Homebrew Drum Computer

Is anyone here sane? I would hope not! I know I'm insane... Why do you need PCBs? This thing sounds slow enough that almost any construction technique would work (stripboard, for example). And if you do ened PCBs, they'd only have to be double sided, and those you can make at home. [...] The comment 'bl**dy difficult' springs to mind... If you have the heads in contact with the media -- E.g. wrapping recodinng take round a drup and hainv heads rubbing on it -- you;ll get wear. Lots of it. It'll work fine for some minuts/hours and then fail. Rememebr thati n a tape recorder the head doesn't (normally) keep on going over the same bit of tape). If you have heads spaced away from the media, then rememebr that the air gap is critical -- the larger the gap the lower the density of recoridng yoyu can use. But the gap, in turn, is detemriend by the mechanical tolerances of the drum and bearings -- and you're going to have problems too mich run out -- even an adjustable tapered toller bearing. I would think tapered bush bearings (and used in a good lathe headstock) would do, but making them -- and adjusting them -- would be 'interesting'. -tony