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Old 5th Jun 2019, 4:45 pm   #1
GaryReggae
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Question Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi,

Does anyone know where I can get a wiring diagram for the deck switch push button mechanism on a Collaro Studio tape deck? One of the wires connecting to the motors etc behind the 'piano' key switches has came loose and I'm not sure what it was connected to.

If the service data on this site has it I'll happily pay but the one I have found on another site just has the mechanical and not the electrical configuration so I wanted to check.

The recorder in question is a Civic unit with no other information whatsoever (other than serial no), either inside or out! It is extremely frustrating trying to troubleshoot when there is no schematic! It's quite basic, with just an ECL82 and ECC83 valve (plus an EM?? magic eye) and I assume solid state rectifier. I will post some photos later if anyone is interested. Surprisingly, all the amp components look in relatively good condition with no bulging caps etc.

I understand Civic was a 'white label' company that sold machines made by other manufacturers for them and something to do with department stores/high street shops but I think this machine was probably at the lower end of the market although I much prefer the Collaro deck to the BSR ones.

Regards,

Gary
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Old 5th Jun 2019, 7:11 pm   #2
Orakle42
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi Gary

The attached may answer your question, I believe Collaro & Magnavox decks were the same. I have further diagrams specific to each operating configuration (play, record etc) if required.

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Old 5th Jun 2019, 8:25 pm   #3
Ed_Dinning
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi Gary, yours may be similar to the Elizabethan LZ29, previously discussed on the forum.

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Old 5th Jun 2019, 9:37 pm   #4
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi Gary

I believe that I may have one of these (deck only) tucked away somewhere. If you get stuck a clear photo would help and also the underside of the deck showing the wire in question. I'd be happy to dig mine out and have a look if needed.
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Old 5th Jun 2019, 11:04 pm   #5
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

I have a vague recollection that "Civic" was a Curry's brand, but not sure.

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Old 6th Jun 2019, 7:20 am   #6
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

No, I don’t think so. It was the name of a chain of radio, TV and electrical stores that traded as Civic. There was a famous TV commercial starring Harry Worth doing ”the splits” at a Civic shop’s front door (in the late 69s...?). I think the Civic brand was used to rebrand a group of stores that had been acquired, with various names, such as J & F Stone (in a similar fashion to the Thorn owned Rumbelows chain).
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Old 7th Jun 2019, 9:46 am   #7
GaryReggae
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Question Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi,

Thanks for all the help, that's much appreciated. I've figured out the wiring of the deck now, which is fairly straightforward but it is slightly different from the schematic in that the red and violet wires are the other way round but that doesn't seem to be an issue as the bridging between the three terminals is the same for each wire. It was the white wire that was disconnected but I have re-soldered it now to what should be the correct terminal. I have drawn a new schematic to reflect the actual layout of my deck.

However, I am rather puzzled by this switch as everything looks fine and as per the diagram but when I press the play key, the rewind motor starts up and not the take-up motor. The rew and FF keys work correctly. The orange wires need to be connected to the red incoming mains for the rew motor to work, which should only happen when the red and orange are connected by the switch in rew mode.

I have checked the wires for continuity using a resistance mode on my multimeter (eg checking all the black wires are connected and checking for continuity with the switch terminals with the keys pressed in different modes and all looks correct). I have tried shorting between the switch terminals instead of operating the switches and the correct motors start, eg shorting between the red and purple play switch terminals makes the capstan motor start. The only thing I can think of is maybe the contacts on the switches are shot but they look OK and I have cleaned them with Servisol. Any suggestions?

PS: Moderators may want to move this to the specific tape forum as I raised it in this one by mistake, sorry!

Regards,

Gary
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Old 7th Jun 2019, 11:56 am   #8
Edward Huggins
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

The magic eye is likely to be an EM84 - or an EM87 first introduced in 1961. Most CIVIC products were as well made as most budget units in their class. Well worth restoring!
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Old 7th Jun 2019, 12:47 pm   #9
Bryan M
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

This page from Hellyer's 'Tape Recording Servicing Manual' may help.
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Old 8th Jun 2019, 12:15 pm   #10
GaryReggae
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi,

Many thanks, I'm pleased to say I have got the Civic tape recorder working now - kind of. It plays a tape although the amp is very noisy - buzzing mainly. I'm going to check for grounding issues when I get a chance.
The Collaro deck switch is still playing up, I have disconnected the rewind motor for now but otherwise I will find a temporary workaround such as breaking the orange wiring to the rewind motor with a separate switch.
I have managed to get the input sockets working by connecting them across the cathode and grid of the first valve part of the ECC83, this works surprisingly well but I am still trying to figure out the wiring for the switch to the bottom right of the deck - that is an addition by Civic as the Collaro deck had a blanking plate there by default, manufacturers like Civic could add their own switch there if required.
I'm guessing this machine would probably work for recording now although I don't really intend to use that much unless one of the various reels of tape I have are blank.
I also need to replace the pressure pads and bought some piano felt as somebody here kindly suggested a few weeks ago.
Thanks so much for helping me with this and helping to keep this technology alive

Regards,

Gary
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Old 9th Jun 2019, 9:10 am   #11
Lucien Nunes
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Going by the schematic you drew, in play mode, both reel motors are energised in series, with the supply reel motor shunted by R1. This ought to cause both of them to run in opposite directions when free to do so, but with higher torque on the take-up side than the supply side which provides gentle back-tension during play. Disconnecting the orange lead of supply reel motor as you mention would mean there is no back-tension, and the takeup torque would be reduced

If I understand you correctly and only the supply reel motor rotates in play, this hints at a problem with the take-up, as it should also run and with greater torque. Shorted windings for example, would reduce its own torque while increasing that of the back-tension.

Do the reel motors have approximately equal resistances and is R1 OK?
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Old 10th Jun 2019, 9:02 pm   #12
GaryReggae
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi, many thanks, you're spot on - I was testing the motors with no tape in place and so I thought the supply reel was rotating too fast but with a tape in place it works fine, with the supply reel disconnected I could see why the back tension is necessary as otherwise it slips.
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Old 14th Jun 2019, 1:58 pm   #13
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Question Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi,

Apologies if this is a silly question!

I'm still working on the wiring of the main Civic tape recorder amp, having finished working on the Collaro deck itself. As I said previously, there's no schematic or any model no. The main issue is the play/amp/record mode rotary switch as the input sockets (the sockets are in parallel and have one wire in and one wire out, the gram socket has a resistor for reducing the gain) have became disconnected and I'm not sure where on the switch they should be connected.

The play mode works perfectly with the only issue being a lot of hum. I can perfectly follow the logic of the play circuit, which inputs signal from the rec/play head into the grid of valve no 1 (ECC83) and thereafter to the output transformer but where does it go from the amp to the recording head ijn rec mode? I can hear audio from the internal speaker in amp mode if I connect the input socket directly between the cathode and grid of V1 (with my phone connected to the gram socket) but I'm not sure that's a good idea plus it needs to go through the switch as I don't want to hear in play or rec mode.

I've drawn as much of the circuit as I can from tracing the components and wiring (attached) but have not drawn the power supply end and there are a few missing links. C6 leads to the magic eye EM valve and there is a link from there to the on/off/tone pot. The red wire bottom left connects to one of components on the other side of the amp chassis, a square can with a screw adjuster on top, I assume that is part of the oscillator? There must be a rectifier in there somewhere but I assume it is solid state, this thing is probably mid 60s so not sure when these became more common than valve rectifiers. The other wire to the erase head is not shown, it connects to the power supply end of the amp, presumably an oscillator but I can do a survey of that end of the chassis if that would be useful.

The coloured wires are for identifying the wires connected to the rotary switch. I have colour-coded the anode, cathode grid and heater pins on this diagram for quick identification. I have omitted the heater connections. I have changed the rotary switch into a linear format to try and improve the legibility of this. I have tried to follow the conventions for circuit diagrams, ie HT- chassis at the bottom and HT+ at the top but have not connected the HT+ on the diagram yet.

Hopefully this is accurate but if anyone sees something that cannot be correct then let me know and I will have a closer look or post some photos.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions, apologies if the answer is blindingly obvious.
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Old 14th Jun 2019, 2:25 pm   #14
Lucien Nunes
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

I can't read your schematic under the prevailing conditions here, but:

The HT rectifier is the block by the knot in the mains cable.

Yes, the tunable coil in the can is the oscillator coil. In record mode, the ECL gets rearranged as the oscillator and record amp; the oscillator output will drive both the erase head and be capacitively coupled to the record head / AF amp circuit for bias. You might find it useful to study the schematics of similar compact 2-head recorders, as they mostly work in a fairly similar way regarding how the valves are switched beween record and playback functions.

I can see in the picture some highly suspect capacitors that could be letting things down or putting the valves in jeopardy. Ignore the RTC branding on those black paper jobs, they are Hunts Moldseals at heart and could leak like sieves. When you come to look at them or replace them, I would be interested to know the three-letter code at the bottom of the print. It might be the meaningless 'BBB' or might actually be a valid date code which will date your machine.
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Old 13th Jul 2019, 9:52 pm   #15
GaryReggae
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestion regarding the capacitors, I have now replaced all the black Hunts caps (except the two smallest ones), they are mainly 0.05 uF with one 0.1 uF. I have also replaced the three blue 'Daly' ones leading up to the cathodes, these are electrolytics as they have polarity markings.

What I haven't managed to sort out are the electrolytics in the metal can as I am not sure how to remove it from the chassis and there are no markings at all on the outside of the can (unlike the the other machines I have). There's no sign of bulging so they may be OK.

The tape recorder is working now for playback at least but the main issue I have now is the rotary knobs, these are part of the Collaro Studio deck rather than specific to this machine I think. The original ones are just plastic and have broken off at the centre where they join the metal switch axle as the switches were seized up. I'm not looking for anything the same as the originals as they are long obsolete but anything that looks fairly retro will do. I bought several types of 6mm shaft knobs online but none of them will fit. I'm having issues finding anything over 6mm so any suggestions would be great. It's a D shaped profile and can't be much over 6 mm as I did measure it.

Thanks all!
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Old 14th Jul 2019, 5:46 am   #16
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Could be 1/4" i.e. 6.35 mm diameter shafts. Not that I know if corresponding knobs are to be had today.
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Old 20th Jul 2019, 1:08 pm   #17
GaryReggae
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Great thanks I managed to find some 6.35 mm knobs and they fit perfectly. I guess the standard size for these must have been rounded down to 6 mm.

One last question before I am pretty much finished with this machine, I'd like to add an output (jack) socket so I can record the audio for playback of tapes not quite sure where it needs to be connected to. Chassis to the anode of the first half of ECC83? Second half of ECC83? or from the input side of the output transformer? I had a quick play around with test leads and managed to get no sound from any of the above apart from the output transformer, but that is surely a bad idea as the amp is meant to have a load (ie speakers). Should there be a resistor connected in series with the jack socket to prevent excessive levels?

Any suggestions will be gratefully received!
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Old 20th Jul 2019, 4:50 pm   #18
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

If there isn't a dedicated output jack (possibly labelled "monitor" or "radio out"), then probably the best bet is to pick up the signal being fed to the speaker, on the secondary side of the output transformer. Tapping a signal off at any earlier stage is likely to pull it down, unless you insert several tens or even hundreds of kΩ series resistance; and that won't leave much across the input of your recording device.
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Old 21st Jul 2019, 4:14 pm   #19
Edward Huggins
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Default Re: Civic tape recorder - Collaro Studio tape deck wiring diagram

Taking an output from 3 ohm OPTX secondary is a rather crude solution. This will amplify any outout stage hum and there will be an impedence mismatch. There surely must be a socket makrked "Tape Out" which is used for feeding an external amplifier. On the LHS of your unit there appears to be 4 RCA sockets - I would think that its going to be one of these.
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