Cassette radios.
 
I like to record radio talk shows on cassettes and play them
back while surfing the WEB,fast forwarding the cassettes through 
commercials and  trivia,listening for the nuggets of useful
information.I cover financials( 4),PC (1),home repair (2),
car repair (2) and selected Public radio shows.On weekend,
I may have 4 radios recording at once.
 
I get the radios from Goodwill with a range of defects.Some
bad-some fixable.Had one where the driving hub wasn't working.
The tape would bunch up at the reading head.
  I took a transparent cassette with screws,apart,cut out the 
tape and reassembled with just the 2 hubs.When played,I could 
see the operation a little better.When running,I could hold
the driving hub in my hand and feel how tight the rubber belt
was working.In this case,it was slipping.I have a worn belt or
the belt slipped off the pulley.I replaced the belt
and it still didn't work.I noticed down inside,a plastic wheel
with a rubber tire just like the Idler wheel on VCR's that 
shifts direction of winding.Working inside,some of the old black 
plastic broke and I gave up,saving some pieces as spare parts
and discarding the rest.I wonder if this may be one cause of
tape wrap around the rubber wheel that I've  had.I should have 
tried some "GC Phono Non-slip compound"( essentially shellac),
on the rubber to see if that would increase the friction.
 
In another case,I needed a tighter rubber belt and had no
replacement.I decided to cut out a section of this 1/8 " square
belt and reglue.I bought some "Loctite Black rubber sealant
PR-1,#80236",(hard to find) that dries in an hour.
After cutting ,I used common pins in X position to fix the
two ends on wax paper on a cork sheet and glued the 2 ends.
Since the rubber belt would be under tension,I needed some
reinforcement.I cut out a 3/8" x 1/2" piece of nylon panty
hose and used pins to stretch the nylon to give it some
tension.I used a toothpick to lay down a strip of glue
and placed the glued section of the belt in the middle.
After an hour,I added more glue and folded the nylon around 
the joined section ,still under tension .After another
hour,I used my fingers to compress everthing and cut off 
excess nylon.Wait overnight and installed next day.
I seem to work for several hours so far.The new joint is
thicker but the grooves in the pulleys seem deep enough to
hold it,especially under tension.
 
Dot-matrix printers
 
When I see an artcle from the WEB that I want to study,I print
it out a draft copy so I can underline,make notes on the side,
and pass it on to others.I like to ink my own ribbons with ink 
from Computer Friends (www.cfiends.com-503-626-2291) $25 for 
pint, $5.75 for shipping(PBK label).
 
I had an Epson ,24 pin,LQ-850 that showed loss of descenders 
(bottom of y or g).I found that I could push the 
levers on each side of the printing head and pull it off for 
cleaning.Tried alcohol,spirits,etyhyl acetate and a fluoro 
solvent.No help.Under a simple 30x microscope,I could see the 
ends of the wires and some looked flattened,like they were 
jammed.I could see the wires from the bottom but had no room 
to go in and nudge them.I passed the head between the poles 
of a BIG heavy magnet but no help.Finaaly I quit but took the 
head apart to see how it worked.It was complicated in a 2 step
arrangement.The head appeared to have some Viton seals so
the ethyl acetate was not a good idea.
 
  I have an Epson MX-80 that is a workhorse,used for draft
printing and the printing went bad.The head is easily removed by 
a unlocking lever on the bottom. Here I was able to get into
the bottom of the head with a pair of needle nose tweezers to 
move the pins but some pins still were erratic.I'll work more 
on this at a later time.
 
 

--- Maximus 2.02