Lately I acquired some HP 9865 cassette units and a HP 9821A three cassette
drives suffered from 'slow running'
I found out the LDR's used in the EOT sensor are causing this behavior, the
used LDR's are from the NSL314 type which is practically unobtainable.
Right. Thannks for that bit of information
The NSL314 is a IR-sensitive CDSe type LDR, replacing it with a standard low
resistance LDR doesn't do the trick, the LDR needs to have a resistance
lower then ~5k at low light.
My first thougth upon reading this (before I read to thened of the
message) was that the EOT ensor jsut has to prouce a logic-level signal
dependant on whether the tape is transparent or not. it should surely be
possible to tweak things around the 741 op-amp to get it to work.
The most of the cassette drives also suffer from bad sensor bulb, replacing
the bulb by a white LED doesn't give enough light to do the trick.
I am suprised, given that the original buib is not that bright. Have you
tried an IR LED? AFAIK the bulbs are still available (I beleive Farnell
113-9296 is suitable)
The combination white LED and new LDR isn't
working because the LDR
resistance isn't getting low enough.
The sensor amplifier circuit needs to be modified to work correct, I did
this by creating Wheatstone's bridge by adding a grounding resistor to the
LDR input.
Adding a series resistor of 10k to LDR input and changing the feedback
resistor from 18k2 to 100k made the amplifier work correct with the
combination white LED and 'normal' CDS type LDR.
I made some pictures from this fix which can be found at my flickr page :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/sets/72157630819381098/
I will take a look. Thanks.
-tony