Awesome to see that you’re continuing to bring this one back to life! My synth tech resurrected my Yamaha DX7IID that we once thought was going to have to be parted out AND he wanted to get into audio tape, so I traded him a TEAC A-6300 4 track auto reverse 1/4” R2R for it. He’s really enjoying working on it as well as the Tascam 122MKII that I got for cheap. He thinks he can repair that completely as well, so we’ll make a profit (told him we’d share the sale for repairs). So nice to bring stuff back!
This is a nice story, finding left-for-dead stuff and finding a home for some of it with an excited motivated new owner and getting something you’re excited about in trade. Everybody wins and some old gear gets resurrected.
I found rack ears for the 238.
And the pitch control knob was missing the color cap. I have tons of Tascam knobs of different styles and colors…of course I do t have that one. It’s a small knob. So I found one of those too. I think I paid $60 or so USD including shipping for the parts…that was shipped from overseas. Seems silly to spend more on those parts than I spent for the whole 238 and RC-88 remote, but both units seem to be very straight, clean under the dust, low miles, etc…and no corrosion etc. they’ve been stored properly and used little. I know me…I wouldn’t be able to let it go until it was complete.
And then the n/f capstan motor…so I did some research and consulted with the brain-trust…did a little testing…the assumption is either the driver IC is bad, or something else…the coils all seem good…I did notice corrosion around a number of components, cleaned it up, looked for damaged traces, didn’t see any, still didn’t work. The coils are all energized, but it like they’re all energized simultaneously, so maybe a bad hall element? It’s all over my head, so I did end up ordering a new servo PCB assembly. I verified with the Seller they are actually new…manufactured in 2021…got a little discount, $110 shipped. The nice thing is the new assembly is made with a glass fiber PCB instead of resin based…the hassle is you have to transfer your coil assembly from the old to the new, which requires desoldering and desoldering 8 very small wire tails…delicate work…and bending the hall elements over and adhering them to the coil plate…you have to be careful the tails of the parts don’t touch the coil plate…I’ve got that all done and it’s ready to reinstall on the capstan assembly…solder the wires back on and test it out. Fingers crossed. I hope it works. I’m about $220 into this now. I might also purchase a replacement pinch roller…jury is out on that one. If I can get it working though it will be a really clean and straight example of a 238.