Instead of the Extended Stereo Pye box I was looking at, I’ve picked up a Hitachi TRK-5280! Well, I’m saying ‘instead of’ at the moment… Anyway, this one definitely needs belts and as far as I can see at the moment I have three options. The dirt cheap big bag of generic bands, the DeskTech kit of belts specifically for my Hitachi, or to purchase the three belts individually. Are DeskTech belts likely to last (I don’t anticipate needing a big stock of belts of various sizes for future projects)? The kit seems to be almost 1/3rd of the price of buying individual belts elsewhere…
That looks like a good quality old Hitachi from my Google results. I would buy the "proper" belts but that's just me. Perhaps you could get the belts individually if you have exact measurements or can find that info on Google searches. What brand is best? I have no idea. I would like to know myself what individual belts are top quality. (As an aside, it is good to have a pack of those generic belts though, just to keep on hand "in case" you score a dumpster find boom box etc., and want to get it working for testing correct belt sizes etc.,)
I always go for specific belts from a known source, I'd hate to spend an evening changing belts and they don't work correctly. https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/hitachi-trk-5280e-stereo-radio-recorder-april-2019.4006/
Thanks for the input Gents, I had a bit of a dig around to find out a bit about this box - there was much more online info on this than the Philips/Pye/Loewe/Dux/etc. box that brought me here. Anyway, I picked it up this morning and initial thoughts are that it’s heavy! In a hewn from rock kinda way… Kids and wife are in bed now, so I’m away to pull it out for a further poke around - I may even get some pics. I ordered the DeskTech belt set after a bit of Googling earlier and also found a 5pin Din to 3.5 stereo jack lead that I used with an old B&O. Fingers crossed the pin outs are the same and I can plug in something useful…
Initial signs are OK rather than great. Tape deck is making noises, but nothing is spinning - I’ll see what belts do for this. No light on the radio dial, must check that this should illuminate. Only the left hand channel playing on FM radio in stereo mode, but both speakers playing when switched to mono. It’s pretty clean, but could do with a good going over, especially the knobs and fluted areas. I didn’t bother playing with the line-in/ Din plug - that can wait. The sound on FM was deep and warm.
Ditto. Look what I found. I thought you might want to read the specifications of this as I have one in the box that model the ( H ) model in my YouTube channel cassette2go I repaired it and put it back in the box. decentman4you2007@gmail.com
Here read my thread I started yesterday, and I plan on finishing today and I've already showed what belts this takes and measured them. See my pictures and thread. Good day. http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/hitachi-trk-5280h-repair-restore-service.9718/