The Official Elcaset thread!

Powers up, fast-forwards and rewinds, but on play seems to be running very fast - maybe a belt issue?

Did anybody ever produce prerecorded tapes for these things?

Removing the knobs and the front panel, and cleaning them makes a huge difference! If there are no scratches or dents it should look like new when cleaned.

The Elcaset tape moves at 9,5cm/s, twice the speed of a cassette deck so it might look fast. When in playback mode the meters will show the playback levels, if there is something on the tape. Note that you need to have the MONITOR switch set to TAPE when listening tapes.

(As far as I know) the only prerecorded tape in Elcaset format was the Sony Elcaset Demonstration Tape (which itself was only 30min tape with only A side prerecorded).
 
How in the world do you get the wrapped wires off the posts? Do you have to apply heat or do they slide off?

I am trying to restore my EL-7, and want to recap it, but I haven't the slightest clue how to get each component out without losing parts/forgetting where the wires go.

I am open to any suggestions/thoughts. Very nice deck you have, I am impressed!
 
Man, this thread was a blast from the past for me. I worked at a stereo store between around 1975 to 1978. I sold these decks. I believe we only sold the Sony though. I have always been a big promoter of new technology and was a huge supporter of Laserdisc back in the day. That said, I had a hard time with the Elcaset. It was awesome in its automation and sound quality, but I saw it as just too late to catch on.

It was also too expensive. That was when we were starting to get into the paradigm under which we now live. That is, if it isn't priced for the masses, you can pretty much forget about it. I believe these decks were going for something over $600 at a time when, if you made over $5 an hour you were not doing too bad. And we were selling VHC VCR's for a little over $600 at the time, so for Joe Sixpack a new audio format was not too important.

I had little doubt the format would fail. We did sell a few at a significantly discounted price and also pretty much dumped the blank tapes pretty cheap with the units.

I kinda see Elcaset as the "Edsel" of the industry. It was a great idea but just had a couple of fatal flaws, mostly marketing related. At least it didn't have a "vagina grill". :)
 
Just gummed up lubrication,at first,i thought it was just on the solenoids,but after freeing them off,it still wasnt right.I put it to one side because I wasnt in too good shape either,lol,but went back to it a couple of days ago and de-greased the rest of the linkages etc and its working great now.Thanks again:thmbsp:
 
..The whole tape mechanics can be removed easily after un-plugging several cables and removing a few screws.

I bought a belt kit online a few years ago, from a guy in Italy and never understood why there was no 4th belt. The counter belt was missing. Seller claimed all belts were there. He probably missed that belt because he managed to find suitable belts by trial and error from people asking him for them, and the counter belt is somewhat easy to miss.
Sadly if I remember correctly - if the counter isn't moving, then the deck will cut whatever transport function is active at the time.

I managed to service mine without takign any cables off, but it was necessary to remove a few screws and all cable ties and stretch every cable a lot in order to move it free to do some servicing.

I cannot help feeling that the ElCaset transport was created by people who wanted to make the transport as clunky an unattractive as possible while also making it an expensive deck to acquire. Why I cannot tell, it is just a gut feeling.
Still the ElCaset came about when decks were not supposed to be small and making tape decks smaller for carrying had not really caught on. Professionals still had to lug a suitcase of considerable weight around, while the consumers later on could manage with a lot less weight and size due to integrated circuits and only rudimentary playback.

So many sacrifices when a new format comes out. All not all of them appear sane years after. I doubt anyone will ever tell how the ElCaset came about from idea to product. I do see a lot of oem models with the Sony deck behind the face plate. perhaps they rushed the development so much that their forgot to make the deck more civil and appealing to regular Joe customer?

They did go for makign a portable model, which shows that someone on the Sony team believed that it could be made better.

Of course many Sony decks of cassette and DAT would also have shortcomings. Sometimes therse flaws would show up in several models when ever a flaw followed a part used in several decks.

It is sad when a poorly designed transport, power distribution, loading and eject mechanism or any electrical choise or pitfall shows up as being a poor choice, but we are not privy to why the choice was made.

I read online somewhere that that around the turn of 1980 or so Sony Europe decided to dump the remaining ElCaset decks in Finland about 2000 decks at a favorable price - with the then remaining tape stock and spares I gather. Same source has it that it is not a whole lot difficult to see them pop up now and then at fleamarkets in Finland.

I got two EL-5, one of which is a demo model. The reset button for the counter differs between them. Dunno why.
I have a lot of NOS tapes and abut a dozen or so that are used. The newst music is I think Depeche modes second album, which puts my tapes last recording around 1982 or so. probably when the oner when with cassettes and called it a day and put the deck in the basement.

I got a RM-30 remote for them both, in their original boxes too. I reckon the ElCaset decks fell out of owners use so quickly they had not bothered to get rid of the original boxes for the remotes.

The only two manufactureres of actual ElCaset tapes are Sony and Technics, I do not know of any others. Does anyone here know of other manufacturers?

-Mikkel
 
"Elcaset is garbage and not worth spending money on"...

I thought it was taboo NOT to discuss this format here (lol). I thought the limit was 8-track...

I only have one Elcaset deck, and in contrast with ~10 of everything else, that seems too little. My deck is a Technics RS-7500. It works as it arrived but has issues with the idlers that transfer rotation to the tape spools. The unit is huge - think 7" R2R size and not the tiny ones. However, the transport is built like a cassette deck. A cassette transport in R2R dimensions shows its weakness. And think of a low end cassette deck transport, like RS-631 (that I know of) not RS-M85 or the sorts.

The idlers are plastic hubs with rubber tires. They are a bit worn and now they are slippery and the deck needs to warm up before they grab. Otherwise, it's like a Formula 1 car with cold tires.

Unfortunatelly I forgot to take pictures when I took it apart to clean it up and make my first attempt to restore the idlers. I will take pics the next time I work on it.

In the meantime, here's a pic of the deck from the outside.

And in order not to leave the mistaken impression I don't like the deck or the format, the format sounds great. Even without Dolby (it's not really needed) I can't hear audible hiss and the frequency response is better than a R2R deck at 3 3/4ips.

You own the wrong deck. Sony EL5/7 is the Elcaset you need the rest are not good imitations of the true elcasets
 
Wow this is great, I bought my Teac AL-700 new in 1980 at the army post exchange and when I saw that unit, I could not beleive my eyes and the sound was the best of all cassettes I have heard before, at that time I wanted to buy more tapes so I ordered them directly from Sony in Japan and had no trouble getting them, I still have three factory sealed tapes. Recently I bought a Teac RX-10 dbx unit but did not have the cord that supplies power from the AL-700 to the unit, would like to know if anybody knows about that particular cord and a way to get one, I will post pictures of it later, thank's from Jose
 
Here are some pictures of my elcasete.
 

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There is a recent thread discussing Sony reel tapes and sticky shedding. Now, I have no Sony reel tape or cassettes, but I do have ca. 70 Elcaset tapes mainly FeCr but some SLH and I've never experienced any shedding at all. Surely it's the same formula as R2R FeCr or SLH? Or is it just backcoated Sony tapes with the problem, which Elcaset tapes are not?
 
Have a Sony EL-5 which I purchased new belts for and haven't installed as yet....hope they fit and work! Had it for about 30 years and enjoyed it....will get a picture posted soon.
 
Just to keep the thread living, I just need to show off my latest Elcaset addition; the RM-30 wired remote control! After having lost several eBay auctions of the mentioned remote, I finally won one. It wasn't exactly cheap (about 100 EUR including postages) but it's in mint condition and totally gorgeous! Long, thick cable, weird plug and heavy aluminium construction.

For some reason either the remote's plug's pins were bent inward or my EL-7's connector was loose as the plug didn't seat properly at first and the contact was not reliable. I can't see if what sort of contacts there are inside the female connector as the deck is under a heavy load of other gear and I can't get it out of the shelf at the moment. Carefully I bent the remote's plug's pins outwards and now it fits the connector better and seems to work.

Very nice little gadget and in my setup it's even useful: the deck is out-of-reach behind other stuff and the remote really helps :music:
 

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Just to keep the thread living, I just need to show off my latest Elcaset addition; the RM-30 wired remote control! After having lost several eBay auctions of the mentioned remote, I finally won one. It wasn't exactly cheap (about 100 EUR including postages) but it's in mint condition and totally gorgeous! Long, thick cable, weird plug and heavy aluminium construction.

For some reason either the remote's plug's pins were bent inward or my EL-7's connector was loose as the plug didn't seat properly at first and the contact was not reliable. I can't see if what sort of contacts there are inside the female connector as the deck is under a heavy load of other gear and I can't get it out of the shelf at the moment. Carefully I bent the remote's plug's pins outwards and now it fits the connector better and seems to work.

Very nice little gadget and in my setup it's even useful: the deck is out-of-reach behind other stuff and the remote really helps :music:

Kiitos.
Nice addition to your collection. Still wanna get an Elcaset for mine.
 
The other day I played me player and it ate up my tape, cleaned the guides and roller but did not pay attention to that area, went to buy some pinch roller cleaner today then I notice one pinch roller missing, this being a rare model(AL-700) I don't know if pinch rollers from Teac reel to reel machines would work, if anybody knows anything, please let me know:tears:
 
Hello,

I have the Nak RX-505 also, in mint shape still, since new. I have had it fully serviced, for maintenance. I gotta love those Nakamichi Car Audio Decks, the TD Series was the Ultimate in Car Cassette decks. I had one too. I miss it. Mine was not the TD-1200, but the model below it. Mine was the 2nd best machine Nak made in car Stereo's. The Tuners in those TD units are actually excellent, great FM Tuners. I worked at the 2nd or 3rd Largest Car Audio Radiio/Stereo Repair Facility in the USA. So, I saw my fair share of all Car Audio. At that time Alpine with HALTAC Heads, and Soundstream Car Audio was the very best, besides Nakamichi TD Units. Alpine Amps were excellent back then. You have great stuff. Ray


In the mid 90's I had a Nak RD-460 head unit and a PA-304 Nak Car Amp in a Honda CRX. That head unit was badass. I worked at Bryn Mawr Stereo in the Philly area at the time.
 
The other day I played me player and it ate up my tape, cleaned the guides and roller but did not pay attention to that area, went to buy some pinch roller cleaner today then I notice one pinch roller missing, this being a rare model(AL-700) I don't know if pinch rollers from Teac reel to reel machines would work, if anybody knows anything, please let me know:tears:

I finally fixed my elcaset, thank's to Terry Witt from Terry's rollers.com, he made me a new roller that fit perfectly on the machine and is playing right now the tunes:music:
 
Hello everyone I am just about to tackle fixing my EL-7 and like a lot of you I have a issue with the brakes, can you tell me to fix the problem do I need to replace the brakes or is it just a solinoid problem ? if the breaks need replacing what do you use ?

thanks

Brian
 
Hello everyone I am just about to tackle fixing my EL-7 and like a lot of you I have a issue with the brakes, can you tell me to fix the problem do I need to replace the brakes or is it just a solinoid problem ? if the breaks need replacing what do you use ?

thanks

Brian

Hi,

Welcome aboard,

I have restored three Elacset’s (EL-7, EL-5 & WEGA E4950), all three required replacement of the brake pads. The original pads are a felt material, I have replaced these with a rubber material, I have found that the thickness is very critical to performance and had a local seal manufacturer make up several thickness ranging from 0.90mm to 1.20mm. You may be lucky and use a turntable drive belt that's the correct thickness.

What I did was removed the felt (scrape it off until back to the plastic bracket). Then refit the bracket and you can try different thickness by holding between the bracket and brake drum and then just pick the best thickness. Leave the rubber strip over size (width) and glue onto plastic bracket with Loctite 406 or 401. Then with a sharp knife trim the edges of the rubber back to the edge of the plastic bracket. Re-fit and test brakes. I doubt you will have problems with the solenoids, all three of my machines the solenoids have been fine.

You will also probably find the old grease in the pinch roller operating mechanism will require removal of the old grease and then re-greased. I used a Polyglide designed to work around electronics.

While you are at it, you should replace the drive belt and position counter belt, I got mine from Marrs Communications.

Enjoy your rebuild:thmbsp:.

Tony
 

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