Questions about Adam tape drive repair

[Looftie]

I had a couple of questions about tape drive repair.

 

I bought 4 tape drives off of ebay. One works fine. Another spins fast to one end of the tape and the slowly back to the other, endlessly looping. The encoder wheel and rubber are completely intact and spin freely. Is this an internal issue with the encoder or can something else cause this? I've cleaned the read/write head.

 

Two of the drives have gummy, black residue where the rubber wheel used to be. After opening both up, the encoder wheel on one has a big chuck corroded away. The other has some corrosion on the edge of the wheel in one spot, but otherwise looks ok and spins freely.

 

Regarding the disassembly of the encoder wheel, has anyone else encountered an Adam tape drive that appeared to have the encoder wheel head (black plastic thing that the edge of the wheel spins through) glued to the plastic body of the tape drive?

 

I've opened up two drives now and broke both heads trying to move them away from the wheel. They appear to be glued. Any ideas?

 

I don't want to break the third drive trying to repair it when everything else seems to work fine.

 

Thanks,

Justin

[NIAD]

Another spins fast to one end of the tape and the slowly back to the other, endlessly looping. The encoder wheel and rubber are completely intact and spin freely. Is this an internal issue with the encoder or can something else cause this? I've cleaned the read/write head.

 

I'd guess that one of the two controller boards inside the Data Drive is bad.

 

Here is an old thread that details replacing the encoder wheel:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/182910-adam-maintenence-01/?hl=%2Bdata+%2Bdrive+%2Brepair

 

Good Luck!

[ValkerieSilk]

I had a couple of questions about tape drive repair.

 

I bought 4 tape drives off of ebay. One works fine. Another spins fast to one end of the tape and the slowly back to the other, endlessly looping. The encoder wheel and rubber are completely intact and spin freely. Is this an internal issue with the encoder or can something else cause this? I've cleaned the read/write head.

 

Two of the drives have gummy, black residue where the rubber wheel used to be. After opening both up, the encoder wheel on one has a big chuck corroded away. The other has some corrosion on the edge of the wheel in one spot, but otherwise looks ok and spins freely.

 

Regarding the disassembly of the encoder wheel, has anyone else encountered an Adam tape drive that appeared to have the encoder wheel head (black plastic thing that the edge of the wheel spins through) glued to the plastic body of the tape drive?

 

I've opened up two drives now and broke both heads trying to move them away from the wheel. They appear to be glued. Any ideas?

 

I don't want to break the third drive trying to repair it when everything else seems to work fine.

 

Thanks,

Justin

I've disassembled and repaired a couple of them having that exact same problem. I'll search for the youtube vid and post. Basically you clean the encoder wheel and replace the rubber with the tire from a hotwheel, it's the perfect fit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py5Y1PYUadY

[Rey]

Assuming the encoder disc is intact.

Edited October 5, 2014 by rey_1178

[ValkerieSilk]

Assuming the encoder disc is intact.

Ehh... encoder smoder... How important could that part be ...