgic moments about cassette players occasionally, but it passes quickly when I remember we are in the digital age.
I'm 19 years old and I'm very much into cassettes. I have about 50 of them or so, and yet my only "deck" is my Philips boombox from 2004, that had a non working CD player, but it's tape deck still sounds very good. Added an external speaker jack and hooked up some very good speakers and man does it sound good
In the digital age, you can also enjoy the tape recorder. Especially if you have certain skills.
ruclips.net/video/rof-kfPZhQY/видео.html
I'm 20 and I've actually discovered several bands that I love by going through the tape section at my local record stores, I'm not as into cassettes as I used to be but it's still a vibe
@@RealEpikCartfrenYT I use my Sony s-70 boom box from 2020 or my CFD-S05 from 2010 with an aux jack for recording tapes and sometimes playing back and it sounds amazing to me. I also have a small collection of portable cassette players and walkmans for listening around the house and on the go. I probably have around 100/200 cassettes mostly recorded by myself on my boom box from Spotify or RUclips. I love cassettes and I’ll probably never stop using them.
Im 17 and into cassettes too. I use boomboxes too often as cassette decks are handling the Tapes better than a cheap cassette mechanism. The boomboxes I use are a Grundig C6200 Automatic from 1977 and a Stern R160 from 1973 made in GDR. Both sound very good even though they are mono recorders
I think these, and some Techmoan videos, really show that if you can do some simple repair(s) then something could be worthy of your time. However, a lot of machines, like the Technics you had, really just need to go and be recycled.
Thank you for posting this particular video! Particularly with tape decks, a certain percentage of malfunctioning units are repair-resistant "lemons" and ultimately more trouble to keep "fixing" than they are worth.
You're absolutely right to not dissuade viewers from fixing vintage cassette decks. Anyone can find a decent used deck at a decent price if they look around hard enough and are willing to be slightly patient. There ARE good decks out there worth investing the time and money to restore. Of course, caveat emptor...
9:46 - I am one of the 1.9 million views on that specific Elliot Coll video!
11:19 - Ooh, the "Spaceship Radio!" Just like the ones we had at the casino, right down to the broken antenna mast. Several of us were quite handy at building antennas from chains of jumbo paper clips Scotch-taped to the walls. Took me forever to get used to rotating the blue disc for CD track selection, just give me the standard buttons please! I think the older RX-DS19 (we had a few of those at the casino too) had better bass response than the RX-ES25. Both great boomboxes, around $40-50 in a quick eBay search. And I can personally vouch that they can withstand multiple falls from a six-foot-high shelf onto a concrete floor and still work afterwards.
It's not unheard-of for a voltage regulator to run hot enough to discolor the PCB without being defective. The glass diode, possibly a Zener, can also slightly-toast the surrounding PCB without having failed. I concur with your original assessment with the power supply being the cause; it might be as simple as a bad capacitor or a bad solder joint...
THAT BEING SAID, I think you're justified in throwing in the towel without diagnosing further. The cost of parts, the time invested, the likelihood of having to 3D print (or buy 3D printed) replacement gears in the future, and you are clearly experiencing diminishing returns. Best-case scenario, you restore a deck that is maybe a 8/10 cosmetically, and end up with a usable budget-level deck that lacks many common and desirable features, and the model has a track record of being a little... How can I put this delicately?... Crappy. Maybe it was worthwhile had the deck worked after reassembly.
You're not restoring a Nakamichi Dragon, it's a late-era tape deck that was probably more-suited to a full rack system ordered from a department store catalog than anything one would buy as a separate component.
One of the tape decks I own an Onkyo Integra TA-2047 that I found at Goodwill for $25, fully-functional, and if it ever fails it will actually be worth looking into because it's a pretty nice deck. I have an 80s Sanyo tape deck that needs a belt, nothing more, and unlike this Technics deck, it actually has a metal flywheel, analog VU meters, 1/4" microphone jacks. Even THAT low-end deck has more going for it than this Technics...
I'm certainly disappointed with the video, but ONLY because of the deck, I expected better from a reputable brand.
As long as you have the broken gear pieces, all is not lost. Superglue the gear back together and then make a silicone mold of it. Then you can use plastic resin to make new plastic gears. Superglue will never work in the long run of a repair, but it works perfectly at fixing the gear long enough to make a copy of it with silicone molding.
Would it be possible to replace the plastic gears with metal gears?
@@EgoChip Probably not. If you look at those gears, they are not in any standard shape. If you have a CNC machine and can redesign it in software and cut a new one, maybe. But the poured plastic one will last many years.
I have a late 90s Pioneer deck, the CT-W606DR (International model, same as US CT-W616DR). Feature rich consumer level deck, includes digital NR, and auto tape calibration. I did replace the pinch rollers and belts, which was pretty easy. Pioneer made this deck for several years, maybe into the very early 2Ks. I hope it will have a long life since it seems to have seen little use by the previous owner. However, I also hedged my bets and bought a new production TEAC W-1200. Not nearly as feature rich, but it does have a NR replacement for Dolby playback, can record on both transports, and even has a real headphone out jack with volume control. Is it up to the same standard as my Pioneer? Nope, but hopefully it will last me as long as I want to keep playing cassettes.
My God, that Panasonic boombox is a thing of early 00's beauty. I would totally swipe right on that.
I think you and @Peter Milanovski would get along so well together.😂
Oh no! Not the "This Does Not Compute" and "MichaelMJD" Repair curse!?
R.I.P. to the unrepairable Technics tape deck. This is the first deck I noticed on this channel that headed down that road. Based on what you explained in your video, it's interesting to see, going back to the 90s where consumers started loosing the right to repair their own products like this tape deck. Great Video!
Technics cassette deck from the 1990’s sucks. I rather stick to vintage cassette decks from the 70’s and 80’s and it’s way better than this 90’s garbage. Cassette decks from the 70’s and 80’s from various brands are easy to repair, and easy to replace belts. Or maybe a school cassette recorder like Califone which is a good option to repair like replacing the belts.
@@Musicradio77Network The RS TR-555 is probably the last decent Technics deck, straddling the 80's-90's ('89-'93). The pinch roller arms are plastic, but still use a metal pin for the axles. Dual auto-reverse/dual recording, Dolby B/C and HX-pro, and is likely the last deck with DBX NR aboard. Mine still works fine and sounds *very* good for a 2-head.
@@mesckoRS-X990 pops to mind for dual cording.
I just LOVE these chapter thumbnails :) Sorry for your loss
The build quality of these newer decks can vary greatly. I’ve owned several with, what I assume to be original belts, that have never given me one fit. I’ve also owned other models where the belts have turned to goo and the plastics have become brittle.
Great video! It’s true! People tell me all the time broken vintage tech is WAYYYY better than perfectly working new cheap tech! 🤦🏻♂️🤷♂️
All those decks shown as “worth buying” at the end had at least one thing in common - they were single decks. The Technics with it’s Auto Level Control and dodgy electronics, was an example of the compromises manufacturers made to appear to give you more features in the form of a twin deck. Less is more!
Ah, cascading failures. That reminds me of a Fisher Studio Standard tape deck my father tried to fix back in the 90s. It eventually blew a trace on the main board! I guess there was a reason the previous owner gave it to us for free.
A friend of mine is a nutjob for Fisher Studio Standard equipment, he literally buys them off eBay like they're the Best Audio Manufacturer Ever.
He asked me to take a look at one receiver he said "wasn't loud enough." Dude, it's 35W PEAK, what kind of volume do you expect? Worked fine at my house. I've seen his setup, he has speaker-level outputs of one receiver running into Line-In on another receiver, multiple times, to the final amplifier having four sets of speakers wired in parallel, absolute insanity and everything is distorted. He clearly has no idea what he's doing. I'm not gonna tell him I can save him a few hundred bucks on his electric bill every month by disconnecting 90% of what he's got - and still get him the same volume he's got now.
We still have a 90s Fisher Studio Standard VCR. Twice a year it needed new belts. We retired it in '98 when I got sick of working on it, it's been collecting dust in the basement. Tried to sell it to my friend, but he only wants the audio equipment.
Hello VW. We can't win every time.
And yes, When teeth break off, round off or crack for driving the take up spool there is no solution.
To be totally honest when I fail in a repair I find it depressing. That's life, unfortunately. But we all appreciate honesty over channels that fix everything everytime. So a win.
Cheer yourself up. The Sanyo Walkman M-G12 are red, beautiful and dead easy to fix. One incredibly accessable belt replaced and your friends will all be jealous!
I did a TR333 with replacement gears from a guy in Europe on eBay and it works like a champ....powers through stiff tapes on high speed dubbing. When I am about to lose a tape I dub it onto a TDK 90m. Glad to see this video but I agree with you these lower end technics desks aren't worth it.
The TR333 is probably the last double deck model from Technics that is still really well built. It still has metal flywheels, the 373 already has plastic pulleys instead of flywheels. I also have a TR333 waiting for repair. I hope I don't have to change all the gears, because it would be quite expensive. Fortunately I'm in Hungary, where the good quality, injection molded Delrin replacement gears are being made. Last time I bought one for my RS-B555 from the gear maker guy on ebay, he personally dropped it into my mailbox instead of sending it in mail :)
Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to send this tape deck to me because if you can’t fix it, nobody can! In all seriousness, I appreciate your commentary about fixing these items. I’ve tried (and failed) before to fix some of these electronics. There’s nothing that can be done in some cases.
I had a circa-2010 LG RH397D HDD recorder which succumbed to a similar fate (the Magnum DM8673-CHZ-13 SoC failed, and when I bodged the voltage regulators into being permanently enabled, it and the +3.3V regulator got hot). I ended up salvaging the HDD (ST3160215ACE, still perfectly healthy according to S.M.A.R.T.) and scrapping most of the rest (unfortunately I don't have a proper e-waste facility nearby, so it just went in the steel recycling bin). In any case, it seems that failed semiconductors aren't as rare as many people used to assume (which age may be a factor in, but these newer items have less excuse there; especially given that it wasn't even used for many of the years).
Funnily enough, the PSU fuse was in clips and HDD mounting screws had split-ring and flat washers (which PCs don't usually bother with), so a few other corners could have been cut (without killing the device) but weren't.
I have that JVC deck you show at the end. Bought in late 1989. Good deck. Reliable.
I think that deck is as we say in the UK.. is knackered...
Or as I'd say it, garbage
Or as we say here in Australia "it's buggered mate"
part 3 You in a field with a baseball bat, slowly circling the tape deck before you put it out our misery! 🤣
I just spent $640. for repairs for my NAD 6300 deck. Got used in the early 90s from Stereo Exchange shop in Manhattan. Because I still hold on to mix tapes which are 30-35 years old (and recorded on prior machine). And I have just a few blanks and one side recorded tapes to see how well I can dub now. Finally, serviced better and high-end vintage cassette decks can retail for a lot more.
Just as sticking with DSLRS instead of going mirrorless being 'invested' in older gear and being old now, too,
I wouldn't hate that Technics deck too much. It probably worked fine for about 15 years, and except for some of the most high-end brands, virtually no company makes audio equipment with the intention that it should last for decades - they seem to prefer things breaking down shortly after the end of the warranty period... So, I would say, it was a decent deck at the lower end of the Technics range, it did its job probably good enough and long enough for the original owner; it just wasn't made to be exceptionally sturdy and long-lasting, but neither was it trash.
So is this planned obsolescence or just an unlucky failure? I feel like he could've bought another control board or even ask EEVBlog to desolder the cpu and do a complete reverse engineer and have a potential repair!
C'mon, I have walkman from early '90s still working with original belt. A deck like that was much more expensive back then. They do that for profits.
A shame what happened with cassette mechanisms! Yesterday I bought a radiorecorder from 1976 and the cassette unit is still working. It only needed a good cleaning
1999 didn't use the mechanism that the gears cracked on, they stopped using that mech the first half of the 90's(I believe it was 1994). The gear would lose teeth because it was nylon or neoprene and would fall off one at time (it was literally clear & flexible you could fold it in half and it would flex right back) and was the center gear that switched back and forth from forward and reverse spool that the belt hooked up to on the back side (lower small belt) the gear was literally on the cassette side once you removed the play head and pulled the metal that moves the head up out of the way. I rebuilt a few of those earlier models and still have those extra gears in a baggie.
I just love this channel. Many thanks for your consistently enjoyable videos.
Maybe hollow out the inside, make it into a "hidden safe" in your stack of components!
I have a Denon DRW-580 and it has been such an incredible cassette deck for me, it has auto reverse, dolby NR, and while its a little basic. It is perfect for me and the price was too good to pass up. It also goes well with my Denon CD player which is like 32 years old at this point.
I’ve got a DRW-850 from 1990 and it is the best cassette deck I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. I was originally going to get a Sony from the mid 90s but I missed out on it so I got what I thought was the next best thing. How wrong I was! Great price too.
@@vintagevideoau I’ve been eyeing an 850. Currently I have a Yamaha KX-W421 and want to upgrade. It’s hard to figure out what is an upgrade though, as the specs are quite good.
The 850 is really good. It has auto reverse, two motors for play and fast forward (four in total), recording on both a and b decks and a remote. Another neat feature is music search. The only problems that I’ve run into are when I bought it, one of the solenoids had stopped working and I nudged it a bit and it’s worked ever since. The other one was that the eject buttons sometimes stuck pushed in but some new grease got them working again. Surprisingly, the belts don’t seem to perish.
I had a Denon cassete in the 90's.
I used it a lot to copy some CD. Unless you really pay attention, the sound quality was not so far from a real cd.
I played them on good speakers (Audax Aerogel and titane tweeters), and some friends didn't believe first we were llistening to "simple" cassettes :)
Ironically, the Panasonic boombox has the same cheap mechanism as the Technics deck, and they kept using it for all of their stack systems, mini systems and boomboxes throughout the 2000s. They’re good when they work, but use the most basic of materials, so they’re prone to failure.
Yeah that time period for Technics had some pretty junky stuff. And that is coming from a huge Technics fan. The 80's for their tape decks was, I think, the peak.
RS-M280 / RS-B100 - their ultimate decks in the respective letter series.
@@LapisandHamtarolover The RS-B85, the 100's single-capstan little brother is no slouch either, I have 2.
@mescko there is one deck better than b85 and it's both in the m and b series; it's their m253x aka b90.
Even my Technics RS TR-355 works better than this one, even if the TR-355 is a Late 80’s/Early 90’s model. Thank god my model doesn’t have electronic eject, or else you’d be screwed when it breaks down.
@@dennisthebrony2022and my Technics SU-X930 still works being 36 years old when I purchased this 6 years ago in a charity store.
I appreciate this honest and objective look into repair/restoration. Recently, my boyfriend and I thrifted an old Pioneer PD T307 for $15 and spent about 4 hours trying to get it to work. Thankfully, we had a happy ending, but it's just good practice to know when to call it quits. What do they usually call it? The definition of insanity?
I have that Panasonic boombox. It's from 2004. Still sounds great.
I have a JVC TD-W254 double cassette deck from the late 90's, that looks pretty similar to this one in the inside. Only that it has more electronics and manual recording level control. The price on ebay is about the same as the one from the video. In my opinion the TD-W254 is not too bad, it serves me for almost 30 years and got new belts 2 years ago. But I don't remember if the flywheels in it are plastic or aluminum, probably plastic... For playback it is great, when there're cassettes in both decks it will play both of them automatically after another in a loop. I just hope that the electronics continue to last and that I will be able to fix it when it will fail at one point in the future. I still enjoy this deck, even though it is, of course, by far not the best of the late 90's. My biggest issue is with the remote control of the radio receiver that fits to that tape deck via CompuLink. Some paths on its PCB are deteriorated and won't accept input from some of the buttons anymore, or maybe it's the connection between the gummi buttons and the paths on the PCB. I'm not sure. (And my English is not good enough to explain it with the correct technical terms, I'm afraid. Sorry for that.)
I have both a JVC TD-W254 and a TD-W318 (which adds Compu-Bias calibration for use when recording). These decks are both light in weight, but have been very reliable. Not the best decks I've ever had but both work properly and sound pretty decent.
I've had a few times where I have had to call it quits on fixing a device based of either competence as I would start causing damage if I went further or the repair is uneconomical. You should always treat a failure as a learning experience to improve yourself and improve for the future. The worst thing you can do is create a sunk cost situation where you end up making things worse and being worse off with nothing but junk to show for it.
My opinion is, if you’re going to recycle it anyways, might as well take a crack at it. I try to repair just about everything and am lucky to have a number of years of experience and a good quantity of tools and parts. Even when I didn’t, I’d still try, even on junk. If you have the inclination and time, it’s a great way to learn (especially if you fail).
Yes ...
You are absolutely correct.
Intermidiate plastic gears and rubber belt is the main
Problem.And key board malfunctioning is also the
main problem.
a follow up video about this deck. I honestly thought you wouldn't try to repair it since you said it's not worth time and money. But I'm glad you did. Many thanks.
"What the hell is wrong with it now?" 😆
That was good.
There's a lot of good advice here. The advantage of a dual-well deck is that your chances of having a working transport are doubled. And when it dies, you've twice as many spare parts for future jobs. Kidding aside, I stay away from dual-well models and auto-reverse as well, as I think that both features required design compromises that for my purposes, just aren't worth it. I enjoy flipping the tape after side one, and I'm certainly not interested in cassette-to-cassette dubbing, at any speed.
Amazing considering early 80s Technics decks were bulletproof and reliable. Even entry level units.
Probably the quality of the entry level range plummeted in just a few years. The question, though, is whether this kind of fault happened frequently in its era as well, and not just now, thirty-something years after.
In 90s CD was the choice for many so companies did not made good decks anymore. It was the end of an era that reached its peak in early 80s.
When we start to see cascading failures in boards like this, it makes me wonder if it would be possible to have an open-source project that would build brand new circuit boards. It would have to have accommodation for changes to hook into the various cassette mechanisms that it could be used for, along with an appropriate power supply.
It might be fun to take a quality cassette mechanism and a tape deck case, and literally replace everything else in it to work with the vintage cassette mechanism. (Cost no object, a circuit board hobbyist).
That's a first. I've never seen a controller fall over like that before. Normally the electronics on this era are quite robust and its the mechanicals that are designed to fail.
I think you are right: a lot of old electronic equipment/computers are over priced these days.
I was watching some videos about IBM model M keyboards. I salvaged 2 of them from the trash, one AZERTY, one QWERTY (I am French). They were both missing some keys, and the cable (to PS/2 port).
I bought a cable from ebay, with broken plastic clip (20 euros or so).
I then went to check the two keyboards. I had almost every key cap, except one or two, but they were nowhere to be found on the internet. the main problem was that the clips holding the large keys like the space bar were damaged, so after all the keyboards were unusable.
I then went to ebay again, and found an AZERTY IBM model M keyboard for about 130 euros. I bought that from Tunisia. I don't know if that thing was from the desert or what, but it was covered in orange sand. I decided to remove everything from it, to clean everything with soap and water. Then I wanted to dry it, and what came to my mind was to bake it in my kitchen oven at 70°C. But something went wrong, I set the oven at 180°C and you can easily imagine the state of the poor keyboard at the end.
To conclude, I have a lot of model M keycaps in a bag, and afetr that I just bought a Logitech mechanical keyboard for about 130€, it is good, it is new, it is under warranty, it works well. Enough with the old stuff.
10:15 Words to live by! I have a Sony Xplod boombox that I got in 2012, and it has been the best cassette player I ever used, all the others I had weren't as good imo! It's my transfer deck, even though I am aware that there are better ones out there. Besides, I only have a few commercial cassettes anyways, most of mine are recorded from the radio.
I have gotten 3d printed center gears to save my panasonic boom boxes I have an FD 55 and the center gear cracked and it’s now restored. And good to see you calling out those fake restore videos sometimes they don’t even leave it in the mud they use modeling clay that looks like mud and they even swap units to in some of those fake videos.
It's more worth to get FD55 and certainly FD65/FD75 repaired over this Technics dual well deck, even if they're in the same company!
and worst of all, they never talk like wtf is up with that silent films been dead since the late 1920s its 2023 like get with the program ableist sons of b*****s.
Only say this cause I have bad eye sight and can not see well enough to interpret what they are doing its like a dragged out asmr video thats how u know its fake!
Well, as you say, at least it failed before you did the job of changing the belts. From the first video I sensed that this could happen. With these types of very low quality decks from the 90s you can expect anything.
These devices are soo dumb, like a giant empty box. I used to think full size VCRs are bad with space usage, but this is on another level.
Great video, Kevin. Love this tinkering
Thanks for sharing. Sometimes a repair just fails. I have a low-end 90s Sony Walkman that I started to repair. The belts are fine (surprisingly), but like many Sonys of that era it needs new capacitors. I've done those before, but this time when I started to replace them the tracks started to lift off of the board. At that point I just gave up and I've saved it for parts.
This was by far the worst of Technics' cassette decks. The motors are the only part worth saving.
Part of me thinks that there could have been an informative series of videos made as you kept replacing broken parts such as the diode and/or the voltage regulator, but I get why you probably never want to see an RS-TR180 again. Great video as always.
It sucks that basically almost all (affordable) cassette players from 1990 onwards has one problem or another, which just goes to show that a lot these companies were really trying to push whatever was new and exciting at the time (planned obsolescence before it was a thing). Case in point, this deck having all of its electrical components just go up in smoke, with Technics cassette decks being virtually unheard of today, and Sony cassette decks from the same time all having belts that just melt for no reason, even if they were kept in pristine condition (I'm having to clean up that same sort of mess in the one I just bought the other day). Keep in mind they were the ones that also introduced MiniDisc, and later CD, at around the same time they made these decks. They're engineered to work to some point on the narrowest budgets because they invested all their time and money into other things. Not to say that some of them weren't good, just that most could not be considered quality products, at least by comparing them to earlier ones from the 80s as a prime example.
Had a similar issue happen a few days ago although not nearly as serious as this, but still daunting and frusterating. It was with a Kenwood 1991 single well auto reverse cassette deck. I'd bought it several years ago and played and recorded fine. However, when I got it, (an ebay find) it had a very noisy capstain motor. I finally decided to get into it and attempt to get to the motor and oil it. Just to get to the thing, I ended up having to totally tear the machine apart, removing the 2 piece front just so I could get to the back of the mechanism. That was just the beginning. Motor was soldered in with very short leads to a small circuit board above it. Once that was desoldered, then mechanism had to be removed to get to the screws holding motor in place in the front. I removed motor, went through the pain of taking motor apart. You have to desolder a small circuit board once rear cap is removed. Once oiled, you then have to make a brush retainer to hold brushes back while attempting to carefully put back with brushes on motor. Once thats done, then re solder tiny circuit board back on being careful to not pull the plastic brush cap back off armature. Then replace the metal cover. The true fun part was re installing motor and getting the belt back on. Most decks have pegs to assist with this and this one was no exception. However, there was NO access to stick anything inside to hook belt back on. I spent 2 hours figuring a way to get belt back on pullies. Once this was done, machine ran totally quiet and I was happy. That is, until I noticed the tape counter which is electronic no longer worked. I spent 2 days combing through that thing to try and figure why the counter no longer worked with no solution. All I can figure is the tape sensor that senses the tape moving failed somehow. Nothing like working hard on something that "was" fine other then the initial issue to only have something else fail giving me that 50/50 successful feeling. I guess the good thing is the deck is fine to use. Just no way to use the counter.
It kinda reminds me when I tried to fix a Pioneer cld 2750k laserkaraoke player but ended up failed when the optical pickup wasn’t compatible after adjusting the pots and before i did the adjustment it wasn’t working at all. As a result I ended up bought an ordinary Pioneer laserdisc CLD D780 player that was restored perfectly by professional seller. In my opinion cheap stuffs doesnt mean it’s repairable or working and sometimes parts are not easy to find so shop wisely guys. From that time, I learned my lesson to only buy second hand electronics that were restored or doesn’t have serious problems but if an equipment I really want to buy despite being expensive I will still get it because i dont have to spend extra on parts that may not even work. If electronics I have doesn’t work I just use for parts but sometimes for cd player if i can find cheap OPU lens that are cloned from aliexpress I give it a shot to try it. As for cassette deck, I gave up bothering that format and move on to vinyl LP and CDs because I don’t really enjoy cassettes anymore and this caused me to sell them off to collectors.
Hi Kevin note your Nakamichi Cassette Deck which is approximately from the same period is much better quality and doesn’t have the same problems. My Nakamichi DR3 which is successor to your deck is now 30 years old,is in mint condition with the original belt and sounds fantastic.
This one has a different mechanism model, which is AR-2 when it comes to the "idler" gear. This indeed a cheaper version than the Panasonic boombox which is AR-300, those are the one has a gear by removing the pinch roller, then the head mechanism, and remove the sliding plate underneath to access it! Due to age of the plastic overtime, it will break apart and missing teeth!
I got the red gear from eBay where one seller from Poland makes it all sorts of gear where it's no longer available! I also got the white gear straight from Japan, where there are many Panasonic boombox around today in Japan!
Hopefully you will get their RX-DT9 or their DT8; these both beat this Technics cassette deck; with manual record level control and dolby C
I once repaired a Sony TC-WR735S where in both drives a small gear was broken, due to plastic shrinkage. No such gear is available. But a Hi-Fi Forum told to learn about the dimensions of gears and search for these gears at Märklin model trains parts. I found two and fixed the problem.
Way to put the "shit" into Matsushita, Technics!
Got to love the warbling of that Sax on that red mono box you said was better than nothing...
Had a Technics 5 disc changer for repair the other day and I was shocked at how eye wateringly crap the build quality was. Very disappointing!
Great video as always!
I'm just glad my 1980 Marantz SD 3000 deck still works fine.
Elliot did a great job taking the piss out (he’s British it’s only appropriate to use that phrase) of those fake videos
Ah, this was the deck you warned us about a month or so ago!
Hm, on that "Audiocrazy" boombox you showed us at the end ... just saw on the tape door it says "AC BTILT-IN/UM-1 BATTERY". Were they trying to say "built-in"?
Edit: That's a cute little Realistic tape deck. I wouldn't mind having one of those hooked to my PC to listen to tapes while I'm on the computer.
Your Panasonic Boom box 2001 also has the same tape mechanism that you felt very frustrated with the Technics deck 😂....LOL
For around the same cost, I'd say to go with a lower end Yamaha deck with similar features and manual recording level, such as the K-98. I have one, and it works great.
Uwxwbill’s term “black plastic crap” sums up this deck nicely. And I thought the Technics M218 I just worked on was on the lower end of the spectrum!
Another great video. Its fun trying to bring them back but doesn't always mean success.
What is the song at the end of the video?
I remember this Panasonic boombox from school, used for english lessons playing cassettes, later playing CDs, because mechanism started chewing tape.
11:16 This Panasonic looks like futuristic Alien-tech
Hello, I own a Technics deck RS-T22, do you know if this particular model fits into this category that does not worth repairing.. or it does?
thanks for your videos.
I have a few tapedecks in need of new belts, all requiring pulling out the whole drive mechanism, haven't been brave enough to attempt repair yet.
Still have a functioning Telefunken boombox I bought in Zürich in the late 70's, 7.5V, 220V. I hard wired the 7.5V battery compartment to my 12V solar power system with a voltage adapter. That Telefunken allows me to play my turntable too, and feed the signal into my big speakers. Best tapedeck ever.
German electronics were always among the most reliable
What is the model of that Panasonic boom Box?
@9:45 that takes quite the deviant mind to do such a video if they are passing it off as 'restoration' .. never could have thought of such a thing..thanks for bringing that up.
6:45 this is really an interesting point and I will put that in my memory as I work on electronics
Thank you for this video! Interesting how the nineties' RS-TR series is such a mixed bag. On one hand this RS-TR 180, and on the other the rather rare RS-TR 979 (1993-1996?), which quality-wise seems to play in another league. Odd that Technics put such different decks into the same RS-TR range.
I know, this deck in particularly is more on the junky-er side of things and despite the Technics branding on it, it looked a bit like trying to polish a turd.
But still, coming fresh out of it I can't entirely agree with the closing statement. As a bit of an enthusiast for old equipment I feel like it would be a shame to see the pool of functioning systems slowly reduced because people aren't bothering to do repairs. I own a pretty obscure Hifi Setup that was made in East Germany in the 80s, and I did have to put in some work to get everything up and running again. More than you can get a working system for probably - if you can find one. So it sure wasn't financially reasonable, but it still felt worth it. Got to keep these things going.
Well that was disappointing. 28 years one of these has been sitting in my closet. I was excited to see your repair video, but understand the shortcomings of surface mount and plastic components. I’ll still try to repair mine, but if it doesn’t work, ⅓ of a lifetime later, it’ll go into the trash.
I stay away from fixing very complicated cassette decks, because they’re just too hard to fix, and you’re better off buying a new cassette deck which they still make brand new! My record store sells new cassette players and they may be average quality, but at least they’re decent enough for playback!
My Philips audio tape recorder/cassette player suffered the same fate. The gears worm out and there weren't any replacements. Also the modern MP3 player any iPod made it useless junk. Hence had to sell it. I wish we had 3D printer back in those days, we could just simply 3D print ourselves to replace broker parts
I love these videos but it’s taught me that I’ll probably never have the patience for a dedicated tape player. I have an early 90’s Sony boombox with the red and white cable outputs that I hook up to my stereo system.
Nakamichi Dragons maybe the best sounding and most sought after, but this video and this comment proves that all you really need in order to listen to tapes is a good boombox as decks tend to fail in various ways
@@RealEpikCartfrenYT, Nakamichi decks do sound awesome. However, they have a lot of fail points and are expensive to get repaired. Only a handful of technicians remaining who can do the work, and they charge accordingly. And that's on top of the high prices for even broken decks. WAY outside my price range. I have a Pioneer deck from the late 90s (CT-W606DR) and a new production TEAC W-1200, as well as a last-of-the-line Panasonic cassette boombox from a couple of years ago.
I agree a working cassette deck is a good cassette deck. I have a Onkyo I bought around 2005 still works fine. I bought a teac several years ago new still in the box for a backup once I saw cassette decks were disappearing.
similar thing happened to me trying to replace the belts on my mom's old JVC boombox, got the belt on, the sound was abysmal, tried a different belt, a small spring flew off, spent 3 hours trying to get it back on, then more bits flew off. I also listened to the motor and it sounded like it was about to fail, then I had enough and just cut all the wires from the cassette mechanism and removed the motor and the heads and threw them to the trash to prevent me wasting more of my time on it. At least the radio still works fine, the switches need some cleaning.
10:20 The Radio has good bass when more Bass coming!
10:20 Das Radio hat einen guten Bass, wenn mehr Bass kommt!
Had to comment on that last Boombox at the end, That was the last of the cobra line which started in the late 80's and ended in early 2000's as way more powerful line of models and more electronics, some even had full electronic tape decks put tape in door and you could close it by remote. I have one on my vids if you want to see one in action. it is the RX-DT75 that I have on there from 1990.
Truth! Always appreciated!
I recently bought a Teac a450 which was listed as non working, after putting in new belts and giving everything a good clean, it worked beautifully! Except for... Rewind, and recording, which were problems I just had to give up on fixing. Still sold it for a profit though!
In the one I fixed the bad gear was in between the two black gears. It was a slightly yellowish translucent gear and it was soft, you could easily bend it. And replacing it is a pain, but at least I have a working deck now.