9815/9825 Capstan

[Craig Bladow]

I have a working tape drive in my 9815 now! I removed the motor, slipped a length of 10 mm heat-shrink on the capstan, used a variable voltage power supply to turn the motor while applying heat from below the capstan. The first NOS tape I tried ended up with a failed drive belt. The second one worked! Note that I always manually spool the tape to find the single hole and place it on the spool with the least tape to make sure the drive belts aren't stuck to the tape.

The journey to a working tape drive included replacing a transistor in the EOT circuit, replacing the EOT lamp, which was working in the beginning, after spooling off two carts and multiple capstan repair attempts including various tubing types and silicone tape.