Fixing a cassette deck but Everything Goes Wrong...

A $15 cassette deck that died on me just after I spent $40 trying to get it working. Old tape recorders are known for mechanical failures, but on 1990s models like this Technics RS-TR180, they can sometimes have electronic failures, too.

Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:06 Repair cost
1:56 Replacing pinch rollers
3:23 Everything went wrong
6:14 The culprit?
7:15 Teardown
9:29 Fake restoration videos
10:50 Recommendations

#cassette #repair #fail

[Golbez]

Oh wow, a follow up video about this deck. I honestly thought you wouldn't try to repair it since you said it's not worth time and money. But I'm glad you did. Many thanks.

[oldacc]

This makes me feel better about only having a boombox to play tapes. Not to mention that my boombox, as cheap as it is, with a Tanashin mechanism, is still far more reliable than this deck.
Another thing worth noting is that it's also a good thing to save the tape heads from a deck as they might be used to upgrade another and make it sound better (did that on my boombox) and those two speed motors can easily be hacked to run on one speed by sticking a trimmer (or better yet, a precisely calculated resistor) across the A and B terminals (or L and H, depends on the motor)

[danieldrimidov]

It might be a very expensive lesson but the value of learning how much irreparable crap we produce is priceless. Thanks and keep making them. ;D

[qxgjuko]

good point on the fake repair videos. Thank you for showing both success and failures. Super helpful!

[Recordology]

Great video! It’s true! People tell me all the time broken vintage tech is WAYYYY better than perfectly working new cheap tech! 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[jasonwilliams]

I have that JVC deck you show at the end. Bought in late 1989. Good deck. Reliable.

[MatthewCobalt]

Oh no! Not the "This Does Not Compute" and "MichaelMJD" Repair curse!?

[semectual]

R.I.P. to the unrepairable Technics tape deck. This is the first deck I noticed on this channel that headed down that road. Based on what you explained in your video, it's interesting to see, going back to the 90s where consumers started loosing the right to repair their own products like this tape deck. Great Video!

[sammyspero]

We used to fix those back in the 90s too. We had a contract with Panasonic. We used to get the boards the circuit boards and everything replaced. Plus the parts as you showed us. It was always fixable. We never had an issue as what you showed us. Back then our technicians they used to call that the bad lemon. As they say one out of a million will be like that. But technics under Panasonic was the best sellers for audio sounds. Especially as still today technics 1200 or 3200 with the needles(EPC-U1200) for the turntable are the best for the music using vinyl records 12in". But don't forget you can't complain about it, it's discontinued because cassettes are not around. If it's still continued you could just order the board and replace it. But your detailing it on the board which yes it is fixable but the parts don't really exist anymore. Because there's no more value to it.

[KRAFTWERKK]

My tip for missing spare parts would be making 3D molds with plaster from the original Wheels and gears to be able to make some yourself from resin. This can be done at home with no problem. And also making a lot of photos from all sides and talking measures so 3D prints could be made too. Heck, it would probably also possible to make laser cutouts from METAL for actual high quality gears that will outlive the owner of the Tapedeck.

[mushroomsamba]

My God, that Panasonic boombox is a thing of early 00's beauty. I would totally swipe right on that.

[xargos]

Ah, cascading failures. That reminds me of a Fisher Studio Standard tape deck my father tried to fix back in the 90s. It eventually blew a trace on the main board! I guess there was a reason the previous owner gave it to us for free.

[AussieTVMusic]

I have that Panasonic boombox. It's from 2004. Still sounds great.

[GeoffreyMorrison-xheo]

The companies then wanted such audio components to be presented as parts of a "matching" set.

Often, a few features of some of the components might then be subject to remote control. (Using the audio receiver remote.)

[kevinpatrickmacnutt]

Amazing considering early 80s Technics decks were bulletproof and reliable. Even entry level units.

[Seiskid]

That's a first. I've never seen a controller fall over like that before. Normally the electronics on this era are quite robust and its the mechanicals that are designed to fail.

[bakonfreek]

That Panasonic boombox is incredibly aesthetic!

[sfred]

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes a repair just fails. I have a low-end 90s Sony Walkman that I started to repair. The belts are fine (surprisingly), but like many Sonys of that era it needs new capacitors. I've done those before, but this time when I started to replace them the tracks started to lift off of the board. At that point I just gave up and I've saved it for parts.

[OzRetrocomp]

Part of me thinks that there could have been an informative series of videos made as you kept replacing broken parts such as the diode and/or the voltage regulator, but I get why you probably never want to see an RS-TR180 again. Great video as always.

[jhonwask]

I have a Technics cassette deck RS-B605 and it needs some attention. I'm wondering if I am going to run into similar problems. The logic controls don't seem to respond very well after and hour or so of use. I bought it new in the 1980's. It's worked well for over 30 years, though.