Tascam 238 siren noise and non functional

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

<nosferatudasvampir@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Just bought a sencond hand Tascam 238 and it powers up with a terrible
>siren noise and it does not work. No play/rewind/ff... nothing!

It's broken.

>I was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me exactly what is
>happening. I spent a few dollars out of my meagre budget on ebay and
>now am freaking out over this.

Could be anything. Oscillating channels on those are more often due
to cold solder joints on the main board than anything, but it could be
bad caps too. No transport operation could be all kinds of things too,
but a missing remote plug (if the 238 has one) is a first thing to check.

Now you know why buying a cleaned and prepped machine from Boynton is
a lot more expensive than buying an untested machine off Ebay. Usually
if these machines have been sitting in the closet, it'll take an afternoon
or two to get them cleaned up and in spec if nothing is seriously wrong.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

<nosferatudasvampir@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1120597817.779201.243740@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hello!
>
> Just bought a sencond hand Tascam 238 and it powers up with a terrible
> siren noise and it does not work. No play/rewind/ff... nothing!
>
> I was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me exactly what is
> happening. I spent a few dollars out of my meagre budget on ebay and
> now am freaking out over this.
>
> Thanx.
>

It's not worth the trouble. Return it to the seller.

Predrag

Hi 238 owner,
It all depends on what type of noise you are getting from the unit. Is it in the audio outputs? Is it a noise you are hearing that is mechanical ? I used to work for Teac and can help you the most.
Contact me at skywavebe@sbcglobal.net
I also fix unit in the Chicago area.
Sam,

I have the same problem as the other 238 owner. Sirein noise........ it's machanical.........I recorded on it before a few years back...........haven't had it out for about 10 years. .........got it out to dub my multi tracks into new cd burning program............... try to play tapes on 238 and get the Chip-Monk's voices.....the noise comes from the flywheel behind the tape drive..........please advise.........contact me at
< fourfour@hometowncable.net >

Noise is NOT in the audio. It is mechanical. Flywheel spens way to fast, What drives the flywheel> Is it a motor within itself? I see that there seems to be what appears to be magnets and copper sensors around it.

Hello, I know this is a dated posting, but I have a 238 and a 238S, the 238S still works last I turned it on, hardly used since I was afraid it would do the same. I love these old units, though I pretty much use Reaper on my computer or my old Tascam 788 for in the field. I did a little research and found that these have a brushless motor, not much to go wrong, but they seem to eventually fall to this same problem of turning into a siren or jet engine simulator. There is a circuit board on the motor that controls the speed etc, called the servo control chip, a counter chip etc. I believe these are what go bad, but instead of Tascam selling you just the pcb, they sell you the whole motor ($100-$200). I checked into these chips, but you have to buy in quantity and they are no longer being produced so what you get is surplus. If you can find them on ebay, it probably is your best bet for the cost if you can just buy what you need unless you go into repairing these relics on the side for museum pieces now, they still are cool and sound great! These chips should not cost much at all since they were designed (DC servo motor speed controllers) originally for VCR/VHS from the 80's/90's. You also need SMT equipment or a heat gum to remove the chips, and a fine tip low wattage soldering iron to do the job (carefully). The qulaity of these old machines were very good in their day and sound close to their Big brother the Reel to reel!
goforthsound@yahoo.com