1 . What is "Medium even wear"? is this referring to the R/P head?
Yes. That the wear on the head is not to severe or deep and it's in a defined rectangular pattern, not keystone shaped.
2. I don't understand the tension roller adjustments except the r112 and r212.
Can anyone explain those shortly?
R112 & R212 is tension arm position.
R103 is back tension, the resistance to forward motion by the left reel in play mode.
R203 is takeup tension, the strength of pull the right reel makes in play mode.
* HERE'S where I'd caution you, as I vaguely remember that R103/203 may be reversed, mislabeled in the manual. I remember spending an extra hour or so until I determined that they were reversed, respectively on one another, but I didn't mark in the book for referenct & I'm just going on memory. This will bear out some careful experimentation until it's sorted out, because a large maladjustment of either of these would either cause unduly high tension on the tape/heads, or unduly low tension could affect the 388's ability to move tape without hitting the low-limit dropout switch and failing to move tape at all. As I said, it's a vague recollection I have about a misprint on the chart, and bears out some experimentation.
R105 is Fast Forward tension, similar to R203 but for fast wind (right reel).
R206 is for Rewind tension, similar to R103 but for fast reverse motion (left reel).
* HERE again I'd warn about a possible misprint in the book, *R105/R206 maybe reversed in manual, same as detailed above. I only wish I had written it down and could be more specific as to which pots were mislabeled in the book. It's one set of adjustment pots in the book I found as mislabeled, which caused me extra time and frustration. This bears out careful experimentation, too.
R105 is Fast Winding Speed, self explanatory, but suffice to say if the tension arm positions are correct, the fast winding speed should be most efficient & R105 should be adjusted last.
Exuse my english, sometimes it's hard to write a correct questions because the words are hard to find. =)
/thanks Fredrik
No problem.
There's a former TEAC service tech on this board occasionally, so maybe he can comment on what I remember as a set of mislabeled pots in the manual. At the time, I thought I had penciled in the corrections when I found them, but I can't find any evidence of that in my own copies of the manual.
The tension adjustments are referenced to a tool called a tentelometer, and can be difficult to set properly without one, so use caution when touching these pots, and proceed slowly and carefully.
I'm sorry if my warnings might throw more doubt on the issue than not, but I distinctly remember from years ago spending extra time in adjustment til I decided there must be a misprint in the book, one set of pots is labeled wrong. YMMV.
** EDIT ** the more I think about it, I believe the R105/R206 pair may be the mislabeled ones in the manual. I have nothing to go on but memory, so proceed with caution! **
;(
