Auto reverse, for no apparent reason.

[audiocrzy]

The title saids it all. Akai GX260D auto reveres occasionally for not apparent reason. Maybe once or twice playing through 4 tapes and not in the same spots. No foil tape and tape paths are kept clean. Just annoying so I’d like to get it to stop .
Any suggestions on where to start troubleshooting this problem?

thanks

 

[audiojones]

Just a semi-educated guess here but if you switch it to “non reverse” and it still does it then I would suspect the transistors in the reversing circuit. By switching to the non reverse position you eliminate both of the sensing posts and their wiring, so if it still randomly kicks over it’s probably a flaky transistor on the system control board. I had the same thing happen on an M10 and an X201D, both times it turned out to be the reversing transistor. In both of mine they were listed as 2sc711 in the manual but they used the infamous 2sc458 on the actual board.
Good luck, hth!