vincei
aka MasterControlMedia
I am new to DAT decks and obtained one is a bizarre way. I was in an old recording studio and observed a Sony Deck that I thought was a cassette deck. I asked if it was a cassette deck and the owner of the studio said it was a DAT deck. This deck was at the bottom of a pile of other old audio equipment and he said I could have it if wanted it. It was a rack mount unit with a cassette tape stuck in it, but is really good shape considering. It powered up, but that was it. I gave me a strange error on the display. I opened it up and found that a tiny belt had jumped off a pulley. I replaced it and the deck works now. I am an old analogue cassette user and this thing is way too complicated for me. I am trying to find an operators manual. It is a Sony DTC-8A, but that does not bring up any information when I Google for it. It does record, but there are a lot of features I don't understand.
Anyway, on the old cassette decks that used solenoids, there was a configuration that provides full power to the solenoid to engage it, but this produces a lot of heat within the solenoid. A circuit was designed that would fire the solenoid (usually a capacitor/transistor combination) when the solenoid was engaged the voltage was dropped to just hold it against the load. I have seen conditions when the solenoid would not fire, but if you "helped it" it would hold the load, and then I have seen the condition you have described with the solenoid firing but dropping out.
I see a lot of IC's in my unit and the solenoid function may be handled by one of the IC's. On the old cassette decks it was easier to fix since it was more oriented to individual components.
Sorry about the long explaination. It may not even be revelant.
Try DTC-A8. That's a nice machine with SBM I beleive. Lucky it was only the belt! Enjoy.