I need help recovering from some self-induced problems on a Pioneer RT-909 I am restoring. I will start with where things are now, then give the background.
Current state: The unit powers on indicated by the meters being active but none of the transport controls work (play, pause, forward play, reverse play, ff, rewind). I need help with any idea of what to check next because I have hit a wall.
How I got here:
1. After receiving the 909 from Shopgoodwill.com I replaced the drive belt and the pinch rollers because they had disintegrated. I loaded a tape and everything worked: Play, reverse play, record, ff and rewind.
2. I then worked through all the restoration steps described in the amazing post by Rich P. This included all of the mechanical work and a full recap. I also did all of the torque adjustments.
3. Testing at this point showed that play, reverse play, and stop all worked normally. However, when in ff or rewind the Stop button had no effect. Instead of stopping, it would jump from ff to rewind or rewind to ff.
4. I rebuilt the tension mechanisms for a second time because their response was overly damped. I think I overdid it on the lithium grease. After the rebuild, they looked to operate normally based on some YouTube videos I found. When I reassembled and powered up the deck, none of the controls worked. Hence the title of this post. I started with a fully working unit to one that does not work at all and no one to blame but me!
5. One last note: when I was working on the left tension arm I noticed that the white wire to the microswitch had broken off. I don't know if the deck was powered on or not because I had gotten so wrapped up in figuring out the problem. On the chance that it was powered on and the broken wire may have grounded to the frame, I traced the circuit back through the right microswitch to the control board and to the switch board. I pulled any transistor in that path and checked them but they were all ok. I checked 5 or 6 transistors.
Current state: The unit powers on indicated by the meters being active but none of the transport controls work (play, pause, forward play, reverse play, ff, rewind). I need help with any idea of what to check next because I have hit a wall.
How I got here:
1. After receiving the 909 from Shopgoodwill.com I replaced the drive belt and the pinch rollers because they had disintegrated. I loaded a tape and everything worked: Play, reverse play, record, ff and rewind.
2. I then worked through all the restoration steps described in the amazing post by Rich P. This included all of the mechanical work and a full recap. I also did all of the torque adjustments.
3. Testing at this point showed that play, reverse play, and stop all worked normally. However, when in ff or rewind the Stop button had no effect. Instead of stopping, it would jump from ff to rewind or rewind to ff.
4. I rebuilt the tension mechanisms for a second time because their response was overly damped. I think I overdid it on the lithium grease. After the rebuild, they looked to operate normally based on some YouTube videos I found. When I reassembled and powered up the deck, none of the controls worked. Hence the title of this post. I started with a fully working unit to one that does not work at all and no one to blame but me!
5. One last note: when I was working on the left tension arm I noticed that the white wire to the microswitch had broken off. I don't know if the deck was powered on or not because I had gotten so wrapped up in figuring out the problem. On the chance that it was powered on and the broken wire may have grounded to the frame, I traced the circuit back through the right microswitch to the control board and to the switch board. I pulled any transistor in that path and checked them but they were all ok. I checked 5 or 6 transistors.
