13 Oct
1999
13 Oct
'99
7:05 p.m.
On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Bruce Lane wrote:
Possibility: The emitter portion of the BOT/EOT
sensor may have failed. I
don't recall what 'F5' on the display means, but I'm pretty sure it's
an
error code.
I seem to recall that the sensor on that drive used an infrared LED. There
are two ways you can check if it's actually emitting (besides checking the
voltage across it, of course).
One is to look at it through almost any video camera/camcorder or digital
camera. Such units are sensitive to IR emissions, and will show such as a
bright white light in a monochrome viewfinder (I have no clue what it would
look like with a color viewfinder).
Good trick! I happened to have a camcorder sitting idly by...
Both the BOT and EOT emitters are working. And I know the EOT receiver is
working because if I engage the loading arms and hold a mirror up to it,
the arms retract and I get the TAPE message on the display.
One thing, the drive never really seems to *look* for the BOT marker. I
mean, pressing load causes the drive to immediately rewind a good 8"-1' of
tape and then stops there. Nothing else.
One thing I was wondering about is the small prism located on the media
side just above the BOT/EOT sensors...what's it's function? There doesn't
appear to be anything to it besides a small prism fixed into a metal
block.
Thanks for the help so far,
Aaron