Aquarius tape drive problem? question? quirk?

[desiv]

Been having fun placing some games onto tape on the Aquarius.

Been using a standard 60 minute tape that came with it (funny thing, it only had music on it, no programs/games).

It's been working great, and I put about 13 games on it.

But as I was trying to put one last game on side A, I noticed that FF wasn't working, or was BARELY working.

Play was fine, Rewind is fine.  Just FF didn't want to work. 

So I rewound the whole thing to the beginning of Side A again.  No issue rewinding the whole tape.  FF seems fine (not as fast as REW) near the beginning of Side A...

I tried flipping the tape over and rewinding the whole thing (just to make sure I fully progressed the tape on both sides).

That worked fine.  Rewind, no problem.

So I flipped it again, rewound it a bit, and then tried to FF near the end of Side B.  Nope...  Nothing...

 

So, Rewind is fine, Play seems OK.  But FF doesn't seem to have enough power to push thru near the end of a 60 minute tape...

 

I realize that these tape drives are really expecting C-30s or lower of course...

 

So my questions...

Is this kind of by design?  The Play/FF motor just doesn't have enough oopf for a 60 minute tape?

Or should it work and there is something I need to look at?  (If so, what should I be looking at?)

 

Any thoughts or pointers?

 

Thanx!

[Intelligentleman]

I don’t have a tape that size to test. But I just rewound a C-20 on this random, yet, era-appropriate cassette deck. 
 

I definitely noticed a difference as the tape spooled from one side to the other.

[jltursan]

Worn belts. I don't know the Aquarius tape deck mechanism; but the usual culprits are belts, rubber wheels or pinch rollers. Open it up and check them.

[desiv]

12 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

But I just rewound a C-20 on this random, yet, era-appropriate cassette deck. 
I definitely noticed a difference as the tape spooled from one side to the other.

 

Thanx,  I have some new unopened 60 minute tapes that I was thinking I'd open and make shorter (still might do that), but I just found a semi-decent price on 6 NOS C-30s, so I pulled the trigger on that.  Might not be the only issue, but probably a good idea to have them as I do like to use tapes sometimes for some of my older systems still.

I do have some other computer tapes, but they are originals for other systems.  And even tho I probably won't use them (Introduction to BASIC on the Vic-20, for example), I can't get myself to overwrite them.

8 hours ago, jltursan said:

Worn belts. I don't know the Aquarius tape deck mechanism; but the usual culprits are belts, rubber wheels or pinch rollers. Open it up and check them.

The only belt in the Aquarius tape drive (I think) was the one I replaced to get the counter working.

When I get a chance, I'll open it up again and check for wheels/rollers, etc...

 

Thanx!

[jltursan]

The worst scenario would be gears with broken teeth...?

[Intelligentleman]

The number counter belt should not impact the other functions of the tape drive, right?

[jltursan]

It depends; but usually not...

[desiv]

Should be able to do some more testing now.

Got my C-30s.  ?

Unfortunately, instead of the 6 C-30s I thought I had ordered on e-bay, it was actually 3 C-30s and 3 C-60s.  ;-(

The description in the auction said 6 C-30s, but there was a picture in the auction page, and when I looked again at the pic, I could see that there were 3 C-60s in there.  So my bad for not really looking at the pic...  This is e-bay.  I know better than that. 

Either way, at least now I have some new (NOS) C-30s to test with...

 

Not sure what I'll do with the C-60s.  Maybe my Vic-20 Datasette is less picky about tapes.

(Tho I have a Pi1541 for him, so not sure I'll use the tapes there much...)

[Intelligentleman]

5 hours ago, desiv said:

Should be able to do some more testing now.

Got my C-30s.  ?

Unfortunately, instead of the 6 C-30s I thought I had ordered on e-bay, it was actually 3 C-30s and 3 C-60s.  ;-(

The description in the auction said 6 C-30s, but there was a picture in the auction page, and when I looked again at the pic, I could see that there were 3 C-60s in there.  So my bad for not really looking at the pic...  This is e-bay.  I know better than that. 

Either way, at least now I have some new (NOS) C-30s to test with...

 

Not sure what I'll do with the C-60s.  Maybe my Vic-20 Datasette is less picky about tapes.

(Tho I have a Pi1541 for him, so not sure I'll use the tapes there much...)

Please keep this thread updated.

[desiv]

Just a little update on where I am...

 

I've been able to use the C-30's successfully.  I did still notice that my tape drive does sound like it is slowing down as I FF near the end of the C-30, but nothing near as badly as it did with the 60 minute tape I had been using...

Still not sure if it is a sign there's something up, or if the Aquarius drive just really wants shorter tapes...

I'll need to open it up again and check some more things when I get some more time...

 

Another thing, and I know most of you know this, but BOY is the Aquarius picky about volume level!!!!!

My process to put programs on tape is to use my PC using VLC to play the files to the Aquarius, then I save them to tape.

(First I load the BASIC loader and resave it to tape.  Then I comment out lines 40, 50, and 60 and run it, loading the ML part of the game into memory (but not running it).  And then I do a csave*A to save that data to tape.)

 

It took me a few tries with the volume in VLC when I was playing with it initially, but then I got it.  My VLC volume was 70-something percent on my laptop.

Well, when I tried last night, it wasn't working and then I realized that I had accidentally changed my VLC volume.  Ok, trying 70-something...

70...  Nope...

73...  Nope...

75...  Nope...

78...  Nope...

um...  80?  Nope...

Hmmm...  

76...  Something, but not the right filename, just some garbage...

77...  Yep!  Perfect...

 

So, on my laptop, I don't have to be around 70-something volume in VLC.  I have to be at 77...

Man, that is picky!!!      

But at 77, it is rock solid.  I have now transferred maybe 30 programs (Well, a bunch to the 60 minute tape, and then a bunch of those same programs again to the 30 minute tape..) and when I have the volume at 77, it has worked every time.

 

And I always test load each game after I save it to tape, and I have never had a failed program load...

(At least not so far, knocking on wood)

 

I probably won't be able to get back to this until after the holiday this week...  Family coming over...  And they don't appreciate my retro computer hobbies the way I do.  Yeah, they loved the mini-NES looking Retropie machines I made them with a Pi0 and my 3D Printer...  But they don't seem to appreciate my actual computers...

<sigh>  Family... 

 

[jltursan]

Yes, the Aquarius has a notoriously flaky tape loading scheme ?. I wonder if it's possible to enhance the load circuit tuning some components...

 

Anyway, your mention of the tape slowing down is not a good sign, the cassette deck must be able to work with C-60 and even more, these C-30 tapes; so seems that something is wrong with the mechanism and has not enough traction.

Having no belts, you must keep searching how the motor rotation is transmited, if there's no belt, it must be just a matter of gears or something like that. Try to check if the mechanism is free of any kind of dust, goo or whatever, clean it thoroughly and then lube it.