That's right ... all of us who love these Disc Drives or DD walkmans may never have wondered if Sony is the inventor of this tape transport system ... or vice versa Sony has made the system its own by seeing that of others. .... I'm talking about the mechanical system of the engine that without belt but directly on the Capstan disc by means of a small pulley on the crankshaft makes everything run perfectly ..... A few weeks ago we were discussing here on the DD genealogy forum to make a table ... I must say excellent idea but perhaps we do not have all the information we need to start from the first DD mechanic because maybe it is not Sony who made the first DD system ... The suspicion or the doubt came to me a few days ago putting some photos back in the folders to better classify them on the PC ... looking at one of these I thought there was something very similar ... but since the photo belongs to a Duke brand recorder I would say even older than the famous TPS-L2 perhaps early years '70 or mid '70 (I don't know anything about this recorder, I can't find any information) I asked myself the question ... if this recorder is before the TPS-L2 then first of all the famous DD and uses this mechanism .... Who invented the DD system? ..... Obviously Sony has perfected the system by driving the engine with a quartz and doing it right in the 80s ....... this is the photo that made me take ... What do you think? ...
Today I disassembled ... being old construction and heavy it took some time to get to open it completely .... I also remind you that before disassembling it I tried its operation and despite the controls are hard to move it goes to PLAY and yes he hears but cannot make the cassette move fast forward and backward ... Seeing the photos you will understand why ... but don't be impressed by the rust ... look at the movement mechanism….
The engine is a rocker arm.There is a spring that keeps the crankshaft pulley always in contact with the disc
…. And 6 Volt power supply the operation is identical to a D6c .... The rubber of the disc is its original .. I think it is the first time that it is disassembled like this after 50 and maybe more years
Another clue .. on the back of the speaker under the dirt you see the word Pioneer but it could be just the component
Thanks for the extra photos which make the arrangement clearer. Very few ideas, including the Walkman are completely new (just Google Stereobelt). The drive arrangement you show isn't too different from the idler drives used on turntables before belt drive became popular. In fact I have seen some 1960s portable turntable that used the exact arrangement you show. Proving that few ideas are new I also read that the first Lear 8 Track used direct drive onto the capstan, with a motor with the stator in the middle and the amature rotating around it. Most people would think that is much more recent concept.
You said well ... before Philips invented the K7 and not just the mechanics to be able to record and listen to it .... there were only turntable radios and reel to reel recorders ... and I think the producers at that time before it is looked at what was already available to make the new k7 mechanicsso it is not excluded that the concept of the mechanics of the turntable ended up in a cassette player ... As for this recorder ... I would say identical to this Westinghouse ... now not I would say nonsense but Westinghouse was not owned by Toshiba .. ?? perhaps in the days of these recorders not
I haven't looked at a Sony DD up close but yes these just seem to be different types of idler drive, this one is really neat looking, I love the imbedded rubber contact surface. I can't remember if there's any patent info posted on the Sony DD, but I feel like I remember a drawing or two. I think a neat video idea would be moving through history with the different drives and comparing sonic specs. As far as the Westinghouse, we see a lot of these 60's - early 70's players over here, my guess is these companies were rounding out their offerings. Larger brand names would have dedicated "mom and pop" stores that would carry anything popular at the time. Westinghouse used to have a ton of appliances and tape recorders would have fit in nicely.
Very interesting pictures with the early disc drive mechanism. Given how the PCB looks in that unit: without solder mask, rounded traces and solder on the traces indicate it is from the early 70s. That is well before SONY made its DD line (the TC-D5, which is the first DD was launched in 1978). Probably that explains why SONY decieded to patent the design, as @Machaneus pointed out in the Walkmans designers thread. They feared their competition would start to use the mechanism for its extremely low wow&flutter, so decided to apply for a patent.
... having said that it makes a lot more sense ... it is very likely that Sony did ... I also think it is from the early 70s ... looking at the switches they look like those of an old electromechanical pinball machine
@Silver965 Thanks for sharing these pictures. It will be a fun project, update us with the progress if you are going to restore this unit.
I'm not sure if that main lever is save-able, all that pitting will cause a lot of interference with movement. I do love the look, even if it's a shelf queen they still look amazing, you can't go wrong with perforated steel.
I do not think I can repair it for now I have other projects in the field ... it was opened only out of curiosity and to understand how it works ... if I can remove the rust I will post more photos ... the important thing that we understood that before the Sony this type of mechanism was already present and worked
