Akai 1710w

T

travelin travis

New member
My grand parents came to visit today and my grandpa brought me an old AKAI 1710W tape machine. He said he almost left it behind in his last move but figured I might like it so he held on to it. I'm glad he did. :)

I recorded a couple of bits with it to try it out. This thing is pretty cool. It has a speaker on each side with little flaps over the speakers to direct the sound. I think it's a 2-track although it has a track selector for 1-4, stereo, and 2-3. It has a high/low tape speed selector but grandpa told me that he lost the capstan adapter for running it at it's highest speed. I assume that with the adapter it will run 4 different speeds. Also, he put some springs over the things that the reels slide on to. He said it originally had some little rubber holders but it seems to work fine with the springs although the tape rubs the reels some.

I tried doing an overdub with it but it did'nt work so I'm assuming it's a 2-track machine that can record left/right on either side of the tape. It records and plays with the track selector in all positions. It has left/right 1/4" mic inputs, rca phono radio inputs, preamp outputs, external speaker outputs, a 5 jack that says "record p.b", headphone out, and it has tubes.

The only issue that I've noticed so far is that I have to hand brake one of the reels after a rewind if it's set to high speed.

If anyone knows anything about this thing, anything at all, please let me know. I'd like to work it into my recording setup and try some things with it.
 
sounds cool :cool: . try mic preamps too :)
if you have 35 bucks you may get the capstan sleeve HERE ...also I have no idea about the seller..just found that page through google
 
i think i'm gonna try the pre's into my sound card's line ins. i wish that i had a stand alone phantom power supply so that i could try some of my condensor mics thru it. maybe a good diy project.

thanks for the link dr. zee but i can't believe that little capstan sleeve is $35! that's madness. my grandpa gave me an old used reel of tape with the deck but i'd like to get a new one to play around with. what should i get?

i know this deck ain't the cat's shit but i'm sure i'll have some fun with it. i'm gonna clean it up and look around for a demagnetizer. the motor is pretty noisy and i'm wondering how to go about oiling it. it squeaks when turned by hand. i removed the cabinet from the chassis to look for an oil hole on the motor but could'nt find one. any ideas?
 
TravisinFlorida said:
i can't believe that little capstan sleeve is $35! that's madness. ?
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yeah, not cheap :p ... you can also buy the machine for just 4 hundred bux, nice pictures are free though :D

TravisinFlorida said:
i know this deck ain't the cat's shit ?
Click to expand...
Know your pet well... and you get a big fat dog sh*t out of it ;)
TravisinFlorida said:
the motor is pretty noisy and i'm wondering how to go about oiling it. it squeaks when turned by hand. i removed the cabinet from the chassis to look for an oil hole on the motor but could'nt find one. any ideas?
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No idea. Also the oil of any kind in any hole may be NO HELP at all there. The solution is - adding a motor OFF switch :D ... so you can use the preamps only with no noise around.
Clean the deck up, get fresh tape , try recording something. Think of it as a nice recording/signal processing unit. It's a good thing. Just be careful, don't mess with it if it's pluged in, things like that may kill. Also I am not sure about this machine's design, but some capacitors may hold high voltage for some time even after you turn the unit off and unplug it.
 
I once had a Teac A-4010S, and the motors supposedly both had oiling holes. There was apparently a LITTLE BITTY clear plastic tube poking out of the back of the motor chassies. I only found one of them, but it called for machine oil, basically sewing machine oil.

I would find a service manual, and figure it out for sure.

I would repeat Dr Zee's comment on the capacitors. UNPLUG the thing before you even remove a single chassy screw. Even then, there may still be caps in there full of juice, so stay away from those things. I had an experience with the Teac where a capacitor blew up shortly after I turned it on. It probably would have been much worse had the cover been open.

-callie-
 
Hey Travis,

SOMEWHERE (in a junk box at my other house) i have those two black suction cups that supposedly kept the reels on an old Akai i had (but gave to an old timer GC customer that wandered in thinking they sold reel to reel decks. lol )

The suction things NEVER stayed on and I ended up using those little black paper clip "clamps" to hold the reels on, but anyways, next time i am out there and if i can find them it'd be no problem to put'em in an envelope and send'em your way if you'd like.

If i find'em i'll let you know.

-Billy-
 
This thing has a tube amp inside so I was really careful when peeking around inside. I know the the filter caps hold some possibly deadly voltage. When I open it up again, I'll be sure to discharge the filter caps. The cabinet came off easy but man it was a pain in the ass to get back on. This thing is probably 75% point to point wired and looks like a bird's nest inside the chassis. I have to solder up a couple of rca/rca cables to try out the pre's.

It has three wood strips that go between the cabinet and chassis to take up slack. When I pulled the cabinet off the chassis the wood pieces fell out and it took me 20 minutes to figure out where they went. I'll have to take another look around for an oil port on the motor. I saw two belts inside and the smaller one is pretty loose. I think it's for the fast forward / rewind. If I put the machine in low speed when rewinding I don't have to hand brake it. I thought the little belt might be for the counter but the counter seems fairly accurate.

Bill Furnett, if you happen to run across those rubber pieces I'd be interested in getting them from you. Thanks very much for offering. Drop me a pm if you happen to run across them. I saw a couple of manuals on ebay. I should probably pick one up to at least have the schematic.

I don't know anthing about reel to reels. I owned a couple of cassette 4-tracks in the past and know that I should at least clean up and demag the heads. So far, I need a manual, belt, demag, head and rubber cleaner, and some tape. It's getting expensive already. :D Is there anything I should consider when buying tape? I read some where that rebiasing is needed for different tapes.
 
As for new tape, Quantegy 407 is a good choice. Zonal, RMG (emtec), and soon-to-be ATR Magnetics have varieties that would also work for you.

Just be sure you're using 1 mil thickness tape, because those machines operate most smoothly with the thinner tape. And, be sure the tape's got a maximum operating level (MOL) of 250 nWb/m, or +3dB. For consumer RTR decks like these, that's as hot as you wanna push them.

best of luck!

-callie-
 
Hi,
I just got one of these, and I can't figure out how to record with it.
There's:
- 2 jack mic inputs at the front
- 4 rca in at the back
I tried:
- plugin a mic at the front but I can't hear anything and the monitoring needles don't moove. recording over something erases it but nothing gets recorded.
- plugin output from mixing desk at the back into th bottom 2 RCA (which say input) -> same problems
- if I plug into the top ones (which say preamp out I think) there's sound, but still doesn't get recorded onto the tape
Am I missing something? Do you have to set up the tape differently for recording? Do I need a stronger preamp? Do you think there is a fault?
Also I'm trying to find a user manual.
Many thanks!!!
Xavier
 
Muckelroy said:
I once had a Teac A-4010S, and the motors supposedly both had oiling holes. There was apparently a LITTLE BITTY clear plastic tube poking out of the back of the motor chassies. I only found one of them, but it called for machine oil, basically sewing machine oil.

I would find a service manual, and figure it out for sure.

I would repeat Dr Zee's comment on the capacitors. UNPLUG the thing before you even remove a single chassy screw. Even then, there may still be caps in there full of juice, so stay away from those things. I had an experience with the Teac where a capacitor blew up shortly after I turned it on. It probably would have been much worse had the cover been open.

-callie-
Click to expand...

Any old equipment should be powered up with a variac. The old electrolytics need to be "re-formed" by slowly ramping up power. If you don't do this, you experience what you did and possibly worse (many power supply caps bursting at once)
 
carlotter said:
Hi,
I just got one of these, and I can't figure out how to record with it.
There's:
- 2 jack mic inputs at the front
- 4 rca in at the back
I tried:
- plugin a mic at the front but I can't hear anything and the monitoring needles don't moove. recording over something erases it but nothing gets recorded.
- plugin output from mixing desk at the back into th bottom 2 RCA (which say input) -> same problems
- if I plug into the top ones (which say preamp out I think) there's sound, but still doesn't get recorded onto the tape
Am I missing something? Do you have to set up the tape differently for recording? Do I need a stronger preamp? Do you think there is a fault?
Also I'm trying to find a user manual.
Many thanks!!!
Xavier
Click to expand...

I haven't used mine a while but I'll fire it up tonight and let you know the procedure for recording.
 
Have you got any news? I got the servicing manual, and it looks like it might be a blown valve or that the recording switch is badly setup. I don't have the user manual though, so I might still not set it up properly for recording.
It looks like the playback and recording head are the same, so as it plays fine I guuess the problem is not coming from the heads.
 
Check if the recording switch is engaged when you move the lever to REC.
There is a linkage on the backside below the motor going to the switch, in some cases this linkage get's gummed up and prevent recording. :(
 
carlotter said:
Hi,
I just got one of these, and I can't figure out how to record with it.
There's:
- 2 jack mic inputs at the front
- 4 rca in at the back
I tried:
- plugin a mic at the front but I can't hear anything and the monitoring needles don't moove. recording over something erases it but nothing gets recorded.
- plugin output from mixing desk at the back into th bottom 2 RCA (which say input) -> same problems
- if I plug into the top ones (which say preamp out I think) there's sound, but still doesn't get recorded onto the tape
Am I missing something? Do you have to set up the tape differently for recording? Do I need a stronger preamp? Do you think there is a fault?
Also I'm trying to find a user manual.
Many thanks!!!
Xavier
Click to expand...
Any update on this issue? I'm having the same problem with mine as well.
 
I just did a restoration on a Akai 1710 W here, if you still having problems with the record function take the deck out from the cabinet and check the linkage located below the bracket over the base in the picture:
0a96e759.jpg

And follow the linkage to the left side(view from the back) to the cam's and play/record lever control, you find a small cam made by "pot-metal" that very often crumble or swell creating no movement of the arm going to the record-switch below the base.

Also check the cam below the play-lever in this picture ( plastic ring ) so it's not crumbled after you press the red record-button you are able to move playlever to the far right to engage record, again follow the small rod.:)
80ba1ea7.jpg


If the cam's are functional, check the record switch.
By the way this is a good sounding Akai, see the tubes glow:cool:
c2fec36f.jpg


Belongs to a gentleman in Las Vegas who bought it brand new 1968, but stopped working 20 years ago, now "she" sings great again:)
8309015a.jpg


Here is the Akai in motion, enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXu4pYMPl_M
 
AKAI stopped working

I am new to this board,so I don't exactly know how to start a new topic, so here goes with my problem. If there is somewhere else I need to be directed for this please let me know. I got hold of an old AKAI 1710 last night and started dubbing old reels into my computer. Like an idiot I laid it face down on a bar stool next to my computer with its little rubber feet hanging over the side. I didn't once think to give it air to breathe. I left the room. I came up 30 minutes later to check the process and was greeted by a strange smell and saw the tape had stopped just short of the end. It was still in the 'play' position. When I finally got it to play it was playing at a speed far below the slowest speed, when it was playing at all. It will start to fast forward or reverse and a few seconds later it slows down and then stops. I first thought maybe it had overheated or a tube went bad or maybe even a belt. I look in a little mesh window in the back and see a fan blade that does not move. I also just rethreaded it and tried to play again, but still the same ultra slow speed. There are two speeds and while I was using 'high' speed, which for my purposes was 15 ips, it now all seems to be playing at the slow speed. Again, having never used this low speed I don't even know if THAT is fast enough. And again, sometimes it wants to rewind/fast forward...others times it doesn't.

Any ideas what could have happened? Again, I just got this last night, so I don't know anything at all about this unit.
 
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radio79junkie said:
I first thought maybe it had overheated or a tube went bad or maybe even a belt. I look in a little mesh window in the back and see a fan blade that does not move. I also just rethreaded it and tried to play again, but still the same ultra slow speed.
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That could still be a belt. I don't know what's inside these machines, but if there are any belts they're automatically suspect. If it's started to get hot, that might be enough to turn the belt to slop.

Here's a couple of examples:

https://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/tape/PinchRollerSoup-sml.jpg (pinch roller accidentally left in the sun)

https://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/tape/ag440-2.jpg (pinch rollers belonging to another board member)

Other things to try include running the machine up without any tape on it, see whether both reels spin and most importantly, whether the capstan is turning. You may need to defeat some kind of tape sensor for that to happen, usually it's either a light sensor (Studer etc) or a microswitch in one of the tension arms (TEAC etc). I haven't seen an Akai close up for decades so I can't really be more specific unfortunately.
 
Thanks, JP for the rapid response. I'm hoping it's just the belt, but then again in Googling this topic I've run across a site that details the steps and I fear I may have to take it apart to get the belt on. At the same time, to first find someone who can do it would probably be quite expensive...more so than the parts which one sites offers a belt kit for $17.00. But at least at this point it may not be as critical a problem as I originally feared. But you're right...a belt is most likely the culprit. Better that than a burned out motor.
 
radio79junkie said:
But at least at this point it may not be as critical a problem as I originally feared. But you're right...a belt is most likely the culprit. Better that than a burned out motor.
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I'm just guessing here, but it looks like this is a single-motor deck. Hence, if the spools are turning at all, the motor must be operating (though the fan not moving is weird, as I think it's attached the the motor directly).
However, if the capstan stops - and it's almost certainly belt-driven - the takeup spool may have enough power in it to move the tape slowly.
 
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