Fixing a Boots CR255 Cassette Recorder
Published on: 29th July 2025
This article should not be interpreted as a tutorial. Circuit boards can include high-capacity capacitors that may retain an electric charge. Repair operations can be hazardous for those without proper technical expertise and should not be replicated without specific training and appropriate safety measures. Do not attempt to repeat these actions without the supervision of an expert.
I needed a break from everything at the weekend so finally unbagged a cassette recorder I found in my parents’ loft. It had to be bagged because it had been there for about 40 years and acquired a layer of grime. Yuck.
Anyway, people younger than about 30 may be astonished to learn that Boots once sold own-brand electronics like the cassette recorder. They sold a whole range of things including cameras and even computers - my first ZX Spectrum 40K came from Boots.
This recorder still worked - sort of. With mains power I could hear the motor running but the reels didn’t turn, and the volume control was very crackly. So it had to be opened up for more investigation.
The circuit board was filthy but everything at least looked OK - no exploded capacitors or the like. But then I realised - where was the belt? Shouldn’t there be a belt linking the wheels together?
Here’s a close-up. Definitely no belt and no chance of any playback. Then I looked back at the case I had removed…
Aaargh. There’s the belt. It has basically turned to goo, fallen off the wheels and started to eat into the case. Luckily it hadn’t damaged anything, although removing it left black marks on my fingers that took a week to wear off. I ordered a cheapie belt that was probably the right size and gave everything a second clean, as much as I could reach without fully stripping it down.
And with a replacement belt the motor was good to go. But what about the awful volume control? I know from various YouTube retro fixers that contact cleaner was the stuff to get, and eventually found some in Halfords. (I would say ‘other retailers are available’ but I couldn’t find the stuff anywhere else!) So I unsolder the cables from one side of the circuit board and flipped the board over.
It was truly disgusting. The volume control is the black wheel on the right, covered in, well, something. I unscrewed the wheel, revealing the potentiometer below, and gave it a squirt of contact cleaner. I then scrubbed the wheel itself - that residue put up a fight - and reassembled everything.
And it worked! I now have a retro 1980s cassette recorder that plays cassettes. Oh the joy, and a nice end to a less-than-great week.