Cannot thank you enough... Got a TC-K511S and could not understand the tape transport fault. Your upload fixed my deck after many attempts. The re-assemble position you detail is correct. Tried many searches before finding yours. Great guidance - Thanks
Thanks for this, I just picked one of these decks up at a Goodwill for four bucks and I’m getting ready to tear into it to replace the belts. It’s a nice looking machine, I love Sony.
Thanks, that helped a lot to identify the missing spring from the mode control arm in my TC-K511S. The previous owner lost it during belt replacement. And also plugged in the motor flat flex backwards :-). But at least the deck cost me just $20, and now it works perfectly, it just needs new belts, because he haven't changed the reel motor belt and put on a waaay to tight belt on the capstan. I managed to source a close enough spring from a Samsung VHS transport, it just needed to be reformed and cut to size.
The brass strip of metal with blue center dot on the top portion if this drive is the "sapphire bearing" called out on the door of this deck. It also has the optical pickup on the flywheel for its 'quartz locked' speed control (which ironically is still manipulated by a potentiometer ) I guess it only keeps the speed where its set.
I have a TC-KE500S deck I tore mine apart and it did help to have the hint about the plastic tabs to hold the belt. When I got mine back together I had a problem something like yours. But as it turned out I had left the ribbon cord off of the second motor. It's a little copper colored ribbon cable. I had torn it all apart and just forgot about that ribbon cable. So make sure none of you are forgetting that ribbon.
Yes I had the same problem you were having but as soon as I connected the ribbon cable boom it worked great. I felt a bit foolish not remembering to attach it but I did mine at about 2 am in the morning and under poor lighting.
Definitely seems like this cassette deck is a bit more work to maintain. I bought mine completed refurbished with new pinch rollers, belts and new lubrication for the motor gears. Hopefully I don't have any issues for a while cause if I do, I'm taking it to a audio repair shop. At least it doesn't have those auto reverse mechanism or having two cassette tape drives cause that would just add more failure points
Thanks for this video, I have a TC-K615S that's working fine after changing belts, but I also have a TC-KA1ESA that's not working correctly with new belts and pulling my hair out trying to fix it..
I just picked a TC-KA1ESA (TC-KE500S) and it was "going crazy" per previous owner, locking up, operating backwards in FFWD, etc. The small gear on mode motor was cracked and had ridden up the shaft, so it was not meshing on another gear.I removed it, ran a drill bit through it to just clean up the bore and slightly enlarge it, (it had shrunk and cracked...if you dont enlargen the bore and glue it back together, there will be a tooth that is misaligned and it will make the transport even more noisy) then filed a flat on the motor shaft to give the super glue a place to harden and stake the gear and glued this gear back onto shaft. make sure you get it all the way on with just the slightest clearance from swinging gear arm as this needs to be retained at a level so it does not pass its limiter pins. The belt has also been called out as an FBW8.2
Determined that its not an assembly issue, but is an issue with the reel (small motor in white chassis) drive motor controller. When the motor is on, it turns the gears and it swings to mesh with the cog gear. It also drives the green gear plate over which pushes the lever out toward the edge of the large head block gear and right on out of the track. When I pull power to the reel motor and cycle the head gear, the lever travels in its normal path which tells me the reel motor controller is not interrupting power when the head gear is turning like it should be but is providing full power even when the deck is in stop mode. The controller is either the microprocessor itself or the LA6500 op-amp that is traced out both motors.
I replaced the entire logic board and problem went away. Never found root of issue. could have been op-amp switcher as the small motor changes direction to operate the follower on the cam gear. Deck was sold in operational condition. Look for small nylon gear splitting on shaft. Do the belts once and youll learn to do them again very easily. Use the belt retainer prongs!
I recently replaced belts on my TC-K615S. It's basically insanity working on one of these things, but it can be done. it's not something you would want to do often though.
Hi. I have similar problem with my deck. I found out small gear on reel motor crack. It still can rotate but did not swing to make contact with the cog gear. Do you think that crack gear was the culprit? Thanks in advance.
you can fix the idler gear with super glue but in my case that wasnt the culprit. I believe it was the controller for the idler gear motor, it is a DC motor that seems to reverse polarity for mode changes. It was the polarity switching operation that wasnt working. ie the motor is CW for 99% of the time unless its in a mode change then it reverses polarity/direction swinging the gear set over to operate the mode kicker long enough to redirect the cam follower then resumes CW rotation, pulling gear away from kicker.
I replaced the main board of the unit and all was well. I dont think it could have been the small motor ribbon cable as I did not disturb that when I replaced the main board, but its is worth testing. I have since sold the unit for an older TC-K71 that more matched my 1979 receiver.
it was a mainboard issue. Moved entire transport to another mainboard and it worked flawlessly. Double checked by moving it back to original mainboard and it was bad again.
This design is actually brilliant, using the main heavy motor to smoothly drive the cog that raises and lowers the head stack. and then allowing it to disengage to drive the capstan only. Dates back to the mid 70's Sony transports but those were metal and used servos to operate the cam follower instead of changing the polarity of a motor for a split second and having a small plastic gear swing over to a cam follower gear rack. As all 1990's tape decks, it was a cost issue. This transport was used in quite a few Sony decks and the weal link in ALL of them is the mode motor gear. You wanna see a crazy transport? Look at a Sony dual wells that has 1 motor that does EVERYTHING...for both decks! Stay away from the dual wells that are right next to each other and the controls are outboard of the wells. ie low number TC-W3xx's
Cannot thank you enough... Got a TC-K511S and could not understand the tape transport fault. Your upload fixed my deck after many attempts. The re-assemble position you detail is correct. Tried many searches before finding yours. Great guidance - Thanks
Thanks for this, I just picked one of these decks up at a Goodwill for four bucks and I’m getting ready to tear into it to replace the belts. It’s a nice looking machine, I love Sony.
Thanks for this. I'm rebuilding the K615S I bought in college. Hoping to listen to all those 1990s mixtapes again...
Thanks, that helped a lot to identify the missing spring from the mode control arm in my TC-K511S. The previous owner lost it during belt replacement. And also plugged in the motor flat flex backwards :-). But at least the deck cost me just $20, and now it works perfectly, it just needs new belts, because he haven't changed the reel motor belt and put on a waaay to tight belt on the capstan. I managed to source a close enough spring from a Samsung VHS transport, it just needed to be reformed and cut to size.
Nice, I am rebelling mine, and this will help.
Sucks I have a cracked gear on the selector take up motor 😢
But lucky they still sell them.
The brass strip of metal with blue center dot on the top portion if this drive is the "sapphire bearing" called out on the door of this deck. It also has the optical pickup on the flywheel for its 'quartz locked' speed control (which ironically is still manipulated by a potentiometer ) I guess it only keeps the speed where its set.
I have a TC-KE500S deck I tore mine apart and it did help to have the hint about the plastic tabs to hold the belt. When I got mine back together I had a problem something like yours. But as it turned out I had left the ribbon cord off of the second motor. It's a little copper colored ribbon cable. I had torn it all apart and just forgot about that ribbon cable. So make sure none of you are forgetting that ribbon.
good to know. What second motor?
at 6:14 into the video you can see the second motor and the ribbon cable that attaches to it.
good point, I didnt realize that could be the issue.
Yes I had the same problem you were having but as soon as I connected the ribbon cable boom it worked great. I felt a bit foolish not remembering to attach it but I did mine at about 2 am in the morning and under poor lighting.
in your video at 6 minutes and 8 seconds it does look like yours was connected, but it's not a good shot at the connection to know for sure.
Definitely seems like this cassette deck is a bit more work to maintain. I bought mine completed refurbished with new pinch rollers, belts and new lubrication for the motor gears. Hopefully I don't have any issues for a while cause if I do, I'm taking it to a audio repair shop. At least it doesn't have those auto reverse mechanism or having two cassette tape drives cause that would just add more failure points
Thanks for this video, I have a TC-K615S that's working fine after changing belts, but I also have a TC-KA1ESA that's not working correctly with new belts and pulling my hair out trying to fix it..
I just picked a TC-KA1ESA (TC-KE500S) and it was "going crazy" per previous owner, locking up, operating backwards in FFWD, etc. The small gear on mode motor was cracked and had ridden up the shaft, so it was not meshing on another gear.I removed it, ran a drill bit through it to just clean up the bore and slightly enlarge it, (it had shrunk and cracked...if you dont enlargen the bore and glue it back together, there will be a tooth that is misaligned and it will make the transport even more noisy) then filed a flat on the motor shaft to give the super glue a place to harden and stake the gear and glued this gear back onto shaft. make sure you get it all the way on with just the slightest clearance from swinging gear arm as this needs to be retained at a level so it does not pass its limiter pins. The belt has also been called out as an FBW8.2
Determined that its not an assembly issue, but is an issue with the reel (small motor in white chassis) drive motor controller. When the motor is on, it turns the gears and it swings to mesh with the cog gear. It also drives the green gear plate over which pushes the lever out toward the edge of the large head block gear and right on out of the track. When I pull power to the reel motor and cycle the head gear, the lever travels in its normal path which tells me the reel motor controller is not interrupting power when the head gear is turning like it should be but is providing full power even when the deck is in stop mode. The controller is either the microprocessor itself or the LA6500 op-amp that is traced out both motors.
I need to know where spring goes on take assembly help is appreciated
I replaced the entire logic board and problem went away. Never found root of issue. could have been op-amp switcher as the small motor changes direction to operate the follower on the cam gear. Deck was sold in operational condition. Look for small nylon gear splitting on shaft. Do the belts once and youll learn to do them again very easily. Use the belt retainer prongs!
I recently replaced belts on my TC-K615S. It's basically insanity working on one of these things, but it can be done. it's not something you would want to do often though.
Hi. I have similar problem with my deck. I found out small gear on reel motor crack. It still can rotate but did not swing to make contact with the cog gear. Do you think that crack gear was the culprit? Thanks in advance.
you can fix the idler gear with super glue but in my case that wasnt the culprit. I believe it was the controller for the idler gear motor, it is a DC motor that seems to reverse polarity for mode changes. It was the polarity switching operation that wasnt working. ie the motor is CW for 99% of the time unless its in a mode change then it reverses polarity/direction swinging the gear set over to operate the mode kicker long enough to redirect the cam follower then resumes CW rotation, pulling gear away from kicker.
did you ever get this to work, and if so can you explain what you had to do?
I replaced the main board of the unit and all was well. I dont think it could have been the small motor ribbon cable as I did not disturb that when I replaced the main board, but its is worth testing. I have since sold the unit for an older TC-K71 that more matched my 1979 receiver.
it was a mainboard issue. Moved entire transport to another mainboard and it worked flawlessly. Double checked by moving it back to original mainboard and it was bad again.
This is a very stupid mechanism. While you have an assist motor, it uses the main motor to move the head and drive the mode gear.
This design is actually brilliant, using the main heavy motor to smoothly drive the cog that raises and lowers the head stack. and then allowing it to disengage to drive the capstan only. Dates back to the mid 70's Sony transports but those were metal and used servos to operate the cam follower instead of changing the polarity of a motor for a split second and having a small plastic gear swing over to a cam follower gear rack. As all 1990's tape decks, it was a cost issue. This transport was used in quite a few Sony decks and the weal link in ALL of them is the mode motor gear. You wanna see a crazy transport? Look at a Sony dual wells that has 1 motor that does EVERYTHING...for both decks! Stay away from the dual wells that are right next to each other and the controls are outboard of the wells. ie low number TC-W3xx's