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XC12 repair


Lastic

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Good morning everybody

 

I had a spare XC12 still factory sealed with the sticker laying around which didn't work, looked like a belt issue since the motor was still spinning.

I took it apart and it had 2 issues, the flywheel had fallen apart, as in the 2 plastic pieces which press the metal ring together were seperated, which I fixed (did have to dissassemble a lot to reach it) and the belt was worn.

Tape loading works again but I got a humming sound as soon as I have pressed Play , even with a tape inserted, no tape inserted, or pressing STOP.

To elimate the possibility of a failing 800XE, PSU, I tried on different PSU's, 2 different 130XE's and even a different XC12 with the same tape.

Looks like the culprit is the gooey stuff on the screws of both heads, which fell off due to being dried up and unscrewing the screws to remove the PCB.

If I play the tape and keep a screwdriver pressed down on top of these screws , the humming disappears.

IMG_5522.thumb.JPG.3c10246fc74a56a4b907f73ea04dc95d.JPG

 

My 2 questions, what is this stuff ? Locktite ? Altough it doesn't bond metal to metal.

Would plastic washers help ?

 

Another question/concern, whilst looking at 3 different dissassembled XC12's (the faulty one before repair and 2 working ones) I noticed that this one -the one I repaired- doesn't have a shield on the back of the PCB ?

Since it rests against plastic I guess it shouldn't pose an issue but just asking since I found it a bit bizarre that the non-factory sealed ones had it installed and this one didn't .

 

And for those wondering why all the hassle , I'm planning to upgrade this repaired one with the Turbo Blizzard PCB upgrade by Zaxon

https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/40076

 

and I'm a sucker for tapes, still got all my audio mixtapes from way back .

 

Edited by Lastic
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The "gooey stuff" on the screws is to prevent the screws from moving, those screws adjust the heads for correct

alignment. If you have moved these screws, you will need to re-align the heads, both r/w and erase.

 

Don't have a manual for an XC12, but here is the manual for the 1010, the head alignement should be very similar, you will need a scope.

 

 

1010_cassette_recorder_field_service_manual.pdf

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Haha you should see my living room cassette deck stack. Four working three headers:-)

Last week I was also trying to revive my XC12 and Phonemark datasettes, but I have one fundamental problem. They have no SIO cables. And I could not find single picture showing where the colored leads are soldered to on the pcb. I have one cable to try. Could you please make detailed pictures and place them somewhere, so that finally they are available. Whole board with parts would be also fine. I assume your pcb is still unaltered. My XC12 has similar problems as yours, loose belt. Phonemark seems to be in much better shape mechanically, but board parts have been modified heavily for Turbo speed, so now I am stuck. I would first have to revert to standard.

BTW there are much cheaper solutions for TURBO. For example http://baktra.webowna.cz/t2k/turbo2000.html or http://jpecher.sweb.cz/navod-na-zhotoveni-upravy-turbo-2000-pro-magnetofon-xc12 google translate should help.

 

And no, none of my decks has any shield. But obviously someone has been there inside before. As for the hum - some hum is normal IRC these are not HiFi equipment. I do not thing it has anything to do with the stuff. That stuff is discussed here btw:

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=81396

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20 minutes ago, archeocomp said:

And I could not find single picture showing where the colored leads are soldered to on the pcb.

Here you go, just photo'd my XC12, got to gongratulate Atari on a "wonderful" soldering job ?

IMG_20200501_102637.jpg

IMG_20200501_102602.jpg

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I want to add that you can get a good enough adjustment of the screw without oscilloscope. by just trying to match the old position using the paint residues (the gooey stuff) and then moving them tiny amounts until you make it work... now if you have access to an oscilloscope, that is the way to go. 

I got lucky yesterday and I repaired a mitsumi mech from xf551 by changing the stepper motor and head, then going thru the process of moving the angle of the motor, the zero track position and the pulley (is that the right word?) position adjustment until I got it to work. Probably it is not perfectly aligned, but it was able to read all the diskette I throw at it (some formatted 360KB aka DS/DD), maybe I got lucky.

 

 

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5 hours ago, manterola said:

I want to add that you can get a good enough adjustment of the screw without oscilloscope. by just trying to match the old position using the paint residues (the gooey stuff) and then moving them tiny amounts until you make it work... now if you have access to an oscilloscope, that is the way to go. 

I got lucky yesterday and I repaired a mitsumi mech from xf551 by changing the stepper motor and head, then going thru the process of moving the angle of the motor, the zero track position and the pulley (is that the right word?) position adjustment until I got it to work. Probably it is not perfectly aligned, but it was able to read all the diskette I throw at it (some formatted 360KB aka DS/DD), maybe I got lucky.

 

 

Reading isn't normally the issue, formatting and writing becomes the issue, and if any OTHER persons drives can read and write to them, but you can adjust them without a scope, I wrote about it as have others in the ancient world..

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