Question for Vintage TX

[The Ghost of FM]

Hi, Vintage!

As I mentioned previously, I have a TASCAM MS16. This is a 16 track, one inch reel to reel that is about 16 years old right now.

For the most part it works and sound great but, I do have a couple of channels that intermittently disappear and re-appear when ever they feel like it!

I have tried the usual tricks of re-seating the cards, swapping the cards and cleaning the contacts of the cards where the multi-pins come out of the main board and go into the female receptacle connector on the channel cards.

At times, this seems to help and at others it seems to do nothing!

I was wondering if you had any insight into this type of problem and could think of anything else I should be doing or looking for to get the couple of rouge channels to behave.

Thanks for your input and once again, welcome to the forum!

Cheers!

 

[Derek Verner]

I know you didn't ask me but have you tried a cooling spray? Ot could be a cold solder joint or a broken trace on a PC board. The spray causes contraction and opens up these flaws,

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Thanks for the suggestion, Derek. I forgot about your years of electronic design and diagnostic experience. I guess all the other topics of popularity distracted my memory.

What cooling spray do you recommend?

Can these sprays be applied to a live circuit?

I have seen a product from Caig Laboratories that is said to be able to repair PC traces in a pen style applicator where you draw on/over the affected area. Anybody tried this product or have a comment on it's effectiveness?

Cheers!

 

[Derek Verner]

The siver bearing marking pens work very well. I have even used them to draw simple circuits on perforated phenolic.

Here is a link to the cooling spray I use:

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=163&type=store

It can be applied to a live circuit, that's how it is used. Otherwise you could not tell when you found the problem.

 

[acorec]

Hi, Vintage!

As I mentioned previously, I have a TASCAM MS16. This is a 16 track, one inch reel to reel that is about 16 years old right now.

For the most part it works and sound great but, I do have a couple of channels that intermittently disappear and re-appear when ever they feel like it!

I have tried the usual tricks of re-seating the cards, swapping the cards and cleaning the contacts of the cards where the multi-pins come out of the main board and go into the female receptacle connector on the channel cards.

At times, this seems to help and at others it seems to do nothing!

I was wondering if you had any insight into this type of problem and could think of anything else I should be doing or looking for to get the couple of rouge channels to behave.

Thanks for your input and once again, welcome to the forum!

Cheers!

On each card there are relays that switch from record to playback modes. These relays are probably covered, but the contacts get dirty and need to be cleaned. I am talking from the experience of an 80-8 Tascam that I had. To find out if the MS16 uses these same relays, listen when you switch the record button on each track. If you hear a "click" then your unit uses these dreaded relays. These relays, when dirty, cause you to lose tracke intermittantly. Hop this helps you.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Re: Re: Question for Vintage TX

On each card there are relays that switch from record to playback modes. These relays are probably covered, but the contacts get dirty and need to be cleaned. I am talking from the experience of an 80-8 Tascam that I had. To find out if the MS16 uses these same relays, listen when you switch the record button on each track. If you hear a "click" then your unit uses these dreaded relays. These relays, when dirty, cause you to lose tracke intermittantly. Hop this helps you.

There is no such switching noise or clicking sound when arming or engaging individual tracks. There is only a relay clicking sound when you switch from the sync master mode switch to the repro master mode switch and that functions normally without issue.

I will have to take a look and see if there are individual relay cases on each channel card but, i am beginning to suspect that the problem lies on the motherboard that all 16 channel cards plug into.

I am hypothesizing that the constant card jiggling has most like damaged that board from the flexing stress of pulling the cards and re-inserting them.

It is a major job to get to that board as it is buried right in the middle of that channel amplifier unit and I am apprehensive to take it apart and really get my hands dirty, (metaphorically).

How does any of this sit with you, Rolf?

Cheers!

 

[Vintage TX]

I have not been inside a MS16, so not sure what you got there Mr Ghost, sorry...