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Coleco Adam tape drive clicking

falter

falter

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Jan 22, 2011
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Location
Vancouver, BC
Brought my Adam out of storage for a bit and for a while things seemed to work - loaded up DDPs okay. However I noticed as time went on the drive became more and more erratic. Now it seems unable to actually drive a tape. When you reset with a tape in, it just clicks endlessly. If you pop the tape out, the drive wheels start spinning like crazy. Is that just the motor getting weak?
 
Check out the rubber parts (belts in particular) and replace as necessary.
 
Falter Ijust picked up my first Adsm a couple weeks back. Did you get this sorted?everyone told me to check the rubber wheel first and mines fine. I just have no hard sector tapes to try on the drive.
 
I'm still trying to figure it out. As near as I can tell the belts and such are good.. but it still clicks endlessly. Only once in a while, usually after a long rest, will it actually start reading the tape. When it does its quite vigorous and reads successfully.. so I'm not sure I have a motor issue. Not really sure what it is exactly. But of course these drives were known to be sketchy even in their day..
 
Have you lubed the flywheel and gears yet?

Also there is a gear with a rubber drive wheel in it , think its called the encoder or decoder wheel. It has a rubber on it. If that rubber goes bad, the drive will click endlessly. Upside, You can find hotwheel cars with rubber wheels, and those will fix the issue. So not end of the world or expensive to fix, but will have to source a toy hotwheels sized car with rubber wheels.
 
Last edited:
twolazy said:
Have you lubed the flywheel and gears yet?

Also there is a gear with a rubber drive wheel in it , think its called the encoder or decoder wheel. It has a rubber on it. If that rubber goes bad, the drive will click endlessly. Upside, You can find hotwheel cars with rubber wheels, and those will fix the issue. So not end of the world or expensive to fix, but will have to source a toy hotwheels sized car with rubber wheels.
Click to expand...
Haven't lubricated.. not sure what the best lubricant is for these?

I did do the hot wheel car fix on this drive and the rubber does still look good.. don't think that's my issue here...
 
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