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[audio cassette player] Are both or only one "axis" supposed to drive the tape? (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/techsupport@lemmy.world
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I finally bought myself and old audio cassette player. The insides look crazy clean and the drive belts seem neither loose nor dried out.

But!

It's only the left "axis" - or whatever it's called - that's spinning and thus "driving/forwarding" the tape. With "left", I mean the one that rolls up the tape as it's being played. Looking inside, the right axis is not even actuated. It's just a "dead"/unmoving part. Is this how they all work?

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[–] 2 points 1 month ago

I had one where the feeding spindle was smooth and fixed.

The only reasons to have the feeding spindle grip the gear and move is to rewind the tape and/or collect the tape in auto-reversing decks.

Many portable players didn't have rewind/auto-reverse fir cost reasons, so the feeding spindle would be just a fixed pin.

So, why not get rid of it? Well, to prevent the feeding roll from wobbling and causing jams or damage to the cassete or tape.

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