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Nakamichi Control Motor Swap Dilemma

vinylvirgin

vinylvirgin

Member
Here is my situation:

I have a Nakamichi CR-1A tape deck. It has "The Nak Disease" (i.e. a badly-designed control motor which gets wonky and won't operate the control cams properly when the transport control buttons are pressed).

I also have a Nakamichi BX-125 from a thrift shop. It works well, EXCEPT - its output level control is noisy and intermittent. Cleaning the control or replacing it (assuming that a replacement for it can even be found) would require ripping the whole deck apart just to get at that one component (I tried it, and gave up when I saw how much disassembly would be required).

I'm thinking of cannibalizing the control motor from the BX-125 to repair the relatively-better-condition CR-1A. Is that feasible? Would the BX-125's control motor have the proper electrical and mechanical characteristics?
 
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Thread necromancy ...

1) Fix the CR1's motor: take it out, make it run both ways on a 9V battery for hours. If that does not work, clean the motor internals. There are plenty of websites and threads detailing how. It is not that hard.

2) Fix the 125. Either disassemble it (yes it is a lot of work) and replace the pot with a Bourns PTD902-2015K-A103, or study the circuit diagram and the print layout and bridge the output pot by soldering two ~6 cm long wires on the main PCB. You won't have output level control, but the deck will work again.
 
I understand your apprehension to take apart the Nakamichi. I had the same issue the first time I worked on a Nakamichi MR-1. I had worked on our Tascam 122MKIIIs with no problem, but they're laid out much differently with very few daughter boards. Once I discovered which connections to remove from the transport it got much easier. Now I can take apart and re-assemble their MR-1 and BX-100/300s with no problem. Good luck with the motor. I've refurbished a couple of capstan motors, but they can be tricky.
 
To the OP: They are the Same mode motor and they are easy to swap. I would do just what you suggested. CR-1 is normally a better sounding deck than a BX-125. Easy peasy.

Doh! I missed the age of the thread start. I still dislike this new format.
 
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