Atari 410 repair

[ianoid]

The latest conquest is 410 repair. I have a bunch of belts, which is a good start.

 

This nice 410 unit ser#10603 won't respond to play. I opened it up, replaced 3 belts- index, FF, and play (the main belt). It does rewind and fast forward, but it won't play.

 

Actually while I had it open to try to observe something obviously wrong when I push play, it played momentarily, but that was the only sign of play life. I couldn't get it to do it again.

 

Oddly, the belt kit I bought included play, FF and RW belts, but I can't seem to figure out where the RW belt would go- is that only in certain units or am I missing it?

 

Any suggestions to resurrect this beast, aside from 'don't bother'?

 

I have a multimeter and I can solder, although I'm a bit of a hack with both.

 

Thanks,

 

ian

 

 

[+Nezgar]

It will only actually play when it receives the command from the computer.

 

Connect it, hold start when the computer is powered on, after the beep press return.

 

Or

 

In BASIC type CLOAD, return after the beep

 

Or

 

In basic type POKE 54018,52 to turn the motor ON, POKE 54018,60 to turn it OFF.

[ianoid]

Darn it, of course. I'll try that.

 

Does anyone know how many belts these 410 units have? Is it three or four?

[Magic Knight]

4 belts - play, red, ff and the tape counter

[ianoid]

4 belts - play, red, ff and the tape counter

 

 

I couldn't figure out where the 4th belt went. I had the thing almost totally disassembled. But it did spin for both RW and FF so it must be present in there somewhere.

[ianoid]

So moving onward, I spend my discretionary repair time getting an 800 to work that I thought worked to use for testing, which still needs two key caps (can trade key caps if you have some, I many several spares, but not for this specific keyboard, a Stackpole with last 4 digits of part number 0049). The problem with that 800, in case you were wondering, was that the RF/Power board wasn't staying connected to the motherboard. It had been opened previously and the screws holding the RF/Power board were not used and it was moving. I took some of the shield screws and used those for the RF/Power board and now it's working great. I also reseated all the chips before figuring out the power board issue, so I'm not sure if that helped as well.

 

ANYWAY, this 410 has weak play motion. REW/CUE work ok, but play motion is stuttering, not smooth. The computer tries to load, but I can't imagine that with such inconsistent movement that it will successfully load anything. And it hasn't.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? I did replace the belts as mentioned above, although I couldn't figure out where the fourth belt went. Is it the motor? Could it need caps? I didn't spot an obvious leaker, but I could recheck.

 

I have another unit I was going to mess with that has a badly cracked case that doesn't REW or CUE and seems dead, but could be used as a donor unit.

 

Thanks!

Edited April 3, 2019 by ianoid

[ianoid]

OK, so further progress, I found that one wheel in the chain that drives 'play' action is a rubber wheel next to a metal wheel. The rubber wheel only spins intermittently because it doesn't have enough friction on the metal wheel. The rubber wheel is very stiff. I had a friend who suggested trying to revive the wheel with mineral oil. I'm prone to trying it because I have no better choices. I may try to pull this wheel from another unit, but I'd like to try to revive it first.

 

Any suggestions about bringing back the rubber wheel?

[JR>]

Something like this might help if it's not too far gone.

 

https://www.amazon.com/TECHSPRAY-1612-2SQ-RUBBER-REJUVENATOR-BOTTLE/dp/B018KT2YOC

[ianoid]

Something like this might help if it's not too far gone.

 

https://www.amazon.com/TECHSPRAY-1612-2SQ-RUBBER-REJUVENATOR-BOTTLE/dp/B018KT2YOC

 

 

Huge help. I'll try that. Thanks!