Fixing a dead Fostex 260 Multitracker 4-track recording studio

The paucity of google hits on the Fostex 260 tells me that there are not a lot of 'em out there any more. After all, it's an analog tape device. Nevertheless, I recently was able to repair mine; and hoping that this blog will be scanned by Google, I decided to record brief notes on how I did it, for any other folks out there with the same problem.

The problem was that the tape transport wasn't working. Everything else was OK -- pots, amps, mixer, etc. I opened it up and discovered a blown 2A 250V fuse. I replaced it, and that one immediately blew, too. Looking around the innards, I noticed that there was a bodacious electrolytic capacitor in the power supply section. It's a 10,000mfd 25VDC low-profile capacitor. On checking the board tracings, it was clear that the cap was early in the circuit protected by the fuse. That became my Object of Interest, and sure enough, it turned out to be the faulty component.

My local Radio Shack didn't have 10,000mfd caps, so I bought two 4700mfd axial caps, connected them in parallel, and wired them into the circuit. It got a little bit complicated because there's not enough room inside for the two caps bundled together. I just cut a hole into the case and ran leads outside to accommodate the cap. So, it's ugly. So what? It works.