[ricard]

A while ago I got a Philips EL3549 as part of a bumper purchase of recorders at an antique radio auction, but have only recently gotten around to taking a closer look at it. I've always been a bit intrigued by these 4-speed machines, and I'd actually never had the opportunity to take a look inside one of these.

Upon opening it I found that the rewind belt had not unexpectedly turned to goo. (The other rubber parts seemed fine though; the counter belt was missing completely; the main drive idler had a few flats which I've managed to alleviate to some extent by sanding it down). Bits of the belt were lying in various places, and the mere thought of touching any piece instantly transformed it from square cross-section belt to a sticky black mess. After cleaning up the mess, I was going to attempt to fit a spare belt I had lying around, probably not intended for this machine, but would fit well enough for the time being. It was now I came to the realization that for the rewind reel to turn in the proper direction, the belt must be threaded in a figure-8-fashion. Not having the service manual at hand, I cannot figure out any other way to thread it; any other threading would require an idler somewhere which I cannot find. Indeed, from a picture at radiomuseum.org it does look like this is indeed the case.

Can anyone else confirm the figure-8-threading? It seems odd to me because that means that where the belt crosses itself it would be rubbing against itself which I would have thought would lead to a lot of wear and rubber dust all over the place.

Mechanically this machine really is a halfway house between earlier machines with chunky mechanical parts, to later machines such as the N4308 with its multitude of linkages, petite partsz and nylon idlers.