Just picked up an F9191. While I plan on doing a pretty thorough refurb, I don't have the time now (and won't for a little bit). Until then, I'd like to be able to get it functional. After messing around with it and one cassette for a few minutes, it seems it will play for a few seconds (5 maybe) and then stop. Play it again for 5 seconds. Stop. Plays for 40 seconds. Stop. Similar responses when trying to FF or RW.

Any off the top of your head ideas?

Small belt that runs the counter. If it slips or is missing, it will stop all PB, FF and RW functions. Pretty easy to get to.

In my case, it was also the counters fault. As it turns over to the next hundred - say 299-300, or 599-600 - it will get hung up, and engage the auto-stop feature.

After it stops by itself, remove the cassette, work the drive hub with your hand for a few turns back and forth, and that may loosen up the counter cogs enough to fix the issue.

If not, open it up, and lubricate the counter to make it move more freely, and see if that helps.

Rob

The counter belt is indeed there and the counter is working. It never gets very far because it stops so often. What exactly do you mean by drive hub? I've downloaded and skimmed the SM.

If your tape is stopping more often than anytime the counter turns over to next "hundred", then it may be something else. But the auto stop feature is directly tied to the counter - so any issue like it sticking can trigger the machine to stop suddenly.

The drive hub is the hub wheel on the right - it's the one that pulls, or drives, the tape along it's way during playback. By turning mine back and forth by hand many times after a sudden stop (remove the tape) seemed to help free up the counter, and made it easier to turn over to the next "hundred" when it got to that point during play or FF or Rewind.

Is the counter reading any random number when it stops? It may not be the source of your problem then. Mine was always attempting to turn over to the next hundred when it would stop the tape.

Rob

Looks like I'm going to be spending some quality time with this unit some point down the road. I gave the right hub a few twists and whatnot, and then played the tape again. Now one channel is definitely less powerful than the other, and the VU meter on that channel is holding constant and not bouncing around like it should. Looks like a can of worms.

When I eventually do get around to this, do you know a good way to get to the circuitry underneath the tape transport? It's mostly covered with a plate that either needs to be removed or accessed from the bottom.

Wow, I had one of these new back in the day, same thing happened to mine . It had to do with the counter, never did fix it, bought a new deck, but this seems to have been a problem with the new digital tape counter of the day.

:lurk:

Channel imbalance could be a few things, I would think. My model isn't the 9191, but a 700, so there may be a few differences in the transports. On mine when I got it (it had been in storage for many years) it seemed to have an imbalance in sound output. I turned the unit off, cleaned all the usual switches and pots with deoxit. Then I wanted to clean the electrical contacts of the linkage that move when engaging the Play key. I took the tape out, pushed in the button near the left hub that senses a tape, and repeatedly hit play & stop (after shooting the linkage with deoxit - avoid getting it on the heads). After a while, this seemed to clear up my channel imbalance.

On a different brand of old deck I have, the record slide switches inside needed to be repeatedly cleaned with deoxit to get rid of a distorted feedback type of noise in one channel.

I know these are longshots, but they worked for me. Hopefully, a 9191 owner will come along and be of real help.....

Rob

I just aquired a Yamaha kxw-382 from a yard sale for very cheap, it seems to stop at a random time. During play, ff, rew. record... It seems to be that the microswitch that decides whether there is a tape in or not, is hard to satisfy. I havent done a post on here for years and years. :D

Try this thread (http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=163690&highlight=CT-F9191) or search among many others in the Pioneer Forum

Such a beautiful deck. Such a pain in the ass. Oh, the irony.