Tascam TSR8 advice needed.

trancedental

trancedental

New member
I've just picked up one of these for £75.00 with lots more Quantegy / Ampex 456! tapes, 96-97 vintage so hopefully no SSS!

However this machine has some problems so if I can't get her going I'll break it up for parts I suppose?

It goes into FF, RW & the tape counter works, but freezes when I press play. I've given the tape path a good cleaning & the rubber inch roller is still quite sticky & compared to my other R2R's almosy soft.

I remember having this similar problem with my Revox PR99 MKIII & that cleared up after a few days after the rubber roller hardened. I've read of problems with Tascam rubber rollers so was wondering if this might be the problem.

Also wondering about the small metal pinch roller or maybe the capstan belt needs looking at?

Any advice on what to look for would be appreciated!

Cheers
 
The pinch roller and the capstan drive belt eventually breakdown and go sticky on many analog machines, including the Tascam TSR/MSR type. If the roller is sticky the capstan belt will likely be a sticky blob by now. Unfortunately, this condition doesn’t right itself and you can’t restore a gummy pinch roller unless it’s just covered with sticky residue from bad tape. Otherwise the polyurethane rubber is breaking down from the inside out and will continue to get worse.

With the machine turned on lift the right tension roller. The metal capstan should spin. If it doesn't the belt is either off, broken and/or a blob of tar.

The good news is that this is normal and after replacement of these parts you'll have a nice machine... if the heads are in good shape and no other issues come up.

You can get the pinch roller and capstan belt from Tascam parts in the USA, or openreel.net in Japan.

http://www.openreel.net/index_e.html

Or on eBay, but it costs more.

I don't know what the parts availability situation is across the pond. If you don't have a source this looks like a good place to start:

http://www.tascam.de/eur/800.html


I've only had to replace the roller and belt one time in the life of my TSR-8.



:)
 
Cheers Beck, I'm going to open the machine up now to see about the capstan belt. The rubber roller seems to be drying out at the moment?
 
The capstan belt has fallen off the top small wheel & is slightly slack although it is now working in play mode after I put it back.

I'm presuming that I should get a new one to replace it? The rubber roller is back on the machine so I think that it OK.

Cheers Beck you're the Daddy as we say in London! She's playing away only problem seems to be a permanent signal -3db on channel 4 so far. (This problem seems to have disappeared?)

EDIT All channels are working & record back fine so far, I've been sending tracks from a CD player & the playback sounds as good as the source. Machine was not turned on for 9 years!!!!!

I'm assuming that the capstan belts are the same for the Tascam TSR8 / 38 machines? I can order from this guy on Ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TEAC-30-30-32...ryZ15000QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

MRL 341-673-482-103 is the alingment tape for this machine & I assume I can use the same tape on my Fostex E-16?
 
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LOL! They can't arrest me for thinking it? I'd better edit the 1st post!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a nice sounding recorder, I'm afraid to switch it off now after 4 hours now it's all working!!!!!
 
trancedental said:
They can't arrest me for thinking it?
Click to expand...
No, they can't.
But they'll fly right in as soon as you plug in your desoldering gun and grab the cutter.
:D
*********
seriously,
keep it in one piece. There are not so many left.
and congrats on scoring one :)
 
trancedental said:
All channels are working & record back fine so far, I've been sending tracks from a CD player & the playback sounds as good as the source. Machine was not turned on for 9 years!!!!!

I'm assuming that the capstan belts are the same for the Tascam TSR8 / 38 machines? I can order from this guy on Ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TEAC-30-30-32...ryZ15000QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

MRL 341-673-482-103 is the alingment tape for this machine & I assume I can use the same tape on my Fostex E-16?
Click to expand...

Yeah, MRL 341-673-482-103 is the four-frequency minimalist calibration tape and will get you by. MRL 31J229 is the most complete and is similar to the TEAC YTT-11442 that is recommended by Tascam.

Any of these cal tapes will work with the E16 as well, but the E16 is zeroed at 320 nWb/m, so you’ll have to compensate by setting your levels to +2. Since there’s no +2 on the E16 bargraph you would just make sure +1 was solid and when +3 barely lights up back it off a little. By tweaking it up and down you’ll get the feel of where the halfway point is between +1 and +3. You can also use a standard VU meter on the output for reference.

WARNING! The belts for the 38 and TSR-8 aren’t the same. The TSR-8 is a bit different on the inside. The belt for the TSR-8 is Tascam part # 5800698201, which is actually the same as the 388 Studio 8.

:)
 
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Wow, talk about timing, this is the EXACT issue I had yesterday with my TSR-8!!! The capstan belt for me had fallen off, too. I put it back on and all is good. Yes, the above link to ebay is correct, this guy does have the belts but you need to specify in the auction you need it for a TSR-8 or he won't know which belt to send. Also, you'll not know what tapes are sss or not until you spool em up and play them. I just got my TSR-8 4 months ago and it came with 6 reels. Mostly 456 but one was GP9 on a shiny new red reel. This was supposed to be the best of the lot but the oxide literally flies off the tape as it plays. The other tapes don't shed at all. So be sure to check it out.
Cheers.
 
Here's the TSR8 heads, sorry about the quality! New capstan belt on it's way.

Thanks to all the guys on here!

Cheers!
 

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pretty hard to tell from those pics. Erase heads "look" ok, can't really tell with the record/play head. The first pic, while blurry, appears to show the wear pattern on the play/rec head and if this is the case, it looks good, not too much wear and not too wide, but a clearer pic would be better. (I'm not saying the wear pattern is the bright line down the middle, that's the flash, the wear pattern appears to extend either side of the line and is lighter in color than the rest of the head)
 
I'm still waiting for a new capstan belt & alignment tape, but have the service manual now & catching up with my reading.

In the meantime I've recorded some test tones @ 1khz, 10Khz, 15khz, 100Hz & 50Hz.

The tones @ 1Khz, 100Hz & 50Hz play back at the same level in record / playback on all channels.

The 10Khz itone is down slightly by -1 db on playback & the 15Khz down by -1.5db ish on all channels.

I had the same sort of results recording without DBX & switching DBX off after recording with it. This is with old tape SM911 & 456.

Only problem that I can find at the moment is the counter roller seems to keep spining after rewind & fast forward, when I press stop, doesn't seem right to me anyway?
 
trancedental said:
Only problem that I can find at the moment is the counter roller seems to keep spining after rewind & fast forward, when I press stop, doesn't seem right to me anyway?
Click to expand...

That’s odd. Is the roller physically spinning or just the counter still scrolling?
 
Hm...

The tach roller on my 58 keeps on spinning too...like...alot, if I was in fast-wind, but once the tension arms are released the 58 stops paying attention to the tach roller and the counter freezes.

Possible tension-arm adjustment issue?
 
Beck said:
That’s odd. Is the roller physically spinning or just the counter still scrolling?
Click to expand...

Counter roller still spins after rewind or fast forward, counter / digital number display works as normal & stops.

I'll replace the capstan belt & have a closer look afterwards.
 
Capstan belt is on now after a bit of struggling & the counter roller has decided to stop spining round when the machine stops!!!!!!! So that problem seems to be sorted. Somehow I managed to loose a little spring from the counter roller !!! So I'll have to find a replacment from somewhere?

The new belt is around 6 1/4" each side lying flat & the old belt was at least 1/2" longer due to stretching. Tape packs very smoothly now even in fast forward & rewind & is not as noisy & sluggish as it was with the old belt.
 
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