 | Auxiliary Spooling Mechanism |
The Auxiliary Spooling Mechanism (ASM) was an option for the 66 Mk II, 77 Mk II, and 77 Mk III tape machines, increasing the reel capacity to 10.5". The ASM was mounted above the tape transport in a rack or case, the dummy plug in the ASM socket at the rear of the transport was removed and the cable from the ASM was plugged into the ASM socket.
This I believe is the earliest version of the Auxiliary Spooling Mechanism as no reel size switch was provided. While reel size / tape tension was not generally an issue because if you wanted to run small spools all you had to do was unplug the ASM and reconnect the dummy plug in the tape transport so the original spool motors could be used once again. The lack of a spool size switch would have been an issue when a tape machine was supplied with spooling motors only in the Auxiliary Spooling Mechanism and none in the transport, two 66 Mk II machines in my collection were built this way.
NAB Spool adaptors for the Mk II series ASM came in three pieces and weren't the best when loading a tape with the machine vertical, ie rack mounted. The adaptor has a back plate which locks into the spool turntable, this plate also has a pin to locate the NAB reel stopping it from rotating with respect to the plate. A top cover holds the NAB reel in place then a standard spool cap locks the whole assembly to the spool turntable.
With the introduction of the Rola 33B Mk II which is a 10.5" replay only machine a reel size switch was added allowing the tape tension to be reduced when small spools were used.
The Rola 77 Mk III also had an Auxiliary Spooling Mechanism with two changes, one good and one bad. The good change was a one piece NAB adaptor which is much easier to use. The bad change was the Mk III ASM was not electrically compatible with the Mk II series unit, this in itself is not a bad thing but the same type of octal plug was used on both the Mk II and Mk III series units. So if you connect a transport and ASM from different Mks expect some sparks when try to operate them together!! (Don't do it).
