Greetings fellow walkman enthusiasts. I have been a member for years and enjoyed this forum very much. I have rarely posted so here it goes. I recently started going through my walkman collection and discovered an issue with one of my prized units. The Aiwa HS-EX50 10th Anniversary Gold Edition. I noticed that it started to eat tape on just one of the pinch rollers. Upon close inspection I discovered that it has developed the infamous capstan dent in the pinch roller due to low usage. Assuming that the pinch roller can't be restored, what's the best source for buying one? I couldn't find much on ebay. Ali Express has similar sizes but I am not confident I will get the right part. The size is: Outer Diameter: 7mm Inner Diameter: 1.5mm Width with rubber only: 4mm Width with the center plastic: 5mm Thank you so much for your help and guidance. Some pictures included for your viewing pleasure.
I recently ordered 7mm pinch rollers, for Aiwa 2ME-7 mechanisms (J09, J360, J10 etc.) from: https://www.ebay.com/itm/234003385653 The rollers they sent are 6.5mm. The diameter of pinch rollers is critical. Too large and they rub on things and are engaged when they shouldn't be. Too small and they don't exert enough pressure. I reported the problem to the seller. They asked for the device name and a photo. Then they said the photo wasn't sharp enough. I sent nother photo. (Below, original roller rubber is on the right.) Now they say my original roller is 7.4mm. I won't buy from them again. When ordering you also need to match the axle diameter.
When buying rollers by dimensions, there are 3 dimensions needed: - outer diameter; - total height (including the plastic hub); - pin diameter; So in this case it seems roller is 7mm x 5mm x 1.5mm, which is a dimension available for sale. Would also check the alignment of the roller relative to capstan. Seen rollers with indentation marks before (this happens because unit has been left with roller engaged), but never seen this to cause eating tapes, only increase the W&F.
I just checked the carrier for the roller and it is spring mounted. Pressure for the roller against the capstan is a function of that spring, not the roller diameter. So it can accommodate a (small) range of roller diameter. 6.5mm vs 7mm probably is ok. Since the 6.5mm rollers have a smaller core but thicker rubber that the OEM 7mm rollers, I swapped the rubber from the 6.5mm rollers onto the cores for the 7mm rollers and ended up with 7.2mm pinch rollers. They seem to work fine. When I set about fixing a player for the first time about 18 months ago, I had trouble with tapes being eaten and thought it was a mechanism problem. But it turned out to be the coating on the 45-year old Ampex cassette tapes was so poorly attached to the mylar that there was so little traction on the tape as the coating rubbed off, that the tape was not pulled through the capstan/roller interface.
I just ordered from this seller before I saw your post. I couldn't find any other sellers that have the matching size. I am hoping I get the right size. Thanks for your insight.
Thank you for the detail. Good to know that there is some room for a different size. I ordered size 7x5x1.5mm.
