Tascam RC-71 Remote Cable Replace with Cat 5

I purchased a Tascam RC-71 remote on ebay to go with my Tascam 48 reel to reel recorder. When it arrived the remote was not working. After wiggling the cable every way I could and still nothing, I noticed some small nicks in the cable that were suspect.

Next step was to take apart the remote and see if I could find the problem. After removing the cover on the remote end, I tested the connections between the plug at the recorder end of the cable and the remote end.

Tascam RC-71 main board
Testing Pins with meter

There were several pins not making a connection on both ends, no doubt, this was the problem. I downloaded a pin out diagram from the Dr Zee Workshop for the RC-71. From looking at the diagram I needed 5 pair or 10 wires to make the connections from the plug end to the remote.

Dr Zee Workshop Pinout
Dr Zee Pinout

 

 

Soldering iron and Solder sucker

Now the hard part, the connections would have to be de-soldered from the remote end and the ethernet cable soldered in.

My notes on connections

Before I started, I made a hand written diagram denoting colors and pins to connect the new cable. Then I cut the plug end off with about a foot of the original cable remaining and carefully connected the Ethernet cable to the remaining cable using solder and heat shrink tubing. After testing pin by pin with the pin-out diagram, I was ready to test with the recorder.

 

Once again the remote was working!!! A successful project completed!!