9 Track Tape Drive Interface Variants

Only if you require the packs to be interchanageable with ones formatted on other drives, and IIRC the OP says he doesn't care about that. There are 4 allen setscrews on top of the carriage. Each head has a locking clamp screw and an adjustment screw which pushes agains the tpaered tail of the head to move it towards the spindle when you are doing an alignment. If you are goign to be refitting the same heads, I'd leave the heads locked to the carrage and carefully screw in the adjusting screws so that theyu touch the head tails. Lock the addusting screws in that position (I think running a suitable nut -- probably 4-40 or 6-32 UNC -- onto the screw will do it [1]) and then undo the clocking screws. Slide out the heads and clean/inspect. Put them hack in so that the tails are again afgains the alignemet screws. Tighten the lockign scress, remove the temorare nuts, and back out the adjustment screws a little bit. [1] You will need to get some UNC fasteners if you work on DEC machines. These are non-trivial to get in the UK, and I asusme elsewhere in Europe. I eneded up buiying them from Digikey. One other thing. No matter what the manual says, you can remvoe the positioner assembly (and for that matter the spindle) and put them back without needing to do an alignmetn. To rmeove the positioner, disconnect the head wires from teh PCB in the logic cage (through the hole in the side of the cage), unplug the positioenr coil from the servo amplifer board, and disconnect the wires from the postion transduer from the tagstrip next to the postioner (faston terminals). Take out the 3 large cap-head screws on the underside of the driv and lift the complete postioner up and out. It's al ot easier to work on it out of the drive Alas tyhe OP's back has a serious headcrash at the outside edge... -tony