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microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2025 5:09 pm
by techy
Has anyone ever attempted to refill a microdrive cartridge ?
Or a waferdrive cartridge ?
i have mastered the way of making new tape for them , but now comes the tricky bit of filling them .
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2025 10:01 pm
by bwinkel67
How did you remake the tape?
Refilling them would be easy. Cut the new tape to exact length needed. Cut the old tape and temporarily splice the new onto the old, Then pull the old through carefully until you reach the new. Tape it up and slowly roll in the excess.
P.S. I had envisioned creating some sort of rig that cut a VHS tape to size, creating multiple new microdirve-sized tapes.
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2025 10:24 pm
by chriskgnr
Do you mean refelt?
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 2:07 am
by Wicksy
Interesting
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:36 am
by techy
A friend of mine already has made a slitter to make the tape ( and in rather good quality ) .
but now we come to the part of filling the cartridge with the tape and we can not figure out how to do that manually or mechanically assisted .
i assume sinclair ( or his supplier ) did not spent hours on a single cartridge .
any advise welcome
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:46 am
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,
You are going to need a tape winding machine that can add blank tape of the correct dimensional size to the reel in the Microdrive Cartridge.
I would say that to add tape to an empty reel in the Microdrive Cartridge you will need to arrange a feed mechanism to wind the tape from a master supply reel to the Microdrive reel. Probably a Cassette tape manufacturer can do this, but there are not many around.
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:50 am
by bwinkel67
techy wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:36 am
A friend of mine already has made a slitter to make the tape ( and in rather good quality ) .
Can you share how it works? Replacing existing tape would rejuvenate lots of cartridges and would be pretty easy.
techy wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:36 am
but now we come to the part of filling the cartridge with the tape and we can not figure out how to do that manually or mechanically assisted .
i assume sinclair ( or his supplier ) did not spent hours on a single cartridge .
ant advise welcome
I'd assume they had machinery. Are you building tapes from scratch? If so how? I don't think 3D printing would work with all the moving parts needing to work smoothly.
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:56 am
by bwinkel67
Derek_Stewart wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:46 am
Hi,
You are going to need a tape winding machine that can add blank tape of the correct dimensional size to the reel in the Microdrive Cartridge.
I would say that to add tape to an empty reel in the Microdrive Cartridge you will need to arrange a feed mechanism to wind the tape from a master supply reel to the Microdrive reel. Probably a Cassette tape manufacturer can do this, but there are not many around.
Doing it by hand to an empty cartridge is next to impossible. I've disassembled a few and tried to put them back together and almost got one to work, only to realize something was off. It's not for the faint of heart.
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 9:08 am
by techy
hence the reason for my questions .
tape slitting is the easy part ............
filling the difficult
Re: microdrive cartridge repair/rebuilding
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 9:27 am
by Derek_Stewart
bwinkel67 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:56 am
Derek_Stewart wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:46 am
Hi,
You are going to need a tape winding machine that can add blank tape of the correct dimensional size to the reel in the Microdrive Cartridge.
I would say that to add tape to an empty reel in the Microdrive Cartridge you will need to arrange a feed mechanism to wind the tape from a master supply reel to the Microdrive reel. Probably a Cassette tape manufacturer can do this, but there are not many around.
Doing it by hand to an empty cartridge is next to impossible. I've disassembled a few and tried to put them back together and almost got one to work, only to realize something was off. It's not for the faint of heart.
I believe that is what I said...