A few years ago I fully restored my DCC 730 (belts, pinch rollers, DCC Museum replacement gear, etc…). So the device functioned fine for a few years (expect for one time I needed to fix gear again to its motor axis) as it is minimally used to test some new bought tapes only. I am more a collector than listener to DCC tapes playing :). So if I recall it correctly, I bought the replacement gear 2/2,5 years ago. Anyway, last week I wanted to quickly test a few new bought tapes, but during the (turbo speed) winding it made a terrible noise and pieces of gear lay shattered all over inside my DCC 730 . Result, an almost teethless gear and therefore since that moment my DCC hart bleeds … (try to create a dramatic setting here ).
So now I am curious if others did experience this issue as well? @DCC Museum do you still sell this silicon gear version or are there new materials available (soon)?
Materials have changed over time for sure. You ordered this in September 2020 and as far as we know, this is the first gear to act up like this. It could be quite a few things, the gear itself, problems with the other gears, placement, and other mechanical issues. Just like with the 2nd generation gear, we tested several hundred hours, but we will have to keep monitoring this.
First of all thanks for your informative reply!
I know the gear can be fixed easily … by ordering and replacing a new gear .
Please see my topic start as informative feedback as I noticed that over time the silicon gear seems to “harden out” feeling more like (hard) plastic in the end.
That is how I read it. It actually is totally different vs the 2nd Gen gear and should be really hard.
Just opened up both our testing equipment and they look/feel the same.
So it should really be hard plastic vs soft silicon. Harder is often better, but makes a lot more noise. For the 3rd gen that is not a big deal as it is mostly for winding/rewinding.
Unfortunately my gear from DCCMuseum broke after a very short time and I had to purchase modified parts from oher source. Maybe the hole had a diameter a little too big and that causes a small tumbling after glueing and breaks the tooth (see photos).
Other reason could be the shipment in air cushion envelopes.
When glueing make sure the new gear runs in the vertical middle of the white gear. I used superglue for the modiefied parts.
Thanks all for the heads up on self destructive red gears. Another thing to add to my list of don’ts on DCC alongside ‘do not play analogue tapes (sandpaper to the heads)’ , ‘do not use demagnetizer’ and now ‘do not ffwd or rwd’. I successfully (so far) repaired my DCC600 cush drive cog with superglue and baking soda (see separate post) but fully expecting to be printing some new gears in the near future. I notice that (according to wiki) the modern usage for the defunct DCC head technology is in filtering yeast out of beer. So its not all bad!
. Result, an almost teethless gear 
and therefore since that moment my DCC hart bleeds … (try to create a dramatic setting here 
).
.