Tascam 112 playback is on crack!#!

[RFR]

Fired up the machine after sitting unused for awhile to digitize some old tapes. Worked fine the last time I used it. This time, I popped the tape in and hit rewind. ....all good. Hit play and it's going at ff or rewind speeds. Tried the google and didn't find anything.

Any ideas before I tear it open? A few years back i replaced the idler tires, but the belt looked good. Could the belt have destructed?

 

[RFR]

Damn, no response at all? Oh well.

Ok, opened her up and found something I've never seen with old belts. Mine hadn't turned to goo, it hadn't broken. It just decided to stretch itself out so it's loose and floppy and does nothing. Wow.

I guess it's time to tear into it.
Good thing I have new spare belts.

 

[RFR]

Still no response? Awe gee. I remember the days lots of analog guys were here.

Anyway.
Put the new belts on.
Both old belts seemed very stretched out and on the verge of turning to goo.

Pain in the butt, lots of stuff to take apart and quite a few connectors.

The new belts fixed the runaway play issue. Now the pinch roller mechanism and heads engage and speed is proper.

However, new issues have surfaced. When a tape is inserted to play, for the first few seconds it's fast and sounds like chipmunk music. Then goes to normal.
Also, it still is playing softly when I hit stop. Sounds like the mechanism isn't fully disengaging.
It will stop but.........
The head and pinch roller assembly never fully comes down and I'll have to manually tun the mechanism to fully disengage.
Then when i eject the tape there's always a little bit of tape haging out that spooled out of the housing.

What did i screw up?

Probably no one will respond to this either, but I gotta ask.

Hey, it beats me starting a 'how's my singing' thread lol

 

[bouldersoundguy]

It sounds like the pinch roller isn't engaging and the takeup reel is determining the tape speed.

 

[RFR]

It sounds like the pinch roller isn't engaging and the takeup reel is determining the tape speed.

Hey! A response! Virtual human contact!

Thanks for that.

But initial problem solved. Now it's more a pinch roller not disengaging properly after new belts installed.

 

[miroslav]

If the pinch roller/capstan were OK before your replaced the belts...you might want to open her up again and make sure when you put in the new belts everything is as it should be. Sometimes you can forget one thing and it whacks out the whole transport performance.

I'm not familiar with the ii2 cassette...so I can't offer specific "do this" advice.
I assume you have a manual...?...do you maybe also have the service manual that covers belt replacement and all that?

 

[RFR]

Thanks for checking in, Miro.

It's fixed now. Second time taking it apart and studying the service manual did the trick.
Svc manual is kind of useless for mechanical stuff. But the exploded diagrams are usefull.
It turned out there was a slot in the cam that an arm for a pot goes into. Mine wasn't
But as soon as I corrected that, all functions are normal again.

Fairy tales do come true. They just take time. Lol

 

[miroslav]

What do you use the 112 for mostly?

 

[RFR]

What do you use the 112 for mostly?

1) Got some irreplaceable tapes (enjoyment music)

2) Have quite a bit of rare band stuff from myself and other bands I've worked with, demos, live gigs etc.
You know, back in the day, any decent sound setup in a club had a Nakamichi Dragon or something in the rack. Give the soundman a tape, buy him a beer and he'd do a board mix for you.

All that stuff is getting transfered to PT

And as soon as i find it, I got some bootleg Jimi Hendrix from live shows. One in particular is shortly before he died and the PA goes out. Not completely, you can still hear lowered volume vocals and drums, but the bass and guitar is thunderous.

Anyway, transfer time.

Oh, Some cheap dynamic mics plugged in the front (has switchable front and back inputs) you got some interesting stereo LoFi recordings. A different version of the 'telephone effect' sort of.
You take a drum track, put mics up to the monitors, record on the cassette and mix that back in. All kinds of fun things.

 

[kriszpontaz]

Thanks for checking in, Miro.

It's fixed now. Second time taking it apart and studying the service manual did the trick.
Svc manual is kind of useless for mechanical stuff. But the exploded diagrams are usefull.
It turned out there was a slot in the cam that an arm for a pot goes into. Mine wasn't
But as soon as I corrected that, all functions are normal again.

Fairy tales do come true. They just take time. Lol

Hi, after a few years there's another newbie who will probably face this problem again.
I'm about to get one of these decks in the upcoming days, and it has the same high pitch playback on the start, then goes back to normal. The deck was repaired by a well-trained technician, but he didn't have luck to point the root of this problem.
He even replaced the whole mechanism, changed the belts to new ones, but the problem stays. Probably he just forgot something or what you find out.
Can you show somehow where should we search for the problem on the exploded wiew or where should we start to look after this problem?
Thank you for your help in advance!

 

[RFR]

It’s been so long I don’t remember. Sorry.

There are some videos on the tube that are helpful.