Otari MX5050 restoration....

[Roscoe Primrose]

As you may have noticed in the shootout thread, I'm restoring an Otari MX5050 (no bloody "B") reel to reel deck. It's been sitting in my garage form more than a decade, and the belt had turned to complete goo, to the point you couldn't have identified it as a belt. Got a new belt put in after hours of cleaning all the goo out of where it shouldn't be, and it's now capable of playing music. Pots are a bit scratchy as you might expect, and I've got a new poly pinch roller I've yet to install to replace the dried out rubber one. Speed seems perfectly stable with the old one, but what the heck, I ordered it before I had the deck running. Now on to doing a thorough cleaning of the tape path and an alignment. Did manage to find the service manual (but not the instruction manual) on-line, so at least I have the info I need for the alignment... Here's a pic before I started (but, it doesn't really look any different from the outside yet). Not sure if the missing knob is out in the garage or not, when it warms up a bit I'll spend some time looking for it.

Need more tapes, only one I have is one that came on an old Akai deck I picked up a few years ago at a hamfest. May restore that one at some point as well, can't play 3-3/4ips tapes on the Otari.

Roscoe

[Roscoe Primrose]

No Bloody B making her first music (for me anyway;) ). All she really needed was a good cleaning and a new drive belt. I've now got almost $50 invested in this deck Need to find a knob to replace the missing one, but the sound is amazing... Heads on this deck look brand new. Otari decks have the XLRs wired with pin 3 hot rather than the industry standard pin 2 hot, so I had to rewire the output jacks to get sound with my XLR-RCA adapters. No Bloody B doesn't have true balanced outputs even though she's got XLRs... Didn't have that problem with her sister..

Notice that she's got a sister now, meet BII-2. BII-2 needs little help, the tape counter doesn't work, and the motor sometimes starts, and sometime needs a little twist to get going. Notice the spare motor/servo board on top waiting for me to have time to get it replaced. Took BII-2 over to Dave P's yesterday, had a great time listing to both BII-2 & Dave's twin deck. Dave's deck has a huge advantage in sound with the outboard tape pre-amp, but BII-2 still sounded pretty good. I want to publicly thank Dave for hooking me up with my first few tapes!

Now, time to go broke buying tapes

Roscoe

[dberning]

Next time we have a meet at Roscoe's we expect to see a rack full of tapes to go along with all those LPs.

David

[Roscoe Primrose]

I'm thinking about a meet 12/15, but that soon it'd have to be a BYOT meetup

Roscoe

[brombo]

Did anyone have any success with the Crown tape decks I gave away?

[mix4fix]

You should have bought some tape and reels from the ATR lady.

[brombo]

I have a bunch of prerecorded tapes (mostly classical and folk) and several blank 10 inch reels. If you want it come and get it at no cost.

[Roscoe Primrose]

I have a bunch of prerecorded tapes (mostly classical and folk) and several blank 10 inch reels. If you want it come and get it at no cost.

A most generous offer (says the guy with 5 tapes ). You going to be around this weekend?

Roscoe

[mix4fix]

Pick up my turntable for me. He was going to give me a cheap turntable.

[brombo]

I will be around this weekend but call ahead. You have been to my place before (Altec horns and drivers). I was not "giving away" the turntable. It was for sale. Also there are records if you want any (again mainly classical and folk).