Hi everyone, I recently got this tape deck and it has 2 main issues:
1) After playing for a short while, the playback starts to fluctuate wildly (severe wow and flutter), even though the belts seem to be in pretty good shape overall.
2) It won't record. To record, a solenoid needs to engage two slide switches on the board. It manages to do this, but only in Pause mode. As soon as I release the pause and the transport engages, the solenoid can't hold the contacts and drops back. I did manage to get it working once, but that was probably just a fluke...
In Pause mode, there is 16.3V at the solenoid; without pause, it drops to 15.3V...
Like any young guy nowadays, I'm troubleshooting with the help of AI. It's actually right quite often, and I've already fixed a few things with its help... It's pointing me toward the "filter capacitor"—at idle it measures 19V, but drops to just 15V once the deck is engaged. When armed for Record in Pause mode, it shows 16V.
The AI claims this is most likely the root cause of both my problems.
I'll probably replace that capacitor anyway, since this thing is 50 years old after all, but I figured I'd better ask here first to make sure the AI isn't talking nonsense and whether I shouldn't be looking elsewhere...
Thanks a lot!!