[dorkbotpdx-blabber] musician with an emergency!

[Barton C Massey]

Sorry to hear this!

If your recorder is brand new, it's almost certainly
waranteed.  Your best bet is to contact the store or
manufacturer and return it for a working unit.

Failing that, the first step is to open it up and take a
look.  This may void the warranty, so see step 1 first.  You
or someone you trust needs to figure out how to get the case
open and physically look at the insides.  If something
obviously broke loose or a cable obviously came off a
connector or something, you may be able to just put it
right, close it up and have it work.  You're probably
looking for something heavy and poorly-mounted that broke
off its mount.  Epoxy and/or soldering will likely be
necessary in this case.  If the unit has a fuse, this is one
of the first things to check.  If the unit has a power cord
that goes inside the machine, another thing to check early
is whether it is properly stress-reliefed or whether it
might have popped loose inside.

Otherwise, you'll need someone with electronics expertise
and preferably with access to detailed technical
documentation on the unit to poke at it for you, I'm afraid.
This kind of problem can be pretty hard to debug.

    Bart Massey
    bart at cs.pdx.edu

In message <946239.51238.qm at web32205.mail.mud.yahoo.com> you wrote:
> Hello there, I'm new to this list and I have a big problem
> guys: I got a brand new 4-track recording device (that
> records to casette tape) that I was really excited
> about. The dog knocked it on the floor and now none of the
> lights will turn on. I don't have enough money to take it
> to some fancy electronics repair shop. All I want to do is
> make music!! Seems like something kind of simple that
> happened to it, it will still rewind and fast forward but
> it won't do anything else.  Please, please please give me
> advice! Thank you,
> 
> Gretchen