Several folks at a recent VCF workshop were discussing ways to restore QIC drives with new rollers. Who was that, and has anyone made recent progress?
Summary for the impatient: old tape drives have "rubber" rollers that turn to goo. Tape drives need rollers to pull the tape at constant speed. Find companies that either sell replacements, or custom-repair your old roller. Tapes are still a thing, moreso for audio. This is an old problem, with any cartridge tape-driver "pressure roller". The rubber (silicone) either turns to goo or becomes hard and brittle. The rubber roller presses against the tape capstan. The capstan is the metal roller that rotates at constant speed. Rubber wheel and capstan, pull the magnetic tape past the heads at constant tape speed for recording/playback. I show some of this technology. Web search "tape drives site:retrotechnology.com". Digital tapes are out of favor, but there's always someone producing some kind of digital tape drive. There's always a need to read old tapes. The repair solutions are: 1) buy a capstan of correct size and bearing from a company that sells them for your brand/model of tape drive. or 2) send your roller to a company, that molds new silicone around your old roller's bearing; milled to the correct diameter. Web-search for "cartridge tape drive rollers". Pinch rollers, drive wheels. In principle, one could mold 2-part silicon to reproduce a roller. Possibly, find some other roller and transfer the rubber part. Few know how to do such work, err, successfully. It's a discussion topic (witness this thread). These companies are mostly supported by audio tape enthusiasts, but also by customers operating old digital cartridge-tape drives. There's other applications. Regards Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net