Agree!
If you're just looking to practice, nearly any old thing will do. It's not the value of the unit that matters, the value is in the skills you learn/practice. It will be a plus if you can find something you can still get a service manual for.
I picked this up at the local electronics recycler:
Beat up and missing bits inside. Looked like someone had been scavenging it for parts. Had to dig in the bin to find all the parts that were there. Luckily most of it was in the bin, even if it had been dumped in piecemeal.
No diagrams available, so it forced me to figure it out myself. Luckily it was a quad player, so the boards were all mirrored inside. Comparing one side to the other I was able to figure out the parts needed. Then had to build a stand alone relay network for the 8 track section because the odd relay it came with was obsoleted and NLA. Then I had to chase signal though the boards with an O-Scope to trace down more issues. Standard DMM work as well. Lots of circuit repairs and even some broken boards to figure out how to repair:
If you want to do RTR, 8 tracks are great for practicing some of the needed skills. 8 track players can be bought dirt cheap so if you mess the mechanism up trying to figure something out, no harm no foul. Tos sit and get another. The capstan on this 8 track had gone as many of them had:
The textured surface had gone all shiny and polished from use. Wow, flutter and tape eating ensues. Developed a "sandblasting" technique to restore it:
At least one guy on the board used my technique to restore a capstan he was having a heck of a time on a RTR repair and it eliminated a W&F issue he was having.
Nothing wrong with picking up a junker cheap to practice some skills. they're all transferable to more expensive units.
How it turned out:
Still needs a bulb or two and I'm still chasing down an odd drop out of the left channel only on programs 3 and 4. But that's all just more practice.....
