Subject: Another rubber capstan turns to mush

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 3 20:00:00 2003

Hello All - bah, was just playing with my QIC drive, a WangTek
5150ES (Using dos tar!) and halfway thru the first listing
tape stops. Turns out the rubber what drives the tape has gotten
very soft. Anybody have a box full of cheap replacements?
(pic here: http://mail.schillernet.us/wangtek/ ).  I'd like to
keep it working, but paying for depot service ( like
http://www.eds-sales.com/EDS-QICPG.htm ) on a 150Mb drive
is, uh, a questionable investment.

--Chuck

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 3 22:24:00 2003

> very soft. Anybody have a box full of cheap replacements?

Oops... it appears that you didn't use the /LCV (lowest capstan
viscosity) flag ;-) to prevent the tar command from attempting to turn
the rubber capstan into a tarry substance.  :-(

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

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From: Chuck Swiger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon May 5 08:22:00 2003

> the rubber capstan into a tarry substance.  :-(

No, sure didn't. But that dos tar DOES have the oddity of having an
-N flag for 'binary', hardly anything saves correctly if you leave it 
out.   Anyway, think I'll try auto fuel hose and see what happens. 

--Chuck

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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon May 5 09:05:00 2003

>out.   Anyway, think I'll try auto fuel hose and see what happens. 

   Fual line is too hard and slick. See if you get some surgical rubber
tubing. I've been told that it works pretty well. In my experience you have
to match the o.d. pretty closely and also have to pay attention that the
roller is actually round. Some tubing has a seam in it and it's hard to get
the roller to be perfectly round. I try to keep the o.d. within +/- .002"
and keep the runout within .002". Let us know your results.

    Joe

    Joe