Resurrecting a 9200XD

[GMU]

hello from Boston. I'm attempting to resurrect a Tandberg 9200XD. It powers on, but won't play -- meaning that the unit won't mechanically move a tape forward at any speed.

Rewind and Wind work, however the braking at the end of the rewind/wind doesn't seem to be working either -- it is photocell activated.

I would guess that the machine has not been used in 25 years.

I'm new to this kind of thing, I've carefully opened it up and looked around, but I don't see anything obvious (except dust)

All ideas, clues, guidance welcome.

Greg

 

[3MJB]

I'd say that the first thing you should do before anything is be sure that all the guides and pinch rollers move freely.

 

[jdurbin1]

Dried sticky grease... more than likely the solenoids aren't able to move the pinch roller arm into position nor control the brakes.

It's real common, and the fix isn't horrible but you will need to get it apart, remove all of the old glue - I mean grease - and relube the mechanism pivots in order to make it play again. Do the braking mechanism and speed change mechanism pivots too, not just the ones that move the pinch roller arm.

While you're at it, look at the idler wheel - you won't know until play is working how bad the wheel is or isn't but if the surface is hardened and/or cracked you're going to need to replace/re-rubber or refurb it in order to have good speed & low W&F.

Should also plan on deoxidizing all the pesky silver pin connectors where things plug in, and the pots & switches.

And, welcome to AK!

John

 

[Blue Shadow]

John is right about these. The lever with the pinch roller on it will not move up into position to allow the tape to be moved by the capstan. When my Tandberg started to do this 20 years ago I solved the issue by pushing down on the left end of the lever to engage the pinch roller. The solenoid kept it in place. A relube fixed the problem. Machine snaps into play as it should.