I have a DCC 600 that plays fine but keeps switching to side B often. When I look at the tape I never see any problems with it. It does this with new tapes too.
You might also clean the head intensively. Switching to side B is usually a dirty tape or head.
It could also be the gear, pinch roller or belt. But I believe they are all replaced.
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I will do the head and pinch roller cleaning and see if that helps.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen schematics of 2nd gen machines, but doesn’t the 600 have an optical end-of-tape detector? If so, that might be the problem.
===Jac
I did the deep cleaning but it is still doing the same. I noticed that it also fails to rewind the tape to the beginning on many tapes, it goes into STOP. I have to press rewind to continue and then it does get to the beginning. The same tapes work perfectly on the DCC175.
Does the TOC show correctly during rewind of the tapes / time and tracks?
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Yes. Time and tracks are being displayed. It will sometimes just stop during rewind and not show the word STOP on the display like you normally would see when it reaches the beginning of the tape. I will continue testing with different tapes and will post results.
Any new information on how to fix this problem? I do not have this problem with any of my other players.
@ivanr, I am doing this from memory, so …
I don’t know how for you have ever disassembled a LDU1000 mechanism, but deep inside there are 2 discs with alternating reflective/non-reflective patterns, or also it could be like toes or teeth sticking out, attached to the each carrier, that are used in combination with a photo/optic-electric sensor to detect the correct tape motion in every possible mode of operation.
If one of those sensors malfunctions, or gives somehow the wrong information to the logic circuitry that is controlling the tape-operation, the deck will STOP.
It could be a simple clean of the sensors. Or a re-align of the sensors if they do not detect the correct light-no light sequence that they expect at that moment.
Or it could have something to do with this:
Page 62 (36) of the SM.
Good luck!
-Philip.
Thank you for the information. I don’t know if this is related but I noticed that it is allowing me to record on prerecorded DCC tapes and is reporting 60 minutes on 90 minute blank tapes so there are problems with more than one sensor.
I spent the day working on the DCC 600. I started by changing the belt because I noticed it was a bit loose and cleaned the mechanism in the process but no luck. Then I disassembled the top part that clamps the tape for better access to the head and path and I blew compressed air and cleaned the path with 99% alcohol and put a couple of drops of DeoxIT on all the switches.
RESULT! No more flipping sides or stopping. It appears the problem is fixed. I have been playing tapes all day not ones has it flipped sides or stopped. Now it also correctly display the tape length and will not allow you to record on pre-recorded tapes.
Thank you for your help. I was ready to throw this out the window.
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Great!