Any MCI tape machine users here?

  • Thread starter Thread starter briank
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When you put it into record mode does the record light stay on when you release the record button. I just wanted to be sure on that point as that the record light is controlled by the record relay. If the light stays on then the record relay is in record mode. You might still have a bad relay.... but less likely.

Yes, the record light stays on when it's released. It turns off while pressed down, however, and that's when erasure actually occurs...but to answer your questions, yes the rec light does stay on when the button is released, so I also thought it unlikely to be the rec relays; I can see them operating mechanically (as their covers are translucent) when I put the machine into rec, at least.

Sorry that this post is not as informative as it could be. I'm looking at about 3 or 4 subsystems inthe tests...

--Ethan

Not at all, there's great info here and I'm learning a lot - thanks again, Ethan! I won't be able to dig back into this deck before Monday so I'll do these tests after the weekend and report back-
 
Aha, progress report #1,467,397: :D

I did some probing per your suggestions and here's what I found:

On the audio motherboard:
J10 pin2: stop and play right near 0v...record button while pressed 20.8v...in rec with button released 19.4v
J10 pin1 (rec hold): stop and play 0v...rec button while pressed down 20.9v...in rec, button released 0v

On the bias card:
J7 pin 1 gets 21v while rec button held down...in rec, button released 0v
IC2 pin2: no voltage


Then I went back to the control logic board and probed IC6 and here's what I got:

You said "in stop mode we should see pin 13 and 5 high and pin 4 high too"...well, I found that in stop, pins 4 and 5 were indeed high but pin 13 stayed low...in fact, pin 13 never goes high in any mode...the only time I saw saw pin 13 go high was when I powered up the machine (accompanied by a blip of FF on the transport)...but otherwise, pin 13 stays low in play, rec mom, rec hold, ff, rew...always low.

You also said: "When pressing rec pin 5 should pulse low and pin 4 goes and stays low. Pin 3 goes and stays high." I found that indeed pin 4 goes low and stays low, and pin 3 does indeed go and stay high. When I press the rec button in, Pin 5 indeed goes low and when the machine is in rec but I've released the button, pin 5 goes high.

So in summary, IC6 pin 13 stays low when it should be high in all transport modes so that's a good clue.

Be advised I could NOT try subbing a new 7400 in for my current IC6, because I could not find one locally, so I'll have to wait for Mouser to send me one...based on what I'm seeing, it sure looks like a prime suspect, no?
 
I'll have to check my actual machine tonight. Those predictions were just from reading the schematic. There is enough going on so as to make it quite easy to miss something or misunderstand something else. I'm thinking that the 7400 is OK.

PM me you address if you have not ordered any 7400 etc yet. I'm sure that I have a few here and there that I can send you.

A nand gate RS flipflop should never have both inputs low at the same time. Their default idle state should be high so both pin 13 and 5 should be high no matter what the output state is. (NAND-gate Latch)

We need to find out why pin 13 is not high. when pin 13 pulses low it sets the latch with pin 4 going high.

Let's look at IC5 pins 9,10 and 8. Pin 8 is the output from the and gate and goes to IC6 pin 13. IC5 pins 9 and 10 should both be high most of the time. When either goes low the output on pin 8 (and thus IC6 pin 113) will go low. I would check this for correct operation and would suspect IC5 or something upstream of it. (I'll check at home tonight).

I'll review what you found in more detail as well tonight and perhaps have some insight.

--Ethan
 
Whaddaya know, I'm one step ahead of you :D I did check IC5 pin8 and found it stayed high in all transport functions. I'll check IC5 pins 9 and 10 and anything else you suggest tomorrow when I'm back in the studio.


I added a 7400 to a Mouser order I had to put in this afternoon anyway, so if it's not the culprit, at least I'll have a spare. If IC5 is bad, that's a 7408 and that would be a bummer because Mouser doesn't have any.
 
Whaddaya know, I'm one step ahead of you :D I did check IC5 pin8 and found it stayed high in all transport functions. I'll check IC5 pins 9 and 10 and anything else you suggest tomorrow when I'm back in the studio.


I added a 7400 to a Mouser order I had to put in this afternoon anyway, so if it's not the culprit, at least I'll have a spare. If IC5 is bad, that's a 7408 and that would be a bummer because Mouser doesn't have any.

"13 stayed low...in fact, pin 13 never goes high in any mode"

So if IC5 pin 8 is high and IC6 pin 13 is low there is your problem. These 2 pins are connected in the schematic. Look for a broken trace, cold solder joint on either, a bent pin on either. Trace the output at pin 8 and measure along the trace till it becomes low.
 
You're awesome, Ethan! In fact I did re-solder the IC6 socket at pin 13 because joint didn't look so great but no change...but I didn't trace between those two points, I was only looking at IC6 so I'll do that tomorrow and see what else I can find...once again, very huge thanks for taking your time to help this MCI noob...I've learned a huge amount about this machine from this thread!
 
I'll take a look at the schematic later today and see if I can reason this out. I do have some measurements to add to the understanding of what is happening.

Here is what I found on my machine - Look for differences to yours.

J7 pin 1 stop 0v, play 0v, rec push 22.3v, rec 22.3v

J10 P1 stop 0v, play 0v, rec push 22.6v, rec 22.6 (in rec yours is 0)
J10 P2 stop 0.6v, play 0.6v, rec push 22.8, rec 3.4v (also a difference)

Moving back to the control logic.

IC5 stop play rpress rec
p9...L.....H.....H.......H
p10.H.....H.....H.......H
p8..L......H.....H.......H

IC6
p13..L....H......H.......H
p5....H...H......L........H
p4....H...H......L........L
p3....L...*......H........H

where H is >2.8v, L is <0.8v and * is a LHL pulse.

REgards, Ethan
 
Just to follow up I did look over the schematics and traced the erase command from the erase board to the control board. I'm fairly convinced that the problem lies between IC5 pin 8 and IC6 pin 13. They should be tied together and one track the other. One thing you can try is to put the machine in play then jumper IC6 pin 13 high (just tie it to the +5v logic rail) then place in record and see if things work better. This is to verify that this is indeed the problem.

The signal flow is a bit tortured from the rec button to the erase signal to the head. Some of the difficulty is in the names of signals changing. Record out on the logic board becomes rec lite on the transport motherboard which becomes rec holding and thus to the interface/lamp driver board where it is transformed to record holding relay drive and back to the transport motherboard and then through the power supply cable to the analog motherboard where it is called record hold and activates the record relay and also goes to the bias board to turn on the erase FET switch. But hopefully that all works and just pin 13 being low when it should be high is the cause.

--Ethan
 
OK, apparently I screwed up :o Turns out I had been probing the wrong pins when I quoted the goings on with IC6p13 and IC5p8...didn't realize until I pulled the card today and took at look between the two...sorry...I'm still learning! :o Everything else was correct, though. I also double checked J7p1 and J10p1 and 2 and it's just as I measured yesterday....you're getting healthy voltage in rec at J7p1, J10p1 and low voltage in rec at J10p2 while I'm getting the opposite of those.

It turns out that IC6p13 in Stop...Play...Recpress...Rec reads L...H...H...H which is correct according to your post above.

IC5p8 reads L...H...H...H, also correct according to the above.

In fact, I probed all the pins you showed in your post on ICs 5 and 6 and everything checked out except that I didn't see pin3 on IC6 pulsing L/H/L in play. It may be oscilloscope operator difficulty :o but I fiddled with settings and still never saw it come close to >2.8v, so I recon it's staying low unless I made a mistake with the scope.

I also checked quite a bit of continuity between the record button and related rec hold, through the logic and lamp cards, mother board, power connections, through the PSU and up to the erase/bias board and didn't find bad connections between electronics...there's a question mark on the transistors on the lamp card between P38pin3 and P32pin2 though; not sure if any of those could be suspects...boy do I see what you mean about the tortured/confusing signal as it goes from rec button to erase signal!
 
That's actually good to know. Things were just not quite right so I was starting to wonder about something unusual going on. Back to basics. We can start at the end of the chain and work our way toward the button. I think we know for sure that the erase signal is not going to the erase heads in record but is in rec hold. But we should check that. All of the tests I'm proposing are for 4 states: stop, play rec hold, rec.

Using your scope on the analog motherboard look for the 120 KHz erase signal on J9 pin 1 (erase hi). (in all 4 modes I expect: 0,0,signal,signal) This will show us it the erase signal is making it out of the analog motherboard (after passing through the record relay)

Next is to look for the 120 KHz signal at J7 pin 10. (expecting: 0,0,signal,signal)

Next is to look for the 120 KHz signal at IC2 pin 6 and IC2 pin 2 on the bias board. (expecting: 0,0,signal,signal).

Next is to look for a voltage on the bias board IC1 pin 14 (expecting: 6.78,6.78,1.99,1.99)

Next looking for the voltages on P7 pin1 (expecting: 0,0,22,22)

Question - Does the record lamp come on in rec hold and stay on in record?

On the audio motherboard look at J10 pin 1 (expecting: 0,0,22,22)
on the audio motherboard look at J10 pin 2 (expecting: 0,0,22,0)

Verify that rec hold (J10 p1) and rec (j10 p2) are the same as above on the strip board power supply connection pins 6 and 3 respectivly.

Verify that these signal are the same in the power supply J88 pins 10 ans 13. THis connector is not otherwise listed in my schematics. I presume that it goes to the transport motherboard one way or another. And Rec hold is fed from J33 pin 10 and rec from J33 pin 9

Check transport motherboard J33 pin 10 (expect: 00,5,0)
Check transport motherboard J33 pin 9 (expect: 0,0,5,5)

I think I lost my way at this point - there is plenty to look at there. I'm just going to have to trace out the signal path in my deck tonight.

Some of these questions have been asked before but not is a systematic way. The questions start from the results end and move closer to the button step by step. They should not match my predictions at first and as you gett closer to the "source" they will start matching. That will tell us where the error is.

Regards, Ethan
 
Superb Ethan, this lays everything out and makes sense. Most of those points are already familiar to me since my continuity checks today and now I can systematically measure each of these points and close in on the culprit...I'll do all these checks including ones I've already done, as soon as I can get back in for another troubleshooting session; we'll see what I find!

Verify that these signal are the same in the power supply J88 pins 10 ans 13. THis connector is not otherwise listed in my schematics. I presume that it goes to the transport motherboard one way or another.

Do you by any chance mean J86? J86 pin 10 is rec hold and pin 13 is rec mom...I was just on my back checking continuity through it this afternoon--this is actually the connection to the power tuchel going from the transport chassis to the PSU and they come from J/P38 pins 1 and 3 connecting the lamp driver board to the motherboard...on my schematic, J88 pins 10 and 13 are to the Sync tuchel, "count" and "BFRD capstan tach" respectively.
 
IT could be - THere are errors that I have found on my schematics. I've been popping back and forth between some 110a and 110b schematics as that the copies I have (pdf) are none too clear.

Good info there. -Ethan
 
Finally got to poke around some more, I'll break down your post with the systematic checks through the signal chain. Readings that were at odds with your references are in bold. Stop, Play, rec button down, rec


Using your scope on the analog motherboard look for the 120 KHz erase signal on J9 pin 1 (erase hi). (in all 4 modes I expect: 0,0,signal,signal) This will show us it the erase signal is making it out of the analog motherboard (after passing through the record relay)

I get 0, 0, signal, almost no signal

Next is to look for the 120 KHz signal at J7 pin 10. (expecting: 0,0,signal,signal)

I see 0, 0, signal, smaller signal

Next is to look for the 120 KHz signal at IC2 pin 6 and IC2 pin 2 on the bias board. (expecting: 0,0,signal,signal).

IC2 pins 2 and 6 both: 0, 0, signal, 0

Next is to look for a voltage on the bias board IC1 pin 14 (expecting: 6.78,6.78,1.99,1.99)

6.8v, 6.8v, 2v, 6.8v

Next looking for the voltages on P7 pin1 (expecting: 0,0,22,22)

0, 0, 20.3, 0

Question - Does the record lamp come on in rec hold and stay on in record?

Yes it does. The lamp goes out when the button is pressed down, but when released it stays lit in record.

On the audio motherboard look at J10 pin 1 (expecting: 0,0,22,22)
on the audio motherboard look at J10 pin 2 (expecting: 0,0,22,0)

J10 pin1: 0, 0, 21, 0
J10 pin2: 0, 0, 20, 19

Verify that rec hold (J10 p1) and rec (j10 p2) are the same as above on the strip board power supply connection pins 6 and 3 respectivly.

Yes, they're the same as above (both incorrect compared to yours with rec button released)

Verify that these signal are the same in the power supply J88 [sic] pins 10 ans 13. THis connector is not otherwise listed in my schematics. I presume that it goes to the transport motherboard one way or another. And Rec hold is fed from J33 pin 10 and rec from J33 pin 9

I couldn't get to J86 to get that measurement...however, I did check at interface/lamp board J38 pins 1 (rec mom relay driver) and 3 (rec hold relay driver) and got the same as above for J10, that is to say rec mom is 0,0,20,0 and rec hold is 0,0,20,19, so J86 should measure the same.

Check transport motherboard J33 pin 10 (expect: 00,5,0)
Check transport motherboard J33 pin 9 (expect: 0,0,5,5)

J33 pin10: 0,0,5,0 same as yours!
J33 pin 9: 0,0,5,5 same as yours!

I think I lost my way at this point - there is plenty to look at there. I'm just going to have to trace out the signal path in my deck tonight.

There's not a whole lot left to look at after that; moving back through the logic board from J33 pin 9 ("record out") goes to pin 3 on our old friend Record IC6.

From J33 pin 10 (mom rec), it goes through Edit IC7 then Record IC6, so I suppose there are some more pins to test!

Also, I did swap in a new replacement for Record IC6 and no change (I suppose we expected that).

Should I be suspicious of the transistors in the path through the interface/lamp driver board?

THere are errors that I have found on my schematics. I've been popping back and forth between some 110a and 110b schematics as that the copies I have (pdf) are none too clear.

I can do some cleaner scans of 110c schematics; drop me a pm if you need any.
 
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I think that you have it

p38.webp

Hi, Just got a chance to look over your measurement results and I think that P38 got turned around and is in backwards. P38 takes the signals from the Interface/lamp Driver board and routes them over to the power supply connector where they go (via the power supply) to the analog drawers.

In the photo you can see that the orange/white is on the bottom position which is pin #1. The gray/white is in pin 3. Worth a check.

Regards, Ethan
 
Ahaaaa...I'll take a look at that! It's entirely possible I got one backward when I connected up the motherboard again after re-soldering...some tight/awkward to reach areas behind that board...and I seem to recall there was one with a broken latch so it wasn't immediately obvious which way around it went...I'll bet that's the one.


If that's it, I'll crap myself
facepalm.gif
:D
 
Bingo Ethan, bingo!! P38 was backwards....d'oh! :o I'm pleased to say that rec is holding, all tracks are erasing and I was able to work on setting up the audio. Some channels were quite out of whack and I had a few hiccups to work through, but I was able to apply the knowledge gained through working out the issues in this thread and got them solved no prob...can't thank you enough for all the time you spent helping me out--wouldn't have gotten this beast alive again without your selfless assistance! Now I need to spend some more time getting the hang of the audio cals, but I'm a good alignment job away from putting this back in service...back in familiar territory recordin' stuff! :D
 
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