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Sony BM-23 portable dictator problem

My BM-23 will PLAY a tape for a few seconds then stop. As it stops there is a high pitched signal that will continue until I put it on STOP. Sometimes it will stop playing and I can hear the motor spinning, and after five or ten seconds the high pitched signal will come on. Sometimes it won't play (the tape won't move) but I can always hear the motor spinning. Often, when it won't PLAY at all, if I put it in rewind then release the slide, it will play for the above mentioned 5-10 seconds before stopping and signalling.

At the same time I notice the LCD counter is blank, no readout at all. The batteries check out with 1.28v in each. When I listen to the motor spinning, it seems strong. I know nothing about this, but sounds like a belt slipping, though I don't know if that would cause the LCD counter to stay blank. (even when I can get it to play for 10 seconds, the counter stays blank, no blinking, no flashing, no text.

If this is a belt, is it easy to disassemble this small dictator to replace it? This is a real good dictator so I'd like to figure out how to fix it.

Can somneone give me advice on this...

Thanks, John

Reply to
jbclem
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More on my Sony BM-23...I've just noticed that the cassette compartment lid is not quite as flush as it could be when closed. If I hold it closed tight, the tape counter will work and the tape will PLAY. I held it for a few minutes and a tape kept playing until I loosened my grip. So that puts a different spin on this problem. The top front (with the dictator standing up) part of the lid is where there seems to be some looseness. With the lid closed I can still push that edge down a small amount.

Is there a sensor switch, on that Top Front side, that has to be pushed in a certain amount before the dictator will work? Also, there is a small screw missing on the one side where the lid bracket connects to the lid, one or four screws. Where would I go to buy such a small small screw?

John

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Reply to
jbclem

This is almost certainly caused by a failed auto-shutoff circuit.

The supply hub (I think) has a switch that periodically opens and closes a circuit. When this cycle stops, the transport is shut off.

This happened to a Sony dictation machine I owned 25 years ago. (Gack!) The switch was a pair of wires touching either side of the hub. They were "opened" and "closed" by a metal bar running through the hub. When one of the wires got mispositioned, the switch no longer worked. I tore into the machine and repositioned the wire. A Sony tech told me he was surprised someone without the proper equipment had been able to do it.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

I should have read the second post more closely, as it definitely puts a different spin on things.

My initial reaction is that there's no point to an interlock, as the auto-shutoff switch automatically serves that function -- without a tape in the compartment, the supply hub won't turn and the machine will shut off after a few seconds.

I would start by figuring out why the lid won't close fully, and solve /that/ problem first. It might automatically solve the other. A careful visual inspection of the guts might be all you need.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

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