DECTape head problem

[Gary Oliver]

On 2/8/22 13:04, Ron Pool via cctech wrote:
>> So it sermsdectape heads are special. I don’t think Dec would have the desire to make them internally so they probably contractef with a company already set up to do that. Who were the big tape head manufacturers at that time? Does anyone know?
> A photo of the back of a TU56 DECtape head can be seen at https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/pics/head_label.shtml?small .
> The head has a label on it that reads:
>    Western Magnetics
>    Glendale Calif.
>    Record
>    7282
>
> I've never seen a TU56 in person and have no idea if they have separate read, write, and erase heads or some other combo.  The "Record" notation on the above head's label hints to me this might be a write head.
>
> I found that and other DECtape photos at https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/tu56.shtml .
>
> -- Ron
>   

Mine also says Western Magnetics, Glendale CA, but does not have a part 
number.  Just serial numbers.  At least I assume they are serial numbers 
"19984" and "19976".

I've seen evidence that a few souls in the 50s managed to make magnetic 
heads from scratch (heck, Ivan Sutherland is claimed to have made a 
functioning magnet drum storage device when he was in 12th grade,) so 
give the modern world of CNC milling and availability of every manner of 
sheet metal via Internet searchers, I figured their just *might* be a 
possibility of growing one of these from scratch - tolerances (other 
than head gap) appear pretty generous, but I just don't have enough info 
to crack what the coil construction is to be.  There may be enough 
information to do a stab at it, but I'm not sure I have the energy (or 
even the skill) to give it a credible effort.

I've seen evidence of 'head repair' services, but I doubt they include 
digging out the wires from solid epoxy.

Any information available would be appreciated.

-Gary



-- 
-Gary