Still useful 7 years on. Thanks!

So chuffed I ran across your video. I bought one off of eBay several years ago, because my grandma had one. It was a wonderful fan. My sister inherited grandma’s and won’t part with it. Mine is rustier than yours was but your refurb gives me hope. Mine also needs rewiring. The control switch quit working a few weeks after I got it. So for now I have one speed & have to plug it in to turn it on & unplug it to turn it o ff. lol mine is shades of gray.

Hi Jonathan, I came across your video while looking for a repair tutorial for my Baygen Freeplay (non-solar version). I purchased this radio in 1998 and it survived just nicely until my grandson discovered it recently. Now I'm not saying for certain how it may have broken but according to him, it was working just fine then quit. Kids, what ya gonna do? ;-) Anyway, following your video I disassembled my Freeplay and discovered it did indeed have a broken drive belt. It looks reasonably easy to repair and I'd like to give it a go. *QUESTION* Where did you locate the replacement drive belt? I have yet to find one on the web. If I am correct, I need a FPR2 (second generation Freeplay AM/FM radio) belt. Based on my research this particular belt is for the non-solar version of the radio. Thank you in advance. Lastly, thank-you for the tip on the screwdriver! Pre-ordering it before disassembly made it really easy.

How do you get the play/ff/rw pin out?

Congratulation, you are very excited, that machine is beautiful, it Is a jewel. (Felicitaciones, tú estás muy emocionado, es una joya)

I've deleted all image links thanks to your video. Thanks a lot!

Just had the same thing happen to mine, and this video gives me the confidence to give it a try! Thanks so much for the video! The belts are hard to find... And a bit pricey ($15) compared to the price I paid for my blue one at Big Lots in the 90's, but it's been a steady companion in my work shop for years and you just can't let an old friend down! Interesting history behind these radios and their inventor and their role in medicine distribution in Africa.

@jonathanKulp Do you need some plugin installed to include images in the GIFT format?

Thanks for that. Super easy when you explained it. A lot of moodle is quite confusing but this was spot on. thanks

Did you happen to find the right connector type for the power cable ? I'm currently looking for a power cable replacement myself.

A solution that actually works, I wasted hours on the internet trying to find one, thanks.

„Automagically” what a lovely word creation.

thanks!

Thank you for this video-I was worried about how to open up the case-afraid of all the guts springing out, but now I will take it apart to lube it and change the belt knowing how to do it.

Genius thanks. So glad to have my radio working again so easily after several years out of action. It still makes a loud snoring sound as the spring unwinds but the radio bit works fine :)

Thanks for this. Very helpful!

How fast did you get her up to?

Thanks! It's really useful!

I bought that on vinyl new in 1980. I also have a 707. Great machine

My Dad had one. Remember as a kid. Now I have had many more reel to reels then him. All I needed was one as a kid to see, and it was all over. Sony, Otari, TEAC, Technics and TASCAM were the complement of Reel to Reels I have owned. Enjoying now the TEAC A-7300 and TEAC X-7.

For most cases, jpdf Tweak allows to change the page numbers with great simplicity.

@Jonathan Kulp hey what are those clear tip covers you twisted on the exposed wire?? Need some of those and don’t know what they are callled. Thanks mate

I am trying to fix two freeplay radios from around 1999. I got the first one apart and the belt is on, I put lube spray on the gears. The crank handle just snaps back when trying to wind up either one. Any ideas? I am trying to fix them for an elderly friend on a very fixed income. Thanks so much!!

Does jPDFbookmarks work with Linux? It's a Java app I use in Windows that focuses only on the bookmark aspect of PDFs. It cuts way down on the chance of error input.

My old one will fast forward without a cassette but won't with the cassette inserted. Any ideas? I'm thinking maybe the belt needs replaced but I'm not sure.

You have a stuck tape cover then the caption says time to take it apart. The next cut shows the cover miraculously off. How did you get it off? Mine is stuck the same way and I don't wish to damage it anymore.

Hell yeah that's awesom!!!!

I picked up one of these in the u.k today at a carboot sale it has a blue front on it model tc-222 standard model and it's in amazing condition and working like you it had no power cable they tend to perish overtime. 10mins later at the same carboot I got a 9 inch coca cola button clock from the 1970s I emailed a eBay u.k seller who had just sold one and he purchased his in America the clock is pretty basic it's not porcelain or enamel but it's actually quite scarce and collectable. I was going to give up on carboot sales since covid they have been rubbish everyone wants ebay prices most the time not many bargains but today they turned up I also had a mek elek industrial engineers light. I see a lot of reel 2 reel players at the sales but never really knew what they were.

I've done demos with one of these that sounded amazing. Great to use at the studio, then mix it down on my Yamaha MT4 recorder at home, head alignment seems identical. You not talking at all is kind of creepy lol. I watched it because mine got the on/off switch somehow smashed, and I wanted to know how to get it apart without breaking it, thanks.

The antenna broke on mine but everything else works. Now I don't get any stations. Can the antenna be fixed? The plastic piece broke on the inside

This is awesome thank you for this tutorial and showcasing this tool. Also, for anyone else watching, there is a windows and mac version available on their website if you just google pdftk. You still have to go into cmd though similar to this, but the tool itself is lightning fast and so much faster than trying to manually edit the pdf page order yourself. If you tried to do this manually, not only is it a hassle but there's a chance you incorrectly order the documents at some point. For any scanning jobs more than a few pages I wouldn't even bother trying it manually. The only room for error with this tool would be in how you actually input the command, and even the commands themselves are pretty simple.

Is there any way to do it with no additional soft? If I'm not good at coding... I opened my pdf as a txt, it was not absolutly the same as in Your video, I tried to add the necessary code and saved it. But it just stoped opening after that :)

Great!

I have had the Same problem with my older FreePlay wind up radio put the belt back on a couple times over the last few years sure wish I could find a replacement belt lol.

Ha! I’ve had this same exact Sony TC-222A recorder for many decades. My friends and I recorded many a prank phone call on it back in the days before caller ID (you can hear the thump-thump-thump of the rotary dial phone on the tapes lol). In all those years and to this very day it has never once failed me. The only problem it has ever had is that same fast forward issue, but I found if I push the Stop button and hold the lever all the way forward it’ll start moving on its own then I can let go of the lever and it will FF just fine. Mine sure doesn’t look as nice as yours anymore!

I got my Freeplay radio from Marlboro back in the 90's when they were running the Marlboro Miles campaign. I had a windup flashlight too. The belt causes most of the problems on both. It gets stretched through use. I used to get my belts from RadioShack but a lot of those stores are closed down now. So, I guess you'll have to try the internet. After the novelty wore off I just quit using them and bought me a regular portable electric/battery operated radio. Solar or windup are more trouble than they're worth. Good luck.

It's much easier to rearrange the pages in the side panel of the LibreOffice Draw ? No codes to remember or mess with.

Thanks for the video. I picked one up at a sale a few years ago. Near new in box, with most of the original literature. No manual though. Never had time to play with it. I'm moving it to another room and thought I'd do a few minutes of research. Hopefully it won't sit for another few years before I see if there's anything on the included tape. Probably not. I'm curious now. ;)

Thank you!!

Nice job!, I must say I still have the adapter 'somewhere', like in one of the 7 crates with electronic stuff that is outdated but 'might come in handy in the future'. I did not want to go through those to find it now. So I thought, I'll just use my generic 'power brick' with the right plug... Well, I have around 8 different plugs and none of them actually fits, really surprising! The battery on mine died as well, a pity because combined with a (Sony in my case) Stereo Mic it makes a great combi.

Just got one of these. Leaf switch was flaky, fast forward not working. How do I get the play/stop switch off so I can take the lid off?

The spring on my radio frantically unwinds. Any ideas how to fix that?

Hi Jonathan. Thanks for the video. I just found a very similar Sony player and a box full of family recordings from the 1960s. Everything works and I was able to muddle through getting a tape queued up correctly. Problem is the speed. I think my tapes and the recorder are a different speed. The tapes are perhaps 178 speed but I'm not sure what speed the tape recorder is. Doesn't seem to say anyhere. Do you know what speed your tape deck is?

Your demonstration was so clear . Thank you it saved me a lot of time

I was able to get it to record! Hold rec tab all the way to the left, hold it there and switch to the play position, may feel a little resistant at first but I was able to finally get it to work!

How do you record? It seems like record switch is stuck

Shot in the dark here - does anyone know where I can get a replacement battery? I broke mine out the other day after a # of years and it turns out the battery won't retain any charge and I've been unsuccessful at finding a replacement so far -

Hi Jonathan!! I just inherited a fan just like yours. Is disassembly done from the bottom? Were you able to match the original color? Any tips on rebuilding one?? Thanks so much! You did a great job on yours!!

Thank you. It worked perfectly <3

Where did you get the spare belts from