Portastudio 424 mkIII problems turning on (clicking and endless loading image)

J

jenkin

New member
I just received a 424 mkIII sent from eBay, supposed to be fully operational. When it I turn it on, however, the loading animation plays continuously, and the tape mechanism clicks and keeps clicking repeatedly. I don't know what exactly should happen upon powering on as far as the tape transport mechanism goes, but I've watched youtube videos of people powering on this unit and I know the loading screen should go away very quickly.

I'm concerned because it seems that other units with tape transport problems still power up completely. Mine does not. Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Is it a reliable seller and what is the return policy?

This is exactly why I just can't buy off of EBay.....Not in my DNA I guess
 
I had that happen to me on a newly purchased Tascam 424mkIII, several years ago.

What seemed to be the trouble was the head load (up/down) function was jammed and the heads were trying to reset to their fully down position, before the unit would complete it's initialization sequence. It was a long time ago, but I believe I worked the heads up and down very gently by hand (with the unit off), and it seemed to reset properly. It might have happened again once or twice after that, but never again since then.

I believe that the head carriage (back-forth/up-down) motion may have become jammed into an untenable position from a slight bump or jarring fall during shipping. This mechanism is belt driven but has a couple intermediate gears in the mechanical part of it. Fear not, as I don't think this is serious or fatal.

:spank::eek:;)
 
that's really good to hear. It's true, the heads don't seem to be moving at all (was this the case for you?) I can't seem to move them by hand more than a millimeter or so, should I be able to do more? I'm afraid to put much pressure on them or otherwise "force it," so to speak. Did you open the machine up?

Thanks
 
I did not have to open the machine up to free up the heads,...

but at a certain point I had to open up the machine later for a different reason. :spank::eek:;)

It's hard to remember exactly what physical action freed the heads, but I managed to move the heads either up or down until something clicked back into place and it retracted normally and reset.

It's dubious of me to advise you sight unseen, as something mechanical in the gears may be jammed, but take for instance it's trying to retract all the way down before it will do it's full reset. It would seem acceptable to me to give it a gentle yet firm pressure downward as you turn on the machine, in hopes to get the mechanical part to sync again. There are a couple of little gears down there that may have become unmeshed. I seem to recall mine gave me a quick ratchety noise when the gears finally remeshed and went back to normal. I'm not one to force things or advise anyone to do so, but it's still my opinion that a hard bump has disloged the head mechanisim from it's normal state.

If you're extremely comfortable with taking things apart & putting them back together, you may want to pop it open and take a look. You get into territory when you open it up that its difficult to power up and try the mechanics when the two halves are separated, and to really inspect that area might require you remove the cassette mech altogether, but it certainly can't hurt to look inside as an option, if you feel up to it. As I recall, I did not have to.

:spank::eek:;)
 
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