HP 82161A Digital Cassette Drive Repair

[Onur ILKORUR]

Hello,

I have bought this "non working" cassette drive just a few days ago and realized that the problem was a poor re-routing of the internal cables. I guess the previous owner had it and decided to eliminate the battery and make it work on an external DC voltage source.

I want to restore the unit back to the original state by connecting the cables back to their original locations and I wonder if somebody has a picture of the inside or a simple diagram for me to follow?

Thanks in advance,
Onur

[Garth Wilson]

I thought the service manual was in the Museum DVDs, but I'm not finding it there. [Edit: It is available at http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2835 .] It sounds like all you need to know though is that the battery pack's positive terminal is the one toward the back of the unit; so if the previous owner had installed something like a DC-10 jack instead, the wire going to its pin goes to the rear terminal. I've used clip leads to a 5V power supply to run mine after the original batteries were no good. I wished the unit had been made to optionally use alkaline batteries.

[Onur ILKORUR]

Thank you for your reply.

I took a picture of the current situation and attached to this post.

The black and red wires which I soldered to the battery terminals after your message were directly connected to the AC power socket. While doing that, I have noticed the 4 diodes below the AC power socket and I thought the connection points over the PCB might be close. After examining closely, I have noticed 2 cut wire tips on the right and the left side of the diodes. I connected the socket pins to those locations thinking that for AC it does not matter.

I hope I am doing ok so far.
Onur

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

Go to hpmuseum.net and search for 82161 you will find the service manual there.

[Dave Frederickson]

If you have any tapes for that drive you'll want to read this, "Repairing HP82176 tape cassettes".

I successfully repaired 4 of the 5 tapes I have following the instructions.

Dave

[Diego Diaz]

Hi there,

If it comes to the point that the tape coating is damaged, you may also find some useful hints to rebuild it in this old thread.

Cheers from Caribbean.

Diego