I’ve wondered for quite some time what it was that I would do with another blog/journal, but it’s the only thing that really merits the content for my domain name. I have finally settled on posting my slipping memories of the great accomplishments that I have made in my career in hopes of tattooing my legacy into the internet. That said, what you will find here is just that, my legacy with maybe an article or two of my liking. Enjoy.
Video Tape Loader repair
Working for Magnetix–the company that started Connextions–as an electronics technician, combined with Magnetix’s thirst for buying old equipment and putting it into production, there was always a welcomed challenge. Magnetix had purchased three VHS Video Tape Loaders from CDI as non-working units. Well… ok, one of them sort of worked if the mood phase was correct [kidding]. A video tape loader is, as the name implies, a robot-looking device that carefully, yet quickly, loads bulk VHS video tape into the VHS cassette ‘shell’. By virtue, they are very complex devices consisting of an electronic brain,a human interface, pneumatic rams, vacuum, and high-powered motors working in unison.
My job: get at least two of the systems functioning and use the third for parts. But, that wasn’t good enough for me. I had plenty of time to get these machines running because Magnetix was in progress with building the room for the new VHS duplication system. I had little else to do because most of the machines that I was assigned to were already working well within the limits of their production capacity. No sweat. 
Well, ok, no sweat until I actually tried to figure out how to thread the machine with video tape–did I mention that, early on, I didn’t have any documentation on these machines? And there was no going-to-the-manufacturer-for-parts/manuals because we’re talking about early 2000′s when this VHS project was started, not in the 1980′s when VHS duplication was at it’s peak.
After consulting a few others on what they thought the tape path would be, and subsequently finding out that we were all wrong [lol], I finally turned on the first machine and within seconds I had more video tape laying on the floor, and wrapped around the hubs of the motor, than I could reasonably remove in under 15-minutes. I struggled with this one machine for a few days before my boss walks in with a manual–albeit a beat up manual. There were more settings inside this system than I knew what to do with. I decided to set everything to the slowest, least productive settings so that I could form an opinion on what was going awry.
With the video loader, you typically have two hubs for holding bulk video tape, an incoming “hopper” for empty cassettes and an outgoing hopper for full, completed, cassettes. Once the machine is threaded with tape, a knife cuts the tape and vacuum holds it to the splicing block. A cassette is loaded into loading position, the closed-loop leader is extracted and put onto the splicing where it is spliced to the video tape with about a 1/2″ of splicing tape. Then, the bulk motor, which holds the bulk tape, and the cassette loading motor–turning the hub inside the cassette– work in unison to deliver tape at a constant tension. Since the size of the bulk tape gets smaller as the amount of cassettes are loaded, and the hub inside the cassette gets larger at the same time, it is important to compensate for these differences in order to keep the tension constant. This particular video loader depended on an optical encoder which counted the number of revolutions it took to load a specified length of tape and it could, therefore, calculate the amount of tape left on the hub, which would then affect the tension. There was another tension “check” in place which was a “swing arm”. The swing arm would ideally rest in the middle of it’s travel and as the motors ramped up and down the swing arm position would assist the logic in determining how much tension to apply to the tape during these transitions. As a technician, I could watch the swing arm to determine which setting needed to be adjusted in order to keep it in the middle of travel at all times.
Once I had the idea of how these video loaders were supposed to work, I got to work on these three that Magnetix purchased. I performed a basic triage to determine each machines level of severity and then focus was placed on the two least severe machines. I was able to get two of the three working, and I had a good idea on what was wrong with the third, but had no immediate means to fix it–the lead extractor was broken. Meanwhile, things had started to pick up with the audio cassette business, and I was getting involved in other projects aside from being given the task of managing the studio work, so Magnetix decided to hire a new technician specifically for the video business. The person that was hired was a go-getter, highly motivated to do whatever it took to get something working, but he just didn’t have the means to the end in terms of technical troubleshooting. He helped a great deal with getting the entire video department up and running, but when it came to these loaders, they preferred my touch.
One day my boss walks in and says he has a present for me: he managed to have a guy, who I only know by the name of “Sam”, to machine a brand new lead extractor for the third video loader. Our video-loading system was complete! With that small addition, the video department was now plumbed with three video loading stations.
What an amazing feat, to go from three video loaders–that I had never seen in my life before–that didn’t work, to three video loaders that work, and work well, was just amazing.
While this post focuses on the video loaders, I was also burdened with the task of creating control, audio and video wiring for the 350-VCRs and all of the amplifiers and Master duplication equipment. This means that I personally, and successfully, crimped over 700-BNC connectors to RG-6 cable. Luckily, I was able to convince management to use pre-wired RCA audio cables so that I didn’t have to solder 1400 of those.
I also implemented an automatic VHS spine and face label system which employed a Keyence dual-camera label alignment detection system. The throughput was simply staggering when compared to hand-labeling and the error-rate was fairly low using the camera system. All of this was purchased at an auction in non-working condition.
Andrew Loder does big things
When I was a kid, 14, I had so much ambition and so many things that I wanted to accomplish. From designing my next fort to building a three wheeled car, every day it seemed that I had a new idea. My grandmother heard them all, and never once did she tell me that I couldn’t do it… heck, she even helped me load the lumber into the truck when I built that first fort. As I got older the ambitions became more complex: a self-piloted aerobot that measured the height of waves, various robots for the company I used to work for… just anything one could imagine, I always knew that it could be done if enough thought and resources were put forth.
All this is why the story about Adrew Loder, a 17-year old who built an electric car, made me smile from ear to ear. I was proud of him and what he did not only in terms of the car, but for the recognition he got for doing it without any formal eduction. It doesn’t take a 4-year course to make somebody smart, it just takes willful hard work, dedication, and persistence; when one thing doesn’t work, try something else and keep trying until something works. Thomas Edison was probably best known for trying something until he found something that worked. After all, Mr. Edison did endure at least 3,000 light bulb filaments that didn’t work until he found one that did.
Congratulations, Mr. Loder.
