I love SUGAR

yammi99

Member (SA)
Jun 13, 2018
101
39
28
Germany
One of my latest arrivals - the Toshiba RT-SW7 from the "SUGAR" series.

It came as usual, dirty, tape decks not working, crackling sound with low volume. Fortunately, these pieces are easy to maintain. The cassette mechanism is easy to remove and change of belts is no problem. Tape speed could be adjusted with alignment potentiometers on the main board.
I cleaned the volume and tone potentiometers with tuner spray and after one night the sound came back without noise and with full volume.
At the end some polishing on the outside and now it is my SUGAR :-D
Toshiba RT-SW7 e1.jpg
 

yammi99

Member (SA)
Jun 13, 2018
101
39
28
Germany
After I had the RT-SW7 prepared, I have seen, that there was a similar piece of “Sugar” available in the eighties – the RT-SW9. I was thinking, I should have one for my collection. So I got a very cheap piece from Japan, declared as junk.
My first impression was, that it seems to be really junk. It was completely dirty, filled with dust bunnies, no sound and the tone sliders could not be moved. And, of course, tape was not working.

i-img1200x900-1565741669ej471g1059974.jpg
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Started a deep cleaning and applied a new belt. For the volume potentiometer and the tone sliders I used again the tuner spray. This is magic! After one night the sound came back and the sliders could be moved again. Not very smooth, but usable.
These boomboxes seem to have a quite robust mechanic and electronic. FM radio works without problems and also the tape deck is fine, including auto reverse. No azimuth adjustment was needed, only speed adjustment.

Now this is the new friend of RT-SW7.
Toshiba RT-SW9 b_ji.jpg
Toshiba RT-SW9 d_ji.jpg
Toshiba RT-SW9 e_ji.jpg
Toshiba RT-SW9 f_ji.jpg


Interesting thing is, that the RT-SW9 was cheaper then the RT-SW7, although in my opinion the SW9 has the better sound adjustment with 3 sliders.

RT-SW9.jpg
RT-SW7.jpg
 

Boombox80sJapan

New Member
Feb 28, 2020
8
0
1
London,UK
One of my latest arrivals - the Toshiba RT-SW7 from the "SUGAR" series.

It came as usual, dirty, tape decks not working, crackling sound with low volume. Fortunately, these pieces are easy to maintain. The cassette mechanism is easy to remove and change of belts is no problem. Tape speed could be adjusted with alignment potentiometers on the main board.
I cleaned the volume and tone potentiometers with tuner spray and after one night the sound came back without noise and with full volume.
At the end some polishing on the outside and now it is my SUGAR :-D
View attachment 47150
Have the same serviced for sale.Very nice apparatus.Could you advice me is it possible to restore original colour because the handle looks like lost own colour probably because it was kept on the sun.Also is it possible to remove small scratches from plastic?thank you
 

yammi99

Member (SA)
Jun 13, 2018
101
39
28
Germany
Have the same serviced for sale.Very nice apparatus.Could you advice me is it possible to restore original colour because the handle looks like lost own colour probably because it was kept on the sun.Also is it possible to remove small scratches from plastic?thank you
You could try something like this:
Car wax