eject tape without power?

[Peter Svensson]

Hey

My Canon A1 is totally dead. I will need too give it to my supplier once back home, but before now I REALLY need to take out the tape as I need to hand it over to the company who hired me for the job of my movie. Is it possible to eject a tape without power (is there maybe some secret button to push or something???)

Please anyone
Peter

[Bill Busby]

Are you sure you don't have the standby/lock switch engaged?

Anyway, mine will eject and load without being powered up, as long as there's a power source connected (battery or A/C)

[Bill Pryor]

Same here. If the battery is loaded, it will eject.
I agree--check that pesky standby/lock switch.

[Chris Soucy]

Think this may be an issue with PAL A1's.

Mine will mostly not eject a tape if the power switch is set to "OFF".

No, it ain't an issue with the "Standby" switch.

Switch it to any mode you like other than "Off" and hey presto, out comes the tape.

Switch it to "Off", and 9 times out of 10, it will just sit there, ignoring you.

I long since ceased worrying about it and just took it for a Canon "feature".


CS

[Kees van Duijvenbode]

I have a PAL A1 and my tapes come out whatever position the Power dial is. Als long as there's a battery or the netadapter in it .

[Peter Svensson]

Well, my camera is broke, meaning no power is working at all. but I need to get the cassette out, is it possible?

[Alan Craig]

I am sure it is going to be a trip to the service centre but for the record my A1 will reject a tape in any dial position wether it is in standby or lock position
as long as there is a battery in there.
Regards Alan

[Chris Soucy]

Having posted the "9 out of 10" comment above, I got to wondering just what in the dickens was going on.

The more I pondered it, the stranger it seemed, so, finally, I decided to investigate this strange behaviour in some depth.

It turns out this issue with my camera isn't really an issue. There are/ were two culprits at work with the "non eject" syndrome.

Both fall foul of the "tape door fully open" switch on the camera.

The first, which was quite a suprise, is the hand strap. Maybe I've just got small hands and have it done tighter than most, but the door will not fully open unless physically pushed to deform the strap.

The second is the cable from the Sennheiser EW100 G2 receiver to the XLR CH 2 socket. It is so routed that it actually just resists the door opening by a few grams, enough to prevent it entering the "fully open" position.

Both situations cured by giving the door a good push into said position.

"Push" performed, tape ejects, every time.

It seems the 1 in 10 times it worked before was when I had already tried once and failed, and given the door a yank in frustration on the second round.

So, if there is power to the mechanism, it will eject. If not, it won't.


CS

PS. In case anyone's wondering why it always opened when powered up, it's because I would attemp to eject the tape, fail, close the door again, turn on camera, then open the door again in some frustration (thus operating the switch) and hey presto. Just goes to show what you can do when you're not thinking what you're doing.

[Jonathan Shaw]

Peter,
Why don't you call a Canon service center and see if they know of a way. I believe that it is possible on the Sony Z1... you never know they may have a secret.

Jon

[Luc De Wandel]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

Having posted the "9 out of 10" comment above, I got to wondering just what in the dickens was going on.

The more I pondered it, the stranger it seemed, so, finally, I decided to investigate this strange behaviour in some depth.

It turns out this issue with my camera isn't really an issue. There are/ were two culprits at work with the "non eject" syndrome.

Both fall foul of the "tape door fully open" switch on the camera.

The first, which was quite a suprise, is the hand strap. Maybe I've just got small hands and have it done tighter than most, but the door will not fully open unless physically pushed to deform the strap.

The second is the cable from the Sennheiser EW100 G2 receiver to the XLR CH 2 socket. It is so routed that it actually just resists the door opening by a few grams, enough to prevent it entering the "fully open" position.

Both situations cured by giving the door a good push into said position.

"Push" performed, tape ejects, every time.

It seems the 1 in 10 times it worked before was when I had already tried once and failed, and given the door a yank in frustration on the second round.

So, if there is power to the mechanism, it will eject. If not, it won't.


CS

PS. In case anyone's wondering why it always opened when powered up, it's because I would attemp to eject the tape, fail, close the door again, turn on camera, then open the door again in some frustration (thus operating the switch) and hey presto. Just goes to show what you can do when you're not thinking what you're doing.

The hand strap is a real design flaw. If you have thin hands, like me, and you adjust the strap, the door won't open completely. This ruins the 'automatic opening mechanism'. I now have to open the door manually and then - luckily - the tape container pops out. But there should be a warning in the manual about this! As a consequence my XH-A1 only opens the tape compartment when power is on.