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Old 17th May 2018, 3:21 pm   #13
Techman
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Lincolnshire, UK.
Posts: 4,985
Default Re: ELPICO BSR TD2 - Reel to Reel - Low Volume on Playback

Wow! there's certainly some 'night owls' replying to this thread in the early hours - and I thought it was just me that kept those sort of hours browsing the net and working on electronics etc.

There's also notably a lot of interest in this particular tape recorder by members - perhaps it's because of the Elpico name? My Elpico was borderline scrap when I got it, but I saved it because it was an Elpico model type. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the 'Elpico' name can claim its fame due to one of the Davies brothers of the group 'The Kinks', who used an Elpico guitar amp and 'cut up' the speaker cone of this amp with a razor blade to make the first mechanical 'fuzz' sound before electronic fuzz boxes were invented, which sound is heard on the '64 hit 'You really got me', and is regarded as the first ever 'heavy metal riff' recorded onto disc. Actually, I think that the fuzz (overdrive) sound had been recorded electronically a bit earlier than this by Meek with his 'RGM sound', on the lead guitar of an obscure instrumental called 'Dodge City', but all this is getting slightly off topic for this Elpico recorder now.

My Elpico had a rather historically interesting tape with it, which had what sounded like a couple of teenage girls making recordings of themselves reading poetry and singing in their bedroom. On one side of the tape there's also a young lad learning guitar and the tunes are what would have been of the time that this recorder would have been new. One of the girls actually says her full name at one point. She's likely to be fairly old by now if she's still with us, and probably a grandmother or great grandmother even, her accent, I seem to remember, was from 'up north'. The recording was rather spoiled in a lot of places by what seemed like a bad connection on the microphone lead, with some intermittent loss of sound with loud 'hum' as the mic is being held and moved about. The person that gave me the recorder confirmed that the microphone did indeed have a bad connection in the phono plug, probably from being caught up and pulled, back when the girls were using it all those years ago, which he fixed and taped up. Unfortunately, he has recorded over a small part of the tape while he was testing the mic. From this I think it's likely that because of this fault, the tape recorder was put away when it was still quite new and never used again until it surfaced, probably at some car boot sale in the last couple of years or so. This recorder was another 'gift' from my CB/Ham radio pal who tends to give me items such as this in payment for various repair jobs - goodness knows where he gets some of this stuff from

It's a good suggestion as regards to checking voltages and also resistor values, although I'm gathering that the fault finding skill level of the OP is likely to be very limited, so if it does turn out to be anything more than replacing the paper capacitors, then a lot of careful guidance will be needed, and also a LOT of reading up on electronic theory by the OP.

In my recorder, the voltages were all around what would be expected. One thing that did happen while I was testing mine out was that the reservoir section of the double smoothing can suddenly failed open circuit (or lack of capacitance) resulting in sudden loud mains hum. A direct replacement of the correct size that will fit in the clamp is available at a cost of about £8, but for the time being I fitted a random single capacitor out of the parts box in place of the dud section and cable tied it to the can of the original and it does the job for now and got the thing working.

These recorders use an EZ80 rectifier (I see that the OPs actually has an Elpico branded one, whereas I think mine had a Mullard like the other two valves) which are nearly always OK in tape recorders. I have found completely dead EZ80s, but only in radios. Tape recorders don't give these valves the hours of of continuous use that a radio would, but still worth checking the HT voltage at the smoothing can. At least this recorder doesn't use one of those selenium rectifiers, otherwise I would have suggested taking a voltage reading in my first post on this thread as one of the first things to do.

Lastly, and no offence meant to the OP, but as the electronic servicing skill level of the OP is starting to become apparent (and something that I probably should have thought about in the first instance on this thread), is a WARNING about the dangers of HIGH VOLTAGE from transformers and stored energy in electrolytic capacitors - be careful, and if in doubt, ask. Also, do a search on this forum and take time out for some reading. It's all on this forum regarding electronic servicing and safety etc. Don't be put off, just be safe!

PS, My recorder is the same model as yours, and as shown in the link posted by Lawrence - they got it a bit wrong in the description regarding separate bass and treble controls, as it just has a tone control.

Last edited by Techman; 17th May 2018 at 3:43 pm. Reason: sp&typo
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