Adding USB-C to a 45-Year-Old Cassette Recorder | Vintage “Hifi” Revival

[@Ragnar8504]

When I was a kid back in the early 90s I bought a fairly similar CD-330 for a song but unfortunately it never worked right. It did play but the belts were on their way out even then and it never recorded anything while I've had it. At least 15 years ago I tried to dive deeper and maybe get it working. The previous owner must have been quite ham-fisted - soldering iron burns on the outer case, one of the screws on the bottom had its head broken off (but could easily be removed with pliers so no idea how it broke in the first place) and the cassette lid was assembled in completely the wrong way, rendering the spring useless. To open the lid, the unknown genius glued some kind of plastic stud to the lid so he could pull it open. I managed to replace the belts and make the recorder play again but input signals don't seem to go anywhere. I looked at the schematics and the first place all the inputs go to (the 330 has RCA connectors as well as a DIN input/output for the German market) is the Dolby chip, as this model has Dolby B rather than ANC. If that's buggered I'm probably out of luck. I suppose if I ever dig this back out of storage I need to get a signal tracer so I can check properly where the signal gets lost. The Rec/Play linkage is a known issue with these models, not the greatest design in the world. Sintered bronze bearings (which is what the flywheel bearings look like) take oil. The general rule of thumb seems to be things that spin fast get oil, things that move slowly get grease, at least in the audio world.

[@HifiJelly]

It is far too often that most repairs are simply fixing what the previous guy did. Hopefully people don’t have that problem with my repairs haha

[@beeemm5707]

You should use sintered bearing oil on the flywheel bushes.

[@socratesbandeira]

Please, play THE MOST MYSTERIOUS SONG OF THE INTERNET ("Like The Wind") as the test sound in some of your next cassette player vídeos, so we can reach people between 40/60 y.o. that can be helpful to our search!!

[@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

Very good job as regards the restoration. Unfortunately those Ultrafire batteries are a scam. They are no way near the rated capacity. You should stick with known brands buying lithium cells (also for safety reasons). Samsun, LG, Sanyo, Sony, Panasonic. Also: you can't charge 2 lithium cells in series with a 5v input, you need at least 8,4v.

[@HifiJelly]

Oh they absolutely are haha, with the current draw of the device and a 3600mAh battery it should run for like 10 hours, but in reality, it might last maybe 1 hour. Luckily it will be easy enough to swap out a better battery in the future.

[@luminousfractal420]

I have some ultrafire 3000mah. They seem true to 3000. Can run my bike lights for 6hours. But yeah i have the fake ones too. And sadly theres just as many fake samsungs etc. Careful where you buy and who from.

[@amnishelectronics1]

Watched full video without skipping so interesting .Thanks for the effort .

[@HifiJelly]

Honestly that’s a huge complement haha. Thank you!

[@pcallas66]

You never learn unless you do it. You're very tenacious. Glad you got it going. It sounds great, too.

[@dmcintosh1967]

I have found for cleaning up belts that have melted is to put the parts in ultrasonic cleaner with cleaning liquid simple green. It gets the job done faster and gets parts cleaner especially in those hard to reach places.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try next time.

[@Ragnar8504]

Platen cleaner also does the trick just fine. I use Kontakt Chemie Printer 66 and it works like a charm! One wipe and the goo is gone, without spreading all over the room like magic. Before I discovered that I used alcohol or solvent naphtha and once I found my wrist still black days later. Turned out some of the goo had somehow migrated to the inside of my watch wristband!

[@darrenbird2526]

Hi, what's simple green? Is that like a dish washing detergent??

[@musicnerd72]

It's an all purpose cleaner. You can find it at most grocery stores, Walmart, etc.​@@darrenbird2526

[@michaelcharach]

You had enough material here to make two videos. Keep them coming I am a big fan

[@Madjed2024]

I admire how adventurous you are and I am sure you are pretty knowledgeable despite your narrative projecting lots of humility which I love about you. I took a part an old one and did not know how to repair or even put it back together ended up trashing it and made the same mistake on a tiny portable minidisc player that is very expensive so I stopped being stupid I truly enjoyed watching your video and thanks for sharing

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@Madjed2024]

You are welcome Are you familiar with Sony Elcaset decks ? Also in case you did not know Akai made a triple unit ( similar to the one reel to reel and cassette player you showed in another video) and it has an 8 track on the side it is the X2000S. I have a couple that could take advantage of your skills Is there a way we can connect directly to chat. I would be happy to share my contact

[@HifiJelly]

Sorry, but I don’t have an repair business and don’t take in repair jobs.

[@Madjed2024]

@@HifiJelly I understand My plan was to give you one of each if you could help tune up the other for me Thank you though

[@benyaneff2023]

IT'S HERE!!!!

[@stvlu733]

I did that repair with the wire and epoxy to fix many stubborn rotary knob shafts that where cracked or broken off. Just be sure it still fits in the chassis hole area.

[@VibrantMotion]

Well done for giving it a go and pulling it off to a certain extent... I'm still learning electronics so can safely say I'm still relatively b*locks too, yay! Best wishes, Stefan, Channel Islands.

[@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

To avoid all those voltage regulators you could have done the following: 1) put the two batteries in parallel, not in series 2) use a simple 1 cell charger like the TP4056 (2 cells in parallel are just like a single bigger cell, PROVIDED THAT THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU CONNECT THEM IN PARALLEL THEY ARE AT THE SAME VOLTAGE TO PREVENT HIGH CURRENT FLOWING FROM ONE TO ANOTHER). This circuit can be powered directly with 5v from the usb to charge the batteries 3) use a boost converter to pull 6v from the batteries to supply power to the cassette recorder 4) use a 6v led strip to avoid the need of another boost regulator

[@tomarnd8724]

TP4056 ftw

[@HifiJelly]

That actually was my initial approach when I was experimenting with this; I even got that TP4056. But when I tried to power the device with the paralleled batteries through that boost converter it just cut power. The device uses about 250mA when playing a tape and I figured the boost converter wasn't able to provide enough power. When I tried using the batteries in series it worked just fine, so I just stuck with that and didn't try anything further with the paralleled batteries. But it certainly would have been a cleaner way to build it.

[@darrenbird2526]

I just loved this repair and mod! Please dont stop making videos, i love them! Cheers

[@brendakoldyk1647]

I worked on this same recorder when I wired the external wire to start and stop to record national commercial's. Kind of of a pain to work on. I clean the heads and tape rollers with Isopropyl Alcohol and the other rubber rollers as well and lub all the mechanical parts that move. It never had any problems. nice video.

[@cheeto4493]

I have that exact same unit sitting in a tub at home. I seem to remember mine being labeled as Marantz though. From the title, I thought you were adding a USB audio output to it though to transfer tape audio directly to digital.

[@Capturing-Memories]

There is an adjustment for the motor and flywheel thrust plates, Not sure how but in most cases you bottom out the plastic nut until it stops and back off a fraction of a turn.

[@Madrrrrrrrrrrr]

Not 100% but there is a clutch for the autostop in the plastic part. You can set the clutch at the bottom. I got a kind of the same problem with my sony tc 153sd tight now. High wow and flutter through that but auto stop kind of works now.

[@Madrrrrrrrrrrr]

At the end now. The rewind is possible the wheels with rubber at the end that touches. Needs to be cleaned and spring must be too low. Great fix!

[@charlesb7831]

I actually have one of these in mint condition, no leather cover, but mint. I was surprised to see this video, awesome!

[@SwitchingPower]

I was also expecting you put a USB audio interface in it so you could record and playback to a PC over that same USB-C connector, should be easy just connect the data wires and power to the existing breakout and wire the line in and out between the audio interface and the jacks on the recorder

[@HifiJelly]

Huh, that really good idea. I’ll remember that if I do something like this again; right now that battery compartment is pretty cramped lol

[@catman58]

that's what I thought he was going to do

[@user-ro1cc8tz6d]

@@catman58 same

[@luminousfractal420]

@@HifiJelly the bluetooth recievers are really tiny. Ive been building some small powered speakers and most of those little amps come with the bluetooth now. But tbh thats also kind of sacrilegious 😂

[@poofygoof]

I used similar superscope units like this in college for recording narration and voiceover work, although ours were a bit newer with Dolby B (maybe dbx too?) and ISTR were a mix of mono and stereo units. Edits were done through "pause tape" and live mixing. By the time I graduated we were still recording on the superscopes but I digitized the takes and edited with multiquence on my dormie's pentium. A wow & flutter test would be interesting to see if the dual flywheel helps. My brain kept replacing "USB-C" with "Dolby C" and I was wondering how you would pull that off. ;)

[@tomarnd8724]

What a cool project! Really awesome work

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@maximotadlas1316]

Had you been in the philippines, i would you repaired my vintage pioneer tape deck ctf 1050, bought in the 80's wt defective motor and wornout sendust head. You are a great electronic specialist. Good restoration demo.

[@34Kuro]

You can light up a VU meter with a single LED with just a resistor on 6V and so you could ditch the one converter board

[@stvlu733]

I have this recorder. Good upgrade mod. I believe this model of recorder already charges Ni-Cad rechargeable batteries with the 6V DC input. All that would have to be done is slightly modify it to charge lithium ion or metal hydride D cells. Maybe even put in a fast charging circuit to speed it up. This recorder is very power hungry on batteries and would drain cheap general purpose or cheap alkaline cells down fast with constant use. I wonder how many Grateful Dead concerts this was used at lol. Looks pretty worn. That dust under the speaker was probably someones cloth pouch stuffed with weed falling though the speaker grill lol.

[@kippie80]

USBC can provide 20 V but you need data lines connected to USB-C charge controller. It defaults to 5V but with comms can swich up to 20V

[@nazcaplain]

That's what I expected him to do as well.

[@fabriziooldrini6888]

I had this deck, 3 heads version. It was the marriage present I did to myself. I paid it something around 330000 italian liras in 1981/82, that is around 680 USD of today

[@motalasuger]

Looks nice after that cleaning and some small fixes, only thing I’m thinking is that the old batteries probably had some power switch in order to not drain them when not in use. Could be good idea to look at utilizing that for breaking the batteries from the converter boards, and thus prevent them from draining battery capacity when not using it, or otherwise putting in a dedicated on/off switch if that’s not working for simplicity.

[@HifiJelly]

The control keys act as the power switch for the device, so it only pulls current when Play/FF/RWD/Record key is depressed. That being said it nonetheless drains the batteries because of that LED on the buck converter lol

[@motalasuger]

@@HifiJelly well the reason I suggested it is because the converters use a small bit of power by themselves too, even if there isn’t anything connected to them at all, they have the conversion going as long as they’re connected to power

[@artysanmobile]

Just FYI, DeOxit makes several products. Red is an aggressive cleaner which needs removal. Blue is a lubricant only that will cause no problems if left behind. Gold is a combination of cleaner and lubricant that can also be left behind without problems.

[@HifiJelly]

Gotcha, thanks for the info!

[@llorandzo]

Very useful vid! Do you know what motor can fit for a replacement? Looks like it's a 6VDC, 2200 RPM, CW, but in my C-205 is labeled with a Marantz part code and I can't find the exact match with Mabuchi or Matsushita. Thanks a lot for your work, not easy at all to find good vids about this model.

[@JacGoudsmit]

9:17 looks like the spring is there to compensate for the difference in travel between the mechanism and the switch on the circuit board.

[@HifiJelly]

Thats a good theory, would make it so that there could be some tolerance between the two parts.

[@catman58]

I would have just put four rechargeable C batteries in it and been done with it

[@luminousfractal420]

Just got a sony 142. The lesser version of these beasts. Curious about the sound quality. And yup so many wires and mechanics, spent my childhood tearing into brass laden electronics :) good solid stuff.

[@letmelooktv]

I have one of these (well similar, i think the one i have has dual VU meters) . Im kind scared to open it as i expect to see a nightmare of disintegrating belts. I've had it sitting on a shelf now fo a good 20 years. At this point. One of the marantz models was the defacto tool for radio journalists back in the day

[@HifiJelly]

I was curious the main user base of a device like this and journalist makes sense. Given the mic inputs and all of the output types I could see this on the shoulder of a journalist giving an interview.

[@letmelooktv]

@@HifiJelly Here in the UK it was the main device used by the BBC for radio news interviews etc. I got one years ago because i thought if the beeb uses it, it must be good... I think the model is Marantz CP430 (PMD 430). Its in a box somewhere with my other horded electricals lol. come to think of it i should really try to sort a service kit for it whilst/if they still exist

[@Adam_Lyskawa]

I wonder how the unprocessed recording of that thing sounds... or is it unprocessed? But what happened to the background noise? I see the peak level like -7dB, and the recorded voice sounds amazing. Is it recorded with the built in microphone? Pretty neat thing, maybe is not as practical or high quality as the modern recorders, but it's STYLISH! ;)

[@HifiJelly]

It does a really good job recording voices. All of the voice recordings I did using the built in microphone. It has an automatic gain control and some form of noise reduction built in.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

Never tried the super glue/baking soda trick yet for plastic but next time I'm going to. Was hoping you'd try it on that one piece. Supposedly it bonds stronger than the original plastic

[@HifiJelly]

I'll need to remember to use that trick next time. I'm certain there will be more cracked and broken plastic in my future haha.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

@@HifiJelly yea there's a video where a guy makes a plastic gear repair using super glue and baking soda but he also makes a form outta hot glue and a piece of curved plastic to make a plastic gear that was missing a chunk. Go to the 1:14 mark in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4GWqX1_f5KHmLc I was amazed

[@babylemonade2868]

Cool video and the baking soda trick works so well. Pretty much instant set

[@adeladd7638]

I use an accelerant spray which does the same thing. It came in a mitre kit aimed at joiners.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

@@adeladd7638 I keep reminding people to keep up voting this channel and the comments so this channel skyrockets. It helps the youtube algorithm I guess if everybody upvotes every video and the comments too? I'm checking out your suggestion with the accelerant👍

[@ohmbug10]

It's aliiive! Good job.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@jorishageman9299]

very nice build

[@foundatlantis]

the lighting of the 12v LED you could find a 9-12v rail on the main amplifier board if you probed around a bit [look for voltage regulators/transistors]. save you having to add another boost circuit into the thing.

[@cheeto4493]

He could have cut out one of the LED's to use just 2 and ran it at 6v with an appropriate resistor..

[@EarslimeRecords619]

My new fav channel.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks!

[@measthis2411]

19:56 love this

[@artysanmobile]

This is the only mono portable cassette recorder I’ve ever seen. Those mono heads must be hard to replace.

[@ssgeek4515]

Your persistence is commended. Currently 6th week on a 1960s reel 2 reel player repair.tempted to add bluetooth? Ummm!

[@HifiJelly]

That sounds like fun, I’d like to try a Bluetooth mod at some point. Good luck!

[@Stuartrusty]

An admirable effort. You are right though, you could have saved yourself one converter for the LED strip. You can easily obtain 5 volt LED strip and run it directly from the 6 volt supply switch from the play button. Also noted was that you identified the 18650's voltage at 3.7 volts. This is what is called the nominal voltage. Each cell fully charged is 4.2 volts maximum and you would therefore need to set the charge converter output to 8.4 volts. The way you have it set up at the moment would mean the cells would only ever reach half charge and not give as much capacity as a fully charged pair.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks, I’ll make that change with the converter!

[@asbcustom]

Nice work on the restoration. A quick unsolicited word of caution about Windex; ammonia isn't very friendly to metals, especially the aluminum flywheel, IPA cleans that gunk up very quickly and doesn't bother the components at all. I made a short video using it just a few days ago if you're interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJu8nmOkg8xjgLs

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks, and thanks for the tip!

[@colingarner6175]

You seem to say ‘ sarder ‘ when I think you mean ‘ solder ‘ 😂😂😂

[@artysanmobile]

How very helpful this comment is.

[@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG]

@@artysanmobile Personally, I consider it helpful when people point out the recent tendency of the language to be modified unnecessarily by people pronouncing words wrong. I'm sure there's no malice intended, just pointing out you're pronouncing it wrong. (While we're on the topic, "acrosst" is not a word...)

[@mobiusbelts3607]

@@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG People modifying language is not a recent tendency.

[@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG]

@@mobiusbelts3607 No, but with the assistance of the internet it's definitely following a distinct and recognizable pattern...

[@luminousfractal420]

@@mobiusbelts3607 its the true form of the english language. An evolving language. Its usually americans hung up on correct English..bizarrely.

[@Double-A-Batteries]

Fancy

[@derekyoung2282]

Ever hear of “rapid remover” it’s industrial strength stuff I’ve used it to remove tar and and adhesive try it. Also it’s not the cheapest stuff.

[@billsolomon1]

Nice job!

[@heelan19]

Epic m8

[@Jesselovespinball]

Why do you keep saying nub ? Lmao 🤣 just kidding , great video ! New subscriber and been watching your back videos

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

The whole SuperScope/Marantz product line was always confusing to me growing up in the 70s and 80s. Some argued that Sony owned them both etc. Even reading up on it this morning it's still confusing. Still very high end gear though. Their smaller "shoebox style" tape recorders were built like tanks

[@musicandfilms9956]

I don't think Sony ever had a stake in Marantz. It was owned by Philips for a good while. The Wikipedia entry shows the timeline. This model was a favourite with radio journalists.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

@@musicandfilms9956 I always assumed Japan only had like 2 major electronic manufacturing plants and just rebranded for 3rd party companies. We had brand new Technics brand stereo receivers and turntables in our house back in 1980 and I never knew Panasonic made them until around 2005. I have 5 brothers and they always had friendly arguments on who owned the best stereo gear😁 Then one day my one brother comes home with a Kenwood and Pioneer rig. I'll never forget unpacking it all and setting it all up with him. I was around 14 and the youngest. I wore out the Abbey Road album on his turntable. Windows rattling playing Freebird etc. Great memories!

[@musicandfilms9956]

@@3dsmaxrocks699 Ha! Great story!

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

@@musicandfilms9956 I love this channel. Always brings out the nostalgia for me👍

[@moow950]

Why not use the USB-C connection also for Digital Out by adding an Analog to Digital circuitry

[@ShadowsOnTheScreen]

I would have been tempted to remove that spring and just glue that broken piece to the other one

[@FortyTwoAnswerToEverything]

Add a Bluetooth module to send sound to an external speaker or device (but may not be worth it if it's not a stereo head)

[@pliedtka]

It's a nice Marantz machine.

[@susanroche597]

Due you should have a refurbish shop 😂

[@ibrahimkocaalioglu]

boosting 3.7 to 6 would be easier. leds work with 3v no converter needed for single leds just a driver

[@ShadowsOnTheScreen]

Also, did you take the battery disconnect into account when the line cord is plugged in? I am digging the Lego electronics!

[@CLS2808]

Weird it is called pro, but its made of nylon insted of metal

[@professionalhater2809]

Curious if you dabble in circuit bending items?

[@BaukeC]

Why not also turn the leds on with the REC button? Seems logical to me.

[@erikdam391]

I enjoyed most of the video until the point when you started modifying the battery system. Here I notice several problems. First, it became obvious that you know nothing about USB-C PD (the voltage can be negotiated on modern chargers), small PCBs (replacing your USB-C breakout board) can be had on ebay where you can set the voltage you want to either 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V or 20V, provided you use the right type of charger. You could therefore get 9V from the USB-C. There is no need for a boost converter here. Also, as already pointed out below, 3.7V is the nominal voltage of a single Lithium cell, full charge needs 4.2V - two batteries in series 8.4V. Please be aware that the charge voltage needs to be carefully monitored and also current controlled/limited. Not knowing the specs of the controller board you use I cannot know whether this is the case. Depending on the specs it might be possible to feed it the 9V from the USB-C PD board directly. I would also recommend putting a switch between the battery system and the Buck converter - otherwise the batteries will quickly discharge due to the Buck converter quiescent current and active LED. Finally, the boost converter you used for the LEDs seems vastly overkill - boosters based on e.g. the LM2735 or similar are a lot smaller, cheaper, and still very suited for this kind of use. Personally I would have used one (or maybe two) LEDs with a current limiting resistor without a booster instead. That way I could adjust the brightness - your solution is most likely way too bright. This old Marantz deck is from 1978, and back then white LEDs were not available, also the red, green and yellow ones you could get did not have a very good efficiency or high brightness. It is therefore no wonder they did not fit a backlight to the deck back in the day.

[@jorishageman9299]

Was that masayoshi takanaka at the end?

[@HifiJelly]

Himiko Kikuchi - The Flying Beagle

[@Blueknight1960]

4:03 And it is at this point I would have thrown it in the trash can.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

Love when you do tape recorder videos! Do you have a cash app thingy? Wanna donate cash to you for making these videos. Also noticed your channel is close to 1 million views if I'm reading it correctly. Congrats!

[@HifiJelly]

That's very kind of you, but honestly you always watching and commenting is a ton of support already. Also, the view count is a little biased from an old video of mine the blew up a few years ago and is like 1/2 of those views haha.

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

@@HifiJelly let me know if you change your mind. 👍 Keep up the great work !

[@Rocky-wd6oo]

dude 7.4 volts is the operating voltage , you need 8.4 volts since the full charge of lithium cell is 4.2

[@HifiJelly]

Yup, had someone mention that earlier. Easy enough to adjust the converter up to the 8.4v

[@3dsmaxrocks699]

Great!

[@Capturing-Memories]

You didn't really have to install any buck converter, Get a 2S 8.4V Li-ion battery pack charger and install a barrel jack as a charging port, Feed the VU meter straight from the batteries, Done.

[@foundatlantis]

for the spring and that broken nub thiing - just reshape the spring and drill a hole into the arm and feed the spring through it. theres way too much mechanical force on that nub and it will eventually shear off again over time. really dumb design by marantz. it should be a metal part really given the mechanical application of that part.

[@HifiJelly]

It really is a bad design, my though was to use a compression spring and attach it through a hole in the idler arm. That way the force is tensile again the plastic and not rotational as it is now. So far it’s held up as is, but I do wonder how long it’ll last.

[@foundatlantis]

@@HifiJelly at least we have a plan b if that nub does fail again. great job on the refurb and adding the usb -c circuit in there. this has given me some idea to mod some of my synths and tape gear too !

[@ousiavazia]

try baking soda with loctite

[@ousiavazia]

low viscosity loctite, that is. idk why, but when proper mixed its like concrete.

[@HifiJelly]

Thanks for the tip!

[@MyJoyDepecheMode]

🥰👍🥰

[@davidkornblatt851]

What about replacing all the resisters and capacitors, my guess it might need it because of its age?

[@HifiJelly]

Maybe, but it works and sounds pretty good as is. No need to fix it till it breaks lol

[@krtekcyberpunker]

No name device? OK

[@Mac__Tonight]

ewwwww its mono xddd

[@edwinupton7705]

Iqw