Hmm....MrAl wrote:Hi again,
Janitor:
The fix i was talking about with the spring and pulley and cord was to
help keep more pressure against the capstan by the capstan roller.
Maybe the roller was what was worn? I say this because i dont
remember the capstan itself being worn and i think i would have
noticed that because it is basically a straight shaft and if it was worn
i would have seen a shoulder where it wore narrower, and i dont
remember seeing anything like that. The roller on the other hand im
not sure of because it's just a roller and the whole surface would
have worn.
The Capstan itself sounds like it was OK.
More likely it was the Pinch Roller and the Arm it was mounted on that wore out.
The pivot point on the Pinch Roller Arm is under a lot pressure.
After awhile the hole at the pivot point gets elongated.
Thus, it stops putting the Pinch Roller correctly against the Capstan.
Yeah, the newer VCR's use the timing pulse that is put onto the tapeBTW, my newest VCR (the RCA unit i just fixed) has a 'time' based
counter rather than a simple up/down counter like my old VCR's had
and i liked better. I was thinking of installing my own simple up/down
counter using some sort of sensor and a uC chip and display.
Have you done anything like this before or mounted some sensor
for this kind of thing before?
when it is recorded for the Hour, Minute, and Second for the Tape Counter.
The old mechanical Tape Counters had a belt that came off of the right Reel Hub driving it.
Later, they used just the right Reel Hub, with black & white stripes on it.
The stripes past in front of a photo sensor just under the Reel Hub.
The pulses from the sensor then went to a uC chip and then to the display.
The most simple solution is go with a old mechanical Tape Counter.
Find an old junk VCR that has one, and then figure out how to mount into your RCA VCR.
The other is to tap off the signal from the photo sensor to a uC Chip, then to a 4 digit display.
But the uC Chip will need to get a pulse from the MPU.
{Or tap off of the FF and RW buttons}
Which will dictate the direction (Counting up/Counting Down).
Signed: Janitor Tzap