OK.. Well and truthfully back down the
retro rabbit hole and into deepest green
territory. Like I'd never been away...
And so we have the inner workings of the
Amstrad CPC464 and she hides a hidden secret
I have only seen this side of the cassette drive
thus far and now need to dig much deeper
Very quickly I had opened up the clockwork
like mechanism and was faced with an image
not too dissimilar to the clock in the
Tomb Raider film... Only this wasn't ticking
What was also missing was the rubber 'o' ring
The ring was nowhere to be seen and there was
no debris in the case. It had never been there.
So how did the computer function previously
without the ring.... The answer was simple...
This wasn't the CPC464 that I fixed with the
faulty cassette drive belt. Silly me
When I repaired the CPC464 with the faulty
power switch I discovered the cassette drive
not working and quickly ordered a new drive
belt. I put the computer to one side. I have six
Fast forward to when the drive belt arrived
and stupid silly me picked up the wrong machine
and fixed that drive belt instead
Fast forward yet again to yesterday and convinced
the machine I was using was fully functional I
could not reason why it was not working. Easy...
I never had fixed the cassette player. I also
believe I resolved one other mystery. More later
OK.. So how do I put this thing back together
First I have to lay the cassette section
back green side up...
There is a plastic guide with a
retention hook that needs to be
relocated to allow the board to sit
properly flat on the screw positions
First screw is a 'doozy' and sits deep
within the mechanism. I shall refer to
this again later
Next I reattached the volume control
There is a wire here that needs to be
threaded through below the control
that also has a grounding cable. The
second screw to the cassette is in
the far right corner holding the ground
Next I fixed the power switch which
has the other end of that grounding
cable to it's left hand side
In the corner is this tricky little
spring which is a bleeder. I mean
it will cut your fingers
Folds around like a safety pin
The next screw sits on the side edge
There is a half circle hole in the
circuit board. Be aware of the wires
and I try not to snag them
Top left is another screw to the unit
Fix the cable restraints back into place
The last screw also has a wire
retainer in this corner
Just a case now of reconnecting the
power connector for the cassette and
the large connector to the far end
And now to that other mystery that I spoke
of. Having discovered there to be no rubber
ring inside this computer I believe the
damage to the cassette section of the case
was a result of the previous owner breaking
the case when he/she tried to extract the
cassette drive
If you miss the screw deep in that hole I
showed earlier and or do not take the power
and volume control out so that you can slide
the unit over that hook retainer, the cassette
is stuck hard to the main casing. I could imagine
someone getting frustrated and literally trying
to yank the cassette drive out and thus breaking
the main case....
And I now believe that is what happened here
Case solved... Well not really. Cus it's busted
Still works though. I can connect the DDI-1
and always use the 3" while I wait for another
drive to come up on the Bay
And here is the actual CPC464 that I had repaired
And the cassette drive is working just fine
Thing about retro though is that it is more
rewarding to discover faults with kit cus
in solving problems you learn so much. If
everything just worked I would be sitting
around doing nothing all the time.
Saying that, there is always the fun after
you fix stuff of actually playing a while
And there you have it.. the case of the disappearing
rubber band. Though I doubt it will the last one
that I don't see. If you know what I mean.
Time to play. See yah !!
I'm back down the rabbit hole now
