I had a look around a very early Actros the other day. P reg it was. Never been in one before. Obviously it was analogue, but the slot for the disc was similar to how you would insert a CD. Surely this would cause damage when inserting or ejecting the chart? I took a picture, I will upload when I get the chance.
Did anyone use these? Did they work ok?
bugcos:
I had a look around a very early Actros the other day. P reg it was. Never been in one before. Obviously it was analogue, but the slot for the disc was similar to how you would insert a CD. Surely this would cause damage when inserting or ejecting the chart? I took a picture, I will upload when I get the chance.Did anyone use these? Did they work ok?
Sur eit was’nt the CD player… 
Defo not the CD player. The cassette radio was hidden in a drawer!
They used a different size chart to a standard one too. When I worked at cert we had a demo from Spellbrook. That was a P reg. Mint green. Was very futuristic compared to our outgoing G cab mercs, and even made our N reg FH’s look old
They were cool one of my first
Had one as a demo ,
Was extremely strange , the Tacho as you said looked flimsy but was generally fine to use , that type of Tacho didn’t last long we had the demo a week and ordered at the end , took a week to get here and PDI’d and by that time it was a bog standard one .
Although still had the stereo(tape deck) in the hidden compartment!
I drove a T reg one for a couple of years, yes it was a strange system, but it did work most of the time, I seem to recall the biggest problem getting the tacho to accept the card at times and it would spit out the co drivers card every so often.
nothing strange about them tachos, they take the discs with the round hole rather than the pear shape hole. you press the large button on the facia then the lights flash like a disco, when the lights stop flashing you press a finger against the tacho tray and it pops out, plenty of room to put a card in without damaging it, then just slide the tray back in and your good to go
weewulliewinkie:
nothing strange about them tachos, they take the discs with the round hole rather than the pear shape hole. you press the large button on the facia then the lights flash like a disco, when the lights stop flashing you press a finger against the tacho tray and it pops out, plenty of room to put a card in without damaging it, then just slide the tray back in and your good to go
I don’t think the OP is talking about a cassette style analogue tacho head like this
By the sounds of it they are talking about a slot in analogue tacho with no drawer that opens to place the chart in, or at least that is how it reads to me. Not that I have ever seen one if indeed one does exist but it would not have surprised me as a new version design that got binned.
I know the ones weewullie is on about, they were in the later mp1. The early ones, P,R and S had a slot like a cd slot, not a drawer, just a slot under the speedo
The early Actros were fitted with the LK1319 Tachograph where the recording unit was incorporated into a seated unit behind the vehicle speedo. Charts were inserted partway into slots below the speedo and a motor driven mechanism pulled the cart into the machine and rotated the chart to the correct position. Chart ejection was only possible when the vehicle was stationary and achieved by pushing the button on the top of the mode switch.
They used charts with the pear shaped centre hole.
The difficulty with the early units were that they took 100km/h charts which were not readily available, the standard being 125km/h. Physically the two charts are the same size but if you put a 125km/h chart in a 100km/h Tacho and drive at 90km/h it will appear that you are speeding. Whilst that may not be a major problem in the UK abroad, where vehicle speed limits are enforced off charts that could be very expensive. In the UK you were still open to the charge of ‘use incompatible chart,’ which isn’t a cheap option, either. Later a 125km/h version was produced and my photo shows such a beastie fitted to an ‘R’ reg Actros. If I recall correctly there was also a 180km/h version fitted to some MB Sprinters.
The calibration and two year check stickers shown at the top of the instrument were often fitted on the B pillar of the drivers’ door (like Digital Tachos now) or on the base of the drivers seat. Higher spec Actros usually has a fake wooden dashboard trim fitted to.
Just goes to show you learn something new every day, I can’t say I have ever seen that type of Tacho unit and I drove a lot of older trucks around that time.
I guessed from the way it was worded that there was such a system at one point, but I guess it never really got adopted and the drawer type became the norm until the first digi tacho became standard.
That’s the one gee bee thanks for posting that.
