Hi everyone, I finally found some time to work on a nice WM-F2091 I have had for a while. It has a new belt and clutch gear and is mechanically working very well. After all that hard work, I am not getting any "music" signal (not even the faintest amount). I get a hiss which is well amplified out of both channels and maybe a slight bit of motor noise, but it is like the preamp chip is not working. The flex cable also checks out and the tape is passing over the head (making contact). I know there are cap issues with this model but I would still expect to hear some faint music? The large 330uF cap appears to be leaking a bit so I took it off. Before I go much further, any troubleshooting ideas? Thank you and any help would be appreciated!
Greetings, I managed to answer my own question on this topic. I replaced all the SMT electrolytic caps and presto, the signal cleaned right up. I have never experienced that bad caps can give you absolutely no music, just static. One channel was still very quiet so I replaced the remaining black horizontal electrolytic (still SMT) caps and both channels are now clear. I am still having a problem with one channel or the other dropping randomly for a second or so. It does not seem to be mechanical (cracked solder joint, etc) at this point. A little weird. Anyways, I hope someone may find this useful in the future. Cheers.
Some of the issues can be very frustrating, I have a portable TT with no sound, I'm hoping a recap will solve that but it won't be for a while.
Hi, I made a bit more progress and found the Dolby switch no longer working. I tried deoxit and finally took it apart to find it was overly corroded and broken. Does anyone know if there are replacements for these? Thanks in advance.
A quick update for anyone interested. I did find these mini slide switches at Digikey and replaced it - works perfectly. It is running very well but I did note audible W&F in one direction so refurbed the motor as per Valentin (Which certainly won't hurt either way). The issue remained but I noticed that it went away when out of the case. There is one gear in there that is very close to one SMT and 2 Horizontal electrolytics. I had replaced these previously but used PTH ones lying down for the Horizontal caps (which are difficult to find). They looked about the same thickness but that gear is so close the even 1/10 of a mm seems to matter. I did find a solution but had to put back one of the used 3.3uf horizontals. The other one I could move out of the way enough. Maybe there are some slightly skinnier PTH ones I could find, but overall pretty happy with it now. Thanks.
Please post the part number of that switch you bought from DigiKey for reference. About the horizontal caps, I replace those with small 4 x 7mm THT ones instead on which I bend the legs. Those are much easier to find and work just fine.
The switch I purchased was: PART: EG5720CT-ND MFG : E-SWITCH (VA) / EG1215AA DESC: SWITCHES 1.42000 2.84 FYI, the metal/normal switch is more complicated (6pin, they call it 10 pin with the gnds), harder to find and I don't think available on Digi-key but it could be found on AliExpress. I didn't buy one but thought I would share. Same with the 3 position megabase switch. Valentin, I did the same thing initially lying down the THT parts but I guess they were not perfectly flat or something. I did redo them all and it is fine now. It did take a but of luck to find this issue as there was no real grinding noise or anything. I was worried one of the capstans was slightly bent as the the tape on these units needs to be nicely seated or the capstans take some abuse closing the door. Anyways, all good. I have a fully restored f2091 now - Belt, caps, clean, lube, gear, motor lube, etc. Moving on to D6 now.
