I'm not good with mills and lathes, but here in Dallas, there is a local Makerspace that does have these tools, and people willing to teach neophytes how to use them. ?It may be worth checking to see if you have some such local resource. I've used a service called?Emachineshop.com?to make parts in the past, and while they are not exactly cheap, the prices are reasonable in quantities. ?They have a?piece of software that you can download, design the part, choose a material, click a button, and get a quote. ?Another click, a credit card payment, 2-3 weeks, and you have the part.? I'm sure there are other machine shops out there that would take a solidworks file. ?Perhaps someone with some Solidworks savvy could produce a design file, and we could organize a group buy? ?I could go for at least 10 parts. Dave On Tuesday, March 31, 2015 2:20 PM, "Smith, Wayne" <Wayne.Smith at warnerbros.com> wrote: I would try gluing an extender piece on the end of the existing capstan roller, perhaps using wood which is easy to shape.? Once you wrap it with a piece or two of heat shrink tubing, I would think that it would all stay in place.

You shouldn't under estimate the force on the capstan. I'm also not a fan of shrink tube, the it's to smooth and not durable. I've experimented a lot when figuring out how to make the QUICK40 modification (after I knew it was possible because Larry Afferton was selling QUICK 40 HP-85's). I found the best way to refurbish the rollers was using small rubber sleeves and grind them to the right size. The sleeves are glued to the capstan and have much more friction than shrink tubes. Which results in less jitter and a better and more constant tape transport. The exact measures of the capstan can be found at hp9845.net : http://hp9845.net/9845/tutorials/tapedrives/ -Rik roller, or

When I get a "round-tuit", I'll check what the arrangement is for the 264X terminal built-in tape drive. Perhaps they used a similar mechanism to the HP-85A and it could work with dc2000 tapes (after mod) as well. J

HP- The drive mechanism is the same as the ones used in the HP 9825 / 15 / 31 / 35 and 9845 . But this type of drive has issues about the running off the tape every once in a while. Somehow the tape end detection not always detects the end of a DC2000 etc.. It suspect the tape controller hardware, but I didn't researched it so it's for the best an educated guess. The internal controllers of the HP 9845 and 35 have an internal tape counter which gives an error when the tape is too long, so you can't initialize DC2000 tapes on a 9845 and 35. I've modified the drives in my 264X terminal but got no further than a basic test run, because the DMA card of my terminal doesn't function right and I've a small shortage of time ;) The tape speed of those terminals as almost twice the speed of a HP-85.Could also be a problem because the DC2000 tapes are wider and should have more head friction. May be I should pull the thing out of storage and look if I can get it working. -Rik

If the original dimensions can be ascertained, you might try JJ Short. They've done both a Flexowriter power roll and an IBM Executive platen for me with fresh rubber of the correct durometer. It's worth an inquiry, at least - Cory http://www.jjshort.com/index.php On Mar 31, 2015, at 4:03 PM, Rik Bos wrote:

once in a etc.. it's for the of coming issue not Jay, I think there is some confusion, the HP-85 QIC modification I wrote and placed at the HP-85 Yahoo group works. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hpseries80/files/QIC%20conversion/ The change of the resistor is necessary to increase the write current, to compensate the higher permeability of the DC2000 / QIC40/80 tapes. The HP 98X5 series and the HP 264X terminals are using another type of drive and different controllers then the HP-85. Issues here are: HP 9825 A/B/T and HP 9831A spurious tape roll-off's (tape winding of the reel when rewinding) HP 9835/45 all types, QIC tapes can't be formatted because the internal tape counter (controller chip) gets an overflow due to extended tape lenght. Can be solved by virtually shortening the tape by making new EOT holes. HP 264X basic test works but I did no extended testing because I got some DMA problems with the terminals, but the tape speed is much higher as the speed of the HP-85. Write current to use the QIC tapes instead of the original HP tapes is always higher, the article describes how to do this for the HP-85 and HP 9825/31 series. -Rik