ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hello All;
I think my cassette in my Beocenter 9000 is Fubar. So I am looking for a replacement. Beocenter parts are rare, but I think that the same cassette mechanism was used in a few models of Beocord.
What Beocord Decks use the same mechanism as the Beocenter 9000? Was the cassette the same for other Beocenter? Which ones?
Thanks all for any help and your time;
Greg Perugini
Which Beocenter parts are rare?Can't you just repair your tape drive? What's wrong with it?All B&O tape drives will need some repairs by now. That's all normal.
Martin
Yes, normally cassette players of this age, by any manufacturer, will need something done.
Most likely failures are the belt (which I did and it did not fix it) or capacitors. But again, I would like to replace it for I cannot diagnose what is wrong. It will sometimes stick in on position, the capstans turn, but the right one seems very tight, etc. I tried to diagnose this using this forum a while back with no real help. Sometimes it is just best to replace with a known working unit. Spending hours repairing - well, the math on my time, and I have already spent some of that capital. If I can find a working unit, it would be an easy swap out of ten minutes.
You would need the large controller board as well, or you would have to go through a full alignment of everything, requiring a servicemanual, good skills and a host of instrumentation.I can tell you that's not done in ten minutes.Check the small idler wheel at the corner of the drive. It's often seized in dry lubricants or running rough due to lack of lubrication.
The unit that I speak of is one unit with I think 4 plug attachment to the main board. Pulls out with removal of 3 screws. I think it would take less than 10 minutes, and the unit has what you would call the controller board attached. When I have seen them on ebay (expensive) they are that one unit that plugs in.
All I am asking if there is a direct replacement from other beocenter/beocord with that controller board. If not, then I will have to try to get one from an equivalent beocenter, or send it to someone to fix.
To answer your question all belted wheels turn freely, the belt turns, the capstans turn, but the middle spokes don't turn and it click on and off continuously when connected. Probably something bad on the controller board or that central motor, but as you point out, it will take a lot of time and equipment to diagnose. As a former Apple Engineer I have the equipment, it just doesn't seem worth it to spend that time. I would rather get a replacement unit.
The tape controller is a quite large circuitboard sitting at the underside of the top part of the Beocenter.It handles all tape operations, receives commands from the processor module, drives solenoids, watches tape movement etc. and it also handles the Dolby signal processing etc.It has some 30-40 adjustment points for setting everything, record and playback levels, bias levels and equalizing for the different tape types it supports etc., mainlyin order to compensate for tolerances in the production of tape heads.It looks something like this:
In your case, however, I would take off the reel spindles, clean and relubricate them.They are known to seize in old grease. Use a little white lithium grease on the metal shafts - and look out for the small black friction washers under thespindles.