I am working on a recycle stereo cassette tape player turning it into an amp for my CBG.. I have been trying to figure out the wiring for the tape head I have a yellow, pink and white on the tape head.As you can see on the plug that plugs into the circuit board somewhere in the middle it picks up a black.it is heavier gauge than the other 3 wires, so I am figuring that is the (-) .for all 3 wires How do I figure out which wires to make-up to turn the stereo into mono so both speakers will work to send to my 1/4" jack for my git.If it was 2 wires, easy squeezy, one wire left channel, one wire right channel and the black is GND. The odd wire has got me confused. The way I am understanding this setup, I unplugged the tape motor, so when I push the play button that will turn circuit on and it is still an AM/FM stereo radio.Not that that is the main objective, but it should.
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O.K. Folks, here it is. John a multimeter was pretty much useless to me on this one. I used SWAG and trial and error. I intended to solder jumper wires from head to jack. That big black wire had me lost. I unsoldered the wires and skinned the insulation off the grey cablelike wire that runs from head to chassis.The big black wire was a bunch of strands of wire. It was a shield for the other wires. Now I am going. Based on Wayfinders guess the yellow was the (-) for the head. I took a piezo disc and started touching the leads. With the power on I touched the black on the piezo to the yellow wire on head. I then touched the red on the piezo to alternately to the pink and white. The speakers screamed with feedback each time. I had got it right on first guess, but I had to keep alternating the wires around. I would get various humming noises but not like the scream when the piezo was hooked up correctly due to the fact I was so near the speakers. I didn't try every possible combination, but enough to feel fairly sure I had the combination.
Now knowing what is what, I feel comfortable enough to solder about a foot of red wire to the pink and same with the white. I know what you are thinking and you are right. Since this a stereo head and git is mono, I could tie the white and pink together, but I want to keep circuits separate to the jack for no valid reason. I now solder a piece of black onto the yellow.and drill hole on radio case for jack. Now I turn the thing on and I get the most bodacious hum you can imagine with none of the wires even hooked to anything. It was way late and I was tired. Need sleep.
Now I am ready to go see if I can figure out a way to shield wires. Since the wires were not hooked to anything and was humming like crazy, it has to be unshielded wires. That is where I am in this project. You folks that know the real answer, please keep the giggling down to a minimum. See ya later. BH
Alright here is the results folks.Complete with before and after shots. I hope you can figure out which is which. I was using the A/C plug for power and it doesn't have ground wire over a workbench with florescent lights just as you said Wayfinder. This is how I wired and shielded this thing. I took the wires and stretched them out on sticky foil tape. It is a duct tape. I stretched the wires about 1/2' apart and made sure they were tacked. I then put another piece of foil tape over the wires and the other piece of tape. I then smoothed the tape and wire sandwich out leaving the shield wire outside. I folded the tape in half lengthwise. Then I folded it again. Then I twisted it to where it was kind of round and small enough to route it to the jack in the side. I then twisted the shield wires with enough wire soldered to it to get to the end. I then soldered the wires to the jack. I turned the thing on and it was humming enough that I was more than mildly irritated considering all the trouble I had gone through. As soon as I plugged the git in it quit humming and that baby is cocked,locked and readdy to rock. I can even turn up the preamp and can get a wild overdrive thing going. There is a unbelievable amount of sustain. I am really happy with this. Beats my Honeytone to say the least, but it won't fit in the case like the Honeytone will. I'll gladly make the trade.This thing will run off of 8 "D" Cell batteries and I unplugged the tape deck motor, so no motor noise and unnecessary battery drain.This was a bunch of work as this thing played in my shop for 20 years so it took 2 days to get grime and glue fingerprints and overspray from finishes off. May have been overkill with the tape because that stuff is hard to use. there is no repositioning. You will have to tear something up once it touches.
The end result and a couple of my gits and my case are also attached. Supposed to snow tomorrow so everybody stays home. This is Alabama, what can I say. Going to start some LPG's I put off starting to build my amp.
To help combat humming you can twist the wires you add together. This means twist the insulated parts of the wires together only. Also you can create some what of a shield by wrapping the wires twisted together with a strip of tin foil and grounding one end of it to the radios chassis ground.
I wanted to answer you back Corbin so you could see what I came up with. Several here answered but I was at work at the time.What I came up with is probably not any better than the aluminum foil and way more trouble, but drives like a new Cadillac. Thanks BH
First guess based on browsing the web on other cassette tape hacks, the two wires together on the left of the tape head are the left and right channel signal wires and the one by itself on the right of the tape head is the signal ground.
the thicker black wire is probably chassis ground.
confirm this with a multimeter.
BeetleJuice! would say to use alligator clip wires on your CBG and connect SLEEVE wire to the boom box ground and while playing touch the alligator clipped TIP wire to each of the 3 wires on the head (with the boom box in play mode) and you will hear yourself when touching L or R.
Here is a guess: Take a multimeter and check each to ground. The one with the highest resistance wins?
Try each connected to a jack, see how each sounds... oh, and let us know so we can pull it off!