Tascam 388 Troubleshooting

C

cmiguel32

New member
Hey all,

First time posting here. Picked up a Tascam 388 this week. Did a lot of research on common issues and restoration. I haven't seen anyone having the same problem as me.

The capstan belt has been replaced and I have fresh RMG LPR35 tape loaded on it.

The transport seems to work fine. The play button, stop button, and fast forward button function properly. The tensioner functions properly. However, the rewind and record buttons do not do anything when pressed. I took apart the control panel and tried to blow it out and reassembled it and it did not fix the problem. The rest of the control panel seems to work fine and light up. I replaced the fuses with brand new 250v 4 and 3 amp fuses (to spec).

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Do you have an RC-71 remote control, and if so, do those transport functions work from it? If so, then that might help to track down where the problem is.

You might also be able to fake the remote function by looking at the pin out wiring for the remote from the owner's manual for the 388 and use a wire jumper between the ground and rewind function pins to see if it will enter the rewind mode from that trick.

Keep in mind, the jumper just needs to be a momentary connection, just as the button inside the real remote would be doing.

Cheers! :)
 
Thanks for the advice. I don't have a RC-71 remote. I tried jumping the rewind pin to the ground via the remote terminal and still got nothing. I found another working 388 locally so i'm tempted to buy that and sell this one for parts. The heads on mine seem to be in very good/clean condition.

Thanks!
 
Scratch that. I just tried it again. I guess the wires weren't secure the first time. I jumped both the record and rewind wires and both functions work!!

Does this mean that I have a bad control switch panel?
 
cmiguel32 said:
Scratch that. I just tried it again. I guess the wires weren't secure the first time. I jumped both the record and rewind wires and both functions work!!

Does this mean that I have a bad control switch panel?
Click to expand...
Not the entire panel but the rewind and record momentary switches are likely dirty or corroded and in need of a cleaning with some Deox-it contact cleaner. You might also inspect all of the soldering traces around those switches to see if something is amiss there. Same thing goes for the wire harness that connects that board to the rest of the unit. Clean the contacts and inspect for bad connections.

Cheers! :)
 
Thanks for the help! :)
I'm going to go to my local electronics store today and get some deoxit and a board trace pen. Everything else checks out wonderfully with this guy. I used the jumper to engage the record function and it records on all 8 tracks and sounds incredible.
 
Pulled the control panel pcb and unsoldered the control switches. Seems like they just needed some deoxit. Thanks for your help! This 388 is fully working now.
 
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