I have a Philips DC 730, put a digital cassette in today and the message comes up “Blocked”… Now I can’t get the tape out of the machine… Help please!
Hi and Welcome,
Can you open the player and take some pictures? It might be that the mechanism that opens the DCC slider is blocked.
The head seems stuck in the play position, thereby blocking the cassette. Might be a timing issue with the gear at the bottom.
Use an antistatic mat and wrist wrap. Try to manually turn the belt on the left side. If that does not solve the blocking, remove the two black screws holding the mechanism to the bottom (near the main board).
Remove the cables that connect to the main board. Lift up the mechanism carefully and try to remove the drawer front piece that says Philips.
If you succeeded, lift out the mechanism completely and you can remove two screws and so investigate the mechanism and other belt from the bottom.
Good luck!
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Do you have the power on when you try to turn the belt manually?
No, leave power off.
OK, got the screws out and unplugged the cables… “try to remove the drawer front piece”… Any tips on how to achieve this? Thanks for your help so far…
Got it! Brute force and ignorance!
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50% success! Managed to remove the DCC cassette that was stuck in the machine and reassembled it… However, now when I power up, the machine correctly says “NO CASSETTE”… when I load a digital tape (or an analogue tape) the machine accepts the tape… says READING (digital tape) then STOP… press PLAY but nothing happens …however EJECT works correctly
Can you see the heads moving into the cassette when pressing play? If not, the mechanism could be jammed or not in line with the big gear at the bottom.
Please use the service manual for checking timing of gear (#111) in STOP mode. I never had this happen before, but maybe somebody else can pick up from here and help you further.
Best of luck!