My brother's car (which I currently drive) is around 8 years old. When it was bought, it had a CASSETTE AUDIO PLAYER installed. And as everyone knows, cassettes are just "almost" out dated. I usually have 2 or 3 cassettes in the glove compartment of the car, for musical entertainment purposes... But that never seems enough and I always wonder how it would be possible for me to hijack my car's stereo speakers and hook 'em up to my cell phone. Either that, or I record the music I like from my phone/pc onto record-able cassettes... which would be a pain to say the least.
Just a week back, on Friday the 15th of July, I sat in the back seat of a team-mate's car. She had a weird looking cassette player installed in her 10yr old Marutti 800. The player had an even weirder looking cassette installed which had a cable coming out of it, ending in a 3.5" audio jack. So my friend (who was in the front seat of the car) asked her casually what the cassette and wire combo were all about. And she explained that she connected it to her cellphone/ipod and it transmitted the sound to the car audio system.
I had just found what I had been looking for.... The perfect piece of electronics to satisfy my musical needs...
The very next day I hopped onto the net and hunted down "cassette mp3 player" on e-bay, and low and behold, there it was, and just for 105 bucks... Indian Rupees... Seriously... I was shocked... I immediately said "BUY NOW"... I clicked on the button that said "Buy now" as well :-p
The seller called me up 3hrs later informing me that the item was being shipped that very day and would reach me in max 2 days. Since the next day was Sunday, I expected the cassette to be in my possession by monday/tuesday max...
I received the cassette on monday. I opened the packaging only to find that the cassette had a small plastic piece, a part of its body, broken... :-(
I was angry initially, but then again, I thought, what does it matter... As long as it works, its fine...
So I propped the keys of the car into the ignition and switched the radio on, plopped the cassette into the player, connected the audio jack to my cellphone and hit play.... And wallah... I could play music from my mobile in my car... So it did work
All this time, I could hear some kind of plastic shaking sounds inside the cassette body. So like any curious engineer would do, I took a + screw driver and opened it up, to find a good number of gears, some of em out of place... and some small plastic pieces that had broken off from the inside of the cassette...
I was disappointed in the workmanship that went into making that cassette... But then again, I can't complain cause I paid a measly 100 rupees for it.
I put all the gears in place, taped up the broken pieces and screwed it all back together again...
The next day I took the car to work. On the return trip, my friend was handling the tape deck in the car. After dropping everyone to their respective homes, I headed home myself. On the way I realized that the sound coming out of the system was extremely soft. I couldn't figure it out until the next day.
I did some research only to find out that the "head" of the tape and that of the player weren't aligned. My friend must'v reversed the playing direction while in the car, and it was playing the "B" side of the tape. When I re-aligned the heads, by playing the "A" side in the player, the sound boomed out of the speakers... And problem 1 was solved.
The only other problem that still persists is the rattling sound of the plastic gears inside the cassette...
I'm going to try something out this evening. And will post any updates that I find... :)
Solving Problem 2
I opened up the tape, took a good look at the gear system, got some grease on my fingers and applied the lubricant at the interface between the gears. Put the tape back together again and propped it into the car deck.
But!!!!! :( :( :( .... Not the deck kept switching sides. Side A, ..... 2 seconds later ..... Side B ..... Side A... and it went on, till I couldn't take the clicking sound coming from switching of sides, that I switched the player off.
Seems like the grease was too thick to allow for the gears to move, well at least, the force that my deck had wasn't enough to get them to rotate.
Back to the drawing board..... Opened up the tape again, cleant off most of the grease and added some oil. Took a pencil, put it through one of the holes in the tape and turned it around until the gears were moving smoothly and all the oil had been distributed well.
Now I enjoy listening to wonderful music in my car :)
For those of you still using tape decks in your cars, don't fret... Go online and get one of these tapes off ebay. They are definitely a good buy!
Just a week back, on Friday the 15th of July, I sat in the back seat of a team-mate's car. She had a weird looking cassette player installed in her 10yr old Marutti 800. The player had an even weirder looking cassette installed which had a cable coming out of it, ending in a 3.5" audio jack. So my friend (who was in the front seat of the car) asked her casually what the cassette and wire combo were all about. And she explained that she connected it to her cellphone/ipod and it transmitted the sound to the car audio system.
I had just found what I had been looking for.... The perfect piece of electronics to satisfy my musical needs...
The very next day I hopped onto the net and hunted down "cassette mp3 player" on e-bay, and low and behold, there it was, and just for 105 bucks... Indian Rupees... Seriously... I was shocked... I immediately said "BUY NOW"... I clicked on the button that said "Buy now" as well :-p
The seller called me up 3hrs later informing me that the item was being shipped that very day and would reach me in max 2 days. Since the next day was Sunday, I expected the cassette to be in my possession by monday/tuesday max...
I received the cassette on monday. I opened the packaging only to find that the cassette had a small plastic piece, a part of its body, broken... :-(
I was angry initially, but then again, I thought, what does it matter... As long as it works, its fine...
So I propped the keys of the car into the ignition and switched the radio on, plopped the cassette into the player, connected the audio jack to my cellphone and hit play.... And wallah... I could play music from my mobile in my car... So it did work
All this time, I could hear some kind of plastic shaking sounds inside the cassette body. So like any curious engineer would do, I took a + screw driver and opened it up, to find a good number of gears, some of em out of place... and some small plastic pieces that had broken off from the inside of the cassette...
I was disappointed in the workmanship that went into making that cassette... But then again, I can't complain cause I paid a measly 100 rupees for it.
I put all the gears in place, taped up the broken pieces and screwed it all back together again...
The next day I took the car to work. On the return trip, my friend was handling the tape deck in the car. After dropping everyone to their respective homes, I headed home myself. On the way I realized that the sound coming out of the system was extremely soft. I couldn't figure it out until the next day.
I did some research only to find out that the "head" of the tape and that of the player weren't aligned. My friend must'v reversed the playing direction while in the car, and it was playing the "B" side of the tape. When I re-aligned the heads, by playing the "A" side in the player, the sound boomed out of the speakers... And problem 1 was solved.
The only other problem that still persists is the rattling sound of the plastic gears inside the cassette...
I'm going to try something out this evening. And will post any updates that I find... :)
Solving Problem 2
I opened up the tape, took a good look at the gear system, got some grease on my fingers and applied the lubricant at the interface between the gears. Put the tape back together again and propped it into the car deck.
But!!!!! :( :( :( .... Not the deck kept switching sides. Side A, ..... 2 seconds later ..... Side B ..... Side A... and it went on, till I couldn't take the clicking sound coming from switching of sides, that I switched the player off.
Seems like the grease was too thick to allow for the gears to move, well at least, the force that my deck had wasn't enough to get them to rotate.
Back to the drawing board..... Opened up the tape again, cleant off most of the grease and added some oil. Took a pencil, put it through one of the holes in the tape and turned it around until the gears were moving smoothly and all the oil had been distributed well.
Now I enjoy listening to wonderful music in my car :)
For those of you still using tape decks in your cars, don't fret... Go online and get one of these tapes off ebay. They are definitely a good buy!
