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THE INSIDE OF THE SONY BE-V50 REWINDER This rewinder/eraser is one of the best options for rewinding your irreplaceable Beta cassettes. Shown above is the Sony BE-V50 with the top of its case removed. As you can see Sony put a lot of thought and engineering into this little marvel. Starting in the upper left corner is the motor and rubber drive belt. Below it is the pulley and drive gear. Together these components turn the supply (rewind) reel that mates up with the one inside the cassette. Rewinding begins after a cassette has been inserted in the unit and the start button is pressed. It can be stopped at any time by pressing the stop/eject bar indicated in the lower right. This also ejects the cassette. This winder can also erase your tapes and to prevent accidental erasure of protected cassettes there is an upright (pin) located just below the cassette hole. It is shown in the upper right of the photo. If the pin protrudes into a protected cassette the erasure slide button is prevented from moving. This slide will be shown in a later photo. Click on the picture. Shown now are the main components that control the rewinding and erasing functions. Pointed out on the left is the erasure magnet assembly. When requested it rotates from its parked location, shown in the center, and slightly touches the tape as it travels back onto the supply reel inside the cassette. In the photo inserts the magnet is shown above left with the case removed and then erasing a tape (shown as red in the bottom insert with the case in place). The erasure prevention upright is indicated again in the lower right inset. You can defeat this safety feature by putting tape over the cassettes record protection hole. If you choose to erase a cassette the slide button locks in place and only releases when you eject the cassette. On the top right is indicated the end of tape (rewind) sensor. This is a very sensitive coil that changes impedance when the metal foil leader at the end of the tape passes by. This is the same detection method is used in the machines. The electronics uses the foil to stop the rewinding action when the tape reaches the end. It turns off the motor and closes a solenoid next to the take-up reel located on the right. This presses a friction pad made into a stop brake which halts the rotation and also prevents the tape from spilling inside the cassette. When the long blue cassette release bar in the fronts is pressed a tape slack damper rotates and turns the supply reel forward a small amount to insure that the tape stays snug inside the cassette as it is being ejected. This keeps it correctly located inside the cassette loading pocket. Sony did their homework here because it is important that the tape be situated properly inside the triangular loading area of the cassette once it has been rewound. This is where it MUST be before being threaded into the tape path of the machine. If it gets out of place here and the tape threads incorrectly it can cause all kinds of operational problems. This is why I strongly recommend that you place your hand on top of the cassette as you press the ejection bar. This will keep the cassette from coming up forcefully when it is released by the cassette clasps. If there is any negative to this beautiful rewinder it is the fact that, as I pointer out, the operator (you) can cause an issue if the cassette vigorously pops up and the tape gets out of place in the loading pocket. (Regardless of how great any device is it can always be defeated in some way.) It is a good practice to train yourself to turn the cassette over after removing it and making sure that the tape is positioned properly in the pocket. The danger is just too great not to remember this final little step. Click the picture once more. Here the run and battery condition light is indicated. It illuminates when the winder is in operation and starts to dim as the batteries become depleted (when the unit is running on the eight batteries stored in the bottom compartment). Also noted here us the slide switch that locks to the right when erase is being performed. Note: the BE-V50 is not the first rewinder Sony made. Check out the AR-700 found in FUN FACT in the rewinders description panel. |