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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 14th Feb 2020, 8:55 pm   #1
DMcMahon
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Default Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Had a high level priority interrupt email from a friend in a panic saying that a copper piece in his Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 was severing his beloved tapes.

After a couple of emails and photos, I believe he is talking about the little copper sprung arm that presses the hum flap (Brumm-Klappe in German) onto the Playback head when play is selected.

From his photo, the copper piece looks a bit misaligned but not easy to work out how it is actually severing the tapes, although the arm linkage that the copper piece is attached to looks somewhat misaligned compared to my photo.

Difficult to be sure until I get my hands on it, it is imminently expected, then will be put on the R2R operating table for inspection.

He also said that to get the tape to move, he has to press the left hand tape tension arm, whether this is a related issue or a separate issue is to be seen.
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Old 17th Feb 2020, 10:48 am   #2
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

The Uher arrived last night, had been expecting it since Friday and I had a quick look late last night.

The copper piece is tilting down at about 45 degrees, not easy to see the tilt in the photo, but compared to the good photo of my copper piece at correct horizontal the difference can be seen.

Also the copper piece is virtually touching the pinch roller when idle, it does get quite close even on a good unit. I think the mounting of the piece is on a slotted hole so the adjustment is incorrect with it being too close to the pinch wheel.

When Play is selected the drive does not work until the left hand tape tension sensing lever is pushed and held to the right. The sensing lever is part of the tape tension and clutching system that Uher call "The Tape Tension Comparator".

For a few seconds I thought that there might a mechanical problem with the comparator but then realised that the tape was playing a lot faster than the 7.5 ips I had selected and the fast tape speed never changed for any of the 4 tape speeds. Then saw that the pinch wheel was stationary even though making good contact with the rotating capstan.

Found that the copper piece which was pushing the hum shield onto the PB head (as it is supposed to do) was also pushing back under tension against the pinch wheel stopping it from turning.

So a little later will adjust the copper piece for correct alignment and am hopeful that will sort the issues.

Difficult to see why this had resulted in severed tapes but it could not have been good for the tape driving fast speed against a stationary pinch wheel.
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Old 17th Feb 2020, 1:05 pm   #3
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Temporarily removed the copper piece and rechecked Playback, all 4 speeds now good, so the copper pierce fouling the pinch wheel (stopping it from rotating) was somehow upsetting the Comparator and causing the high tape speed.

Straightened the copper sprung piece and refitted, not that easy to refit as the little screw/bolt that clamps it down can only be tightened by turning its head with a small spanner, but the head is under the copper so no easy to get spanner on and difficult to tighten without the copper piece turning.

All running fine now, am soak testing it at the various play speeds interspersed now and again with FWD & RWD to make sure there are no tape accidents.
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Old 17th Feb 2020, 9:11 pm   #4
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Been running for many hours, it looks fixed.
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Old 17th Feb 2020, 9:43 pm   #5
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Glad you got this fixed David. Nice to have something easy even if fiddly!

One thing that has always puzzled me about these Uhers, to wind you move the lever in the bottom right corner left or right depending on the direction you want to go. What is the correct stopping procedure? Do you just pull the said lever back to the central position or utilise another control?

Peter
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Old 17th Feb 2020, 9:59 pm   #6
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Hi Peter,

Yes very nice for a change to have something simple.

You just have to lightly touch/push the lever towards the middle direction and it should spring back to the middle position and the tape drive will stop. I say spring back, I think there is some sort of magnetic clutch involved (maybe a spring as well).

I have one Uher where it springs back, but will not hold in the middle position, this is one of a huge number of R2R jobs I need to get back to.

David
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Old 18th Feb 2020, 4:59 pm   #7
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Still running well.

While comparing it to my Uher, I noticed that my Pinch Wheel hits/fouls the rectangular metal piece below the pinch wheel, when Stop position (the normal idle position) is selected. It is quite a hard foul, but the pinch wheel can be rotated with some effort, whereas normally it will spin easily (when not fouled).

On my friends Uher the pinch wheel does not get fouled because the metal piece has a curved/radiused small cutout. The cutout does not look home done, so maybe Uher implemented the change in later Production builds.

I must check my other Uhers for this, maybe it is time to get the file out, because it cannot be good for the pinch wheel to be left in this fouled condition.
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Old 24th Feb 2020, 3:41 pm   #8
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

While doing soak testing noticed that it was quite easy to get slack tape with poor operating regime. Such as switching off when playing or RWD/FFD, also by changing speed while playing. A couple of times this slack tape resulted in the loose tape getting under the Take up spool and getting really jammed up. Maybe this was a scenario where the tape ended up being severed ?

There is no off control as such, on the speed control selector switch there is an intermediate off position for each of the 4 speeds, these 4 off positions remove power.

I would have thought you should be able to change tape speed while playing the tape without getting much slack tape, I must read the User manual to see what it says for tape speed changing.

I tried to compare to my Uher that I had used for comparing the copper spring piece but found that my Uher did not work in FWD/RWD, just got horrible rumbling noise like Ted had referenced in the Idler wheel recovery thread.

After a little investigation on the slack tape machine found that the Take up spool table rotated easily in both directions (in the idle state), whereas normally it only rotates in one direction with the spool brake stopping rotation in the opposite direction.

Also found the Supply spool table intermittently also was easily rotating in both directions.

So need to check out the manual brakes on both tables.
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Old 24th Feb 2020, 7:36 pm   #9
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Removed the brakes for inspection, not dirty/greasy & no obvious sign of wear and the rubber brake pads were not hard.

Only obvious thing is that their tension springs were not overly strong particularly the Take Up Reel table.

The brake pad mounting arm has 2 holes for the spring locating, both brake springs were fitted in the first hole, so I moved the springs up to the second hole to provide more spring tension so that the brake arms more strongly move to the reel table.

This definitely has improved the slack tape sometimes seen, still get a bit sometimes but I think this now is fairly typical of these Uher units.
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Old 24th Feb 2020, 10:11 pm   #10
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Default Re: Uher Royal de Luxe 10,000 Severing Tapes

Just for clarification, the 10,000 in the title of this Thread is not referring to tapes, it is the model number.

I think when Martel imported the Uher Royal de Luxe into the USA they renamed it the Royal de Luxe 10,000 and also the Royal de Luxe C was renamed to Royal de Luxe 9500.

It is also slightly possible that as well as renaming, Martel may have done a couple of cosmetic changes.

I don't believe that 9500 & 10,000 were physically identified on the units.
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