Vintage 1970's Crown Portable Cassette Recorder Player Repair / Restoration

LER #261 I spotted this 1970s' Crown Portable Cassette Recorder at the local flea market - and it is just like one I actually owned back in the 70s!! When that broke, I wasn't skilled enough to fix it at the time... So of course I had to buy this one and see if I could get it working.
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Richard

[@outfield1988]

Wore out my cassette players in the 70s. Rebuilt a couple of Panasonic players and started playing cassette tapes again. I love old stuff.

[@user-zv6fj8hj1e]

Great nostalgia trip, those triangle screws were a bugger to get out of the roadworks lamps! Bacardi on kitchen roll used to work nearly as well iso on an ear bud lol

[@robtitheridge9708]

you forgot the oldest trick in the book .take the drive belt off and boil it in water for about 3 minuets to shrink it back to its original size.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I thought someone would come up with some suggestion I didn't know about! Must try that

[@RetroUpgrade]

😮didn't know this ether , would have been useful on my OG Xbox that has a stretched belt , i bought a pack of 20 :P but will definitely keep this in mind thanks alot for sharing

[@reacey]

I did this with the loading belt in a vcr the other week, it worked a treat

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

heya, nice vintage repair liked it very much

[@davesdigitaldomain]

I enjoyed the video Richard, I remember back in the 70s getting one of these tape recorders for Christmas, as a child I remember taping top of the Pops from the television set then I would use it on a Sunday to record the top 40 charts on the radio.the quality must have been horrendous. I also remember pinching those 6 V batteries out of those road lamps, strapping them to my bike to power the front and rear lights🙂

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Ahh yeah recording from the top 40.... so we had this old valve radio and the best reception was on long wave where you could hear the Top40 on Sunday. So I used to take the radio upstairs, took the back panel off and placed the microphone inside the radio itself. That way I got the best quality. No one (i.e Sisters!!!) was allowed in the room while I was recording. Yeah them road lamp batteries also worked well strapped to bicycles. And you could make a little bracket and fasten the cassette recorder to the centre of the handlebars as well and fit the battery under the seat. Later I got into real music LOL. I used to go to Northern Soul / Modern Soul All-dayers in Manchester at the Ritz (and elsewhere around the UK) and would of course take the obligatory Adidas bag with a change of clothes (some smuggled alcohol) and the tape recorder. There was this one spot near the top of the stairs onto the Ritz balcony where you were right by the speakers so the Adidas bag would go there amongst the pile of other bags, tape recorder running inside, and the microphone hanging out between the railings in front of the speakers. Wasn't just me doing that. Of course you couldn't buy most of the rare soul they were playing even if you had the money, the vinyl was impossible to find, and you couldn't hear those songs anywhere else unless you went to where the DJs were playing it. Oh to be young again but teens growing up now missed out on so much fun that we had then. And so much fantastic music, a lot of beautiful girls and NO ONE was fat. And we enjoyed it all with almost no money. I'm not condoning everything we did but we had to be so inventive in those days just to get by LOL

[@simonstergaard]

love the diversity of your repairs. keep it up !

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Variety is the spice of life they say

[@seeithappen1]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Variety is also the vehicle of lust they say .... ha :)

[@KB1UIF]

I loved the story about nicking the battery out of the yellow flashing warning lights !! I remember doing something similar as a kid. lol

[@colekeircom]

Hi Richard. I became interested in electronics in the late 60's , mainly as a hobby, and I still love it . Your videos are excellent and prove how much one can learn from the 'hands on' approach . I read loads of technical books over the years but looking at your videos surpasses them completely . Even though you often say that your videos won't involve heavy maths or deep technical stuff, they really challenge ones understanding at times . You can't fix stuff or engage in fault finding unless you really know what's going on 'under the hood'. I've found myself pausing a video to go off and recap on something that I thought I knew . So I'm still learning but loving every minute of it. As they say 'there's no substitute for experience' You have a vast knowledge of electronics . Thanks Richard. Regards from sunny [????] Dublin, Kieron.

[@khx73]

Thanks for the videos RIchard... got hit hard with covid yesterday, spending some time isolating now.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

get well soon 🙂

[@outfield1988]

Just restored a Panasonic RQ 309s. Replaced belts and capacitors.

[@Toogman]

Boil the drive belt for 2 minutes brings the tension back into it. Works everytime trust me

[@jonathanrose456]

Used by reporters back in the day. The case may make it more valuable

[@seeithappen1]

Yeah I remember the good old crown cassette players and boom boxes from the 80s ..... nice to see one back ... will have a peek on the next market

[@outfield1988]

Cold solder joints maybe

[@patkelley8293]

I has a sea crane SW FM AM radio cassete player when I was a child. My favorite toy?

[@outfield1988]

Amazon can get you a whole bunch of belts

[@marcellipovsky8222]

Hey! DONEKY! Stop laughing! 😁😁😁 Other than that, I've seen My Mate Vince to fix such rubber bands by cooking in water for ew minutes.

[@ralphj4012]

No wonder it didn't work. Somebody fitted an elastic / rubber band instead of a belt, a rubber wheel instead of a pinch roller and a spindle instead of a capstan. Ho, ho, entertaining as always. Gunk in that long metal / plastic thingy (otherwise known as a record / play switch) can result in strange noises, as you discovered (other than those from your mic / mixer).

[@RetroUpgrade]

Hi Richard 33k Wow m8 :) and yes i can give it a try , should be possible if there is enough space , haven't actually worked on a tape recorder since the Commodore 64 days .memories 😁 think i fixed a iomega tape drive 20 years ago 😆

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Than you have a challenge. I sorted the electronics it's over to yo to fix the mechanics 😁

[@weerobot]

Nostalgia Cool..That is The One you Had...lol

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Very very similar. Mine had a little circular recording level meter on it about a centimeter across or so.

[@mohammedmariff9034]

hi rechard sorry for off topic question .. i am looking for ic that charges the battery and protect it .. and in same time supply 3.2 volts for mcu .. when charger is pluged 3.2 supplied from usb 5v .. when it is not connectet the 3.7 lithum battery supply 3.2v to mcu .. thanks

[@mohammedmariff9034]

how to look and search for specific ic in soic package ? TIA

[@paulc9139]

Did the motor have a ceramic capacitor across it's terminals, I know form experience that can have an effect, on noise.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Hi Paul C I didn't look. I'll be passing this over to Carlos at Retro Upgrade if he wants to look at repairing the Cassette lid and make a part 2 video on his channel. I'll order an assorted pack of 50 drive belts from AliExpress they are only a couple of Euros

[@RetroUpgrade]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Will gladly give it a shoot richard :)

[@antitheist2000]

Echoes !

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Someone doesn''t like Floyd? Seriously?

[@reacey]

Your audios abit dodgy mate , love the vid as usual

[@reacey]

Apologies I saw the pop up message about the audio after i wrote my comment

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

@@reacey I've been having this problem on and off - first I thought it was my mixer, then the mic, and now I think it's the mic cable Anyway at the car boot this weekend I found a condenser mic (that has very good reviews) with the boom stand, and another guy had five long professional XLR microphone cables so I bought the lot off him cheap. I tried the new mic today and it is working. My mixer has two mic channels with phantom power so hopefully this will be better than the Wharfedale Cardiod mic I'm currently using. I have that set up for the next video plus while I was at it I spent a couple hours today completely rearranging my workbench so I have more space to work and now the monitor previewing the recording is directly in front of my so I should find it much easier to look at the camera while working!

[@reacey]

appriciate all you put into this channel, sure alot of others do also.

[@royalaxe]

hi, on another video you said you had a discord server? i cant find you in there...

[@user-zv6fj8hj1e]

Links in the description :)

[@pengmarisa1003]

Hello, Our company would like to invite you to try our company's products for free. How can I get in touch with you?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

it is very simple. You can email me [e-mail]