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Tape Deck plays tapes extremely quietly

S

Smellycorpse

New Member
Hi everyone. This is my first post to Audio Karma.

A few months ago, my Kyocera D-611 stopped working. The symptoms indicated I simply needed a new idler tire. The other day, I finally got around to ordering a new idler tire. That seems to have solved half the problem and I have something else to contend with now.

Whenever I play my cassettes, it runs just fine at normal speed. However, I can't hear anything. When my speakers are turned all the way up, I can hear the ground. And if I listen closely enough, I can barely make out the sound of the music, so at least I know something is happening.
Nothing is registering on the VU meter either.

My Kyocera d611 is such a beautiful machine. I would absolutely love to keep it running. On a secondary note, schematics for the Kyocera d611 don't seem to exist anywhere online. I wonder if anybody knows where I may be able to find one?

Thank you and I am very appreciative of your time!
 
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Are you sure you haven't crossed the cables and hooked it up wrong? Try it through headphones if it has a jack. If it worked before changing the idler, it "should" work now.
 
jbrainey said:
Welcome to Audiokarma.org

Are you sure you haven't crossed the cables and hooked it up wrong? Try it through headphones if it has a jack. If it worked before changing the idler, it "should" work now.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly certain that the audio cables are connected properly. I get the same results when listening through the headphone jack on the front of the tape deck. I was confused as well because I thought that the fix would be so straightforward. however, something might have happened in the few months it was out of commission, but I do not know what it could be. I was so looking forward to playing some music tonight :)
 
Not at all familiar with that deck but. What did you do to replace the tire? Just pull the door off, or remove the transport?
 
zedex said:
Not at all familiar with that deck but. What did you do to replace the tire? Just pull the door off, or remove the transport?
Click to expand...
It's not very common, but from what I understand, it's really great for what it is.

To replace the tire, I pulled the door off, and two screws that held in a plate that covered the idler tire. The idler tire slides right out, alongside a small washer. It uses the Sankyo transport mechanism, which I understand other Nakamichi machines use, so I was able to order a Nak idler tire and it fit perfectly!
 
Yup. Sankyo transport. I wonder if the mode motor/cam motor is lifting the heads enough to contact the tape. Have a look in play mode and see if the tape is contacting the head. Usually cam motor works or it doesnt but both cam motor and reel motor commonly are problematic on all sankyo transports. Pop the hood and also look at the 3 leaf switches on the cam motor. Clean those. Make sure you dont accidentally have a switch depressed causing no sound.
 
To belatedly answer what went wrong, there was a resistor in the machine that was bad. I found it and had it replaced. Now everything works good as new! I cannot find board schematics for the D-611, but I was able to make a good, educated guess from the service manual/schematics for the D-811.

Cheers!
 
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