i HAVE A JVC-S378U , UNABLE to get the main board to lift /swing up . to remove the power supply.. Would that be some thing you like to work on . Thanks Ben
Now the question is, is it a loose connection in the connector or is the wire loose or is it a break in the wire or is it at the other end of the wiring harness
Hello sir I always enjoy watching your videos and hearing you talk about the history of these old machines. I have a Sony SL-2406 and the audio is just really low and muffled. I am using the mini connector to my av receiver. To try to troubleshoot I connected the unit using coax cable and still I get same low muffled audio. I tried different tapes and they all sound the same. My next guess is to try to clean the audio heads. Just wanted to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
People are weird. I just had a fellow with a Samsung ct-5500. Bad power supply. MOSFET blown. I tried to reject the repair citing to go buy one at value village , but nope he wanted it repaired. I gave him the not interested price of 90.00 for the repair. He picked it up today and it was a beat up unit too….so sometimes you never know. It was a blue ray player but still was beatup… But generally your right. No one wants to pay big for repair.
It also helps for the viewer to search it, if different problems have their own video. I'll keep this fix in mind, as have very intermittent shutdown problem in my vcr, but at least for now, it always starts back up immediatly, and occurs very very rarely, works most of the time just fine. But if it gets worse, good to have ideas from your videos, what might be wrong with it :)
There may be only a few like me, but If I had a rare electrical item and I could afford the cost of the repair, I WOULD spend the money to have it repaired. I'm nostalgic like that.
Man I love your videos, inspires me to want to fix my VCR that has this problem where it wrinkles the audio portion of the tape (very top of the tape). But I am too scared to move anything because I do not know how to approach that problem LOL.
@@zx8401ztv Will do! For the guides, is cleaning with a Q-tip suffice? I know it is a huge no-no with the video heads as the lint can damage the heads. I have also heard aligning might be needed. Thanks for the tip with the tea haha.
@@GWindows3.1 A drop of metholated spirit or better can help you get the crud off the pinch roller/pin and mucky guides, just don't adjust the guides. A torch is handy to light up the guides and keep your fingers away from the video heads drum. Observe if the tape is flat on the guides and not riding up or down. Only use a hammer if you are really pissed off ha ha :-D
its a good thing the PSU failed while you had it on the bench... its worse when the customer gets it home and then it fails and the unit becomes a boomerang :)
There is one sitting in the shop now a reel to reel I fixed a broken connector for head block. Now it plays for 45 minutes and the sound fades out. On top of that customer dropped it loading in the car so probably even more trouble and a betamax I worked on last month to repair a cracked gear is making a trip across the country because after about 20 hours the drum motor shut down. Old electronics. Even though different problems hard to get anything out of anyone the second time.
Great video people like myself are still whiching vhs movies in my house 7 days of the week and my family does everything proven online VCR players cleaning tapes vhs movies are making a comeback last week there was a video online now days there's thing's out there that people don't know about now days
VCRs wear out. I used to change about 20 head drums a month back in the 80s and 90s. Used to be able to get after market drums for about 20 vs 100 from manufacture. One day it looks ok and the next it can't play its own recent recording bit old recordings are fine and pre-recorded fine. Plus it would make a recording that would play fine on another machine. That's the first sign and the as head wears more picture quality on playback starts to rapidly decline. In the last 2 years I have worn out the head on 1 VHS and a hi8 deck. Parts are now very hard to find. People selling parts machines for higher prices than the parts are worth. People asking over 100 for a broken hi8 camera just to steal the drum out of. Here is the kicker i get people out of the blue contacting me offering to sell me their old gear to use in repairs. (many are viewers) and want me to but their equipment for more than i would get using the parts to fix something. They get upset when i tell them they are welcome to donate the device to me but they pay the shipping. I don't pay for old equipment. Locals mostly give me their old gear as opposed to taking to recycling but I get on average 2 offers from strangers thinking that they will cash in and sell me a parts donor. Doesn't work that way, at least with me.
Just a quick question.......I have a sony edv-9000 ed beta video recorder and is full of elna caps, are you saying that they are garbage too? I need to know badly! Thanks Dave.
I have a similar JVC HR-D970U VCR. Recapped the power supply, unit ran for a bit and the same thing crapped out. I struggled with that one for awhile and then started reflowing the solder. Dave, curious on it you could do a video on betamax beta III tracking problems. I’ve got some BIII recorded tapes that track fine on one betamax player but not on a SL-HF900. I can’t get rid of the noise lines. Would like to learn more about how to diagnose this and fix it. I know BIII is extra hard to track.
@@instantwow B3 is't that much harder to track, however beta3 used an overlapping scheme with no guard bands. On B2 each track buts up against its neighbour. No guard bands. B1 had a guard band that was equal to about 1/2 the track width between each track. This virtually eliminated cross talk. B2 buts the tracks up against each other. Because the tracks are recorded +7 and -7" azimuth there is 14" difference in the azimuth so cross talk is minimized. B3 or BIII used the same track width as B2, and remember B2 the tracks are just touching each other, but on B3 they are actually overlapping each other. So the A head lays down its track and the B head overlaps and overwrites 1/3 of the track. Yes it does erase some of it, but due to the angle difference it only attenuates it slightly and on playback the A head sees mostly the A track and a little bit of the B track but due to the angle difference it is not causing much interference. A slight reduction in signal level which results is slightly lower color level as that is amplitude modulatred not FM as the lumanence. What is important however is the condition of the playback heads. When heads wear the first thing that goes is beta 3 playback. Also tapes stored for a long time in beta3 tend to fare worse just due to the natural demagnetizing effect of the overlapping track.
i HAVE A JVC-S378U , UNABLE to get the main board to lift /swing up . to remove the power supply.. Would that be some thing you like to work on . Thanks Ben
I have an old Panasonic vtr that plays few a few seonds and stops, recordings work fine just cant get playback, any idea's?
Now the question is, is it a loose connection in the connector or is the wire loose or is it a break in the wire or is it at the other end of the wiring harness
It will become harder to get vintage electronics fixed when there are less skilled people who can fix them. 😮
We are a dying breed. That's a depressing though.
Hello sir I always enjoy watching your videos and hearing you talk about the history of these old machines. I have a Sony SL-2406 and the audio is just really low and muffled. I am using the mini connector to my av receiver. To try to troubleshoot I connected the unit using coax cable and still I get same low muffled audio. I tried different tapes and they all sound the same. My next guess is to try to clean the audio heads. Just wanted to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
That is a non HiFi machine. The audio is recorded on the top edge of the tape, control track on the bottom. Try cleaning the audio / control head.
I try to use my 25 year old JVC VCR once every few months. I either watch old tapes or I take brand new tapes and record audio music on it, no video.
man, the WORST problems are intermittent problems. I do my own computer networking at home ... and there's no end to the weirdness
Intermittent is a PITA.
looks a good PQ on that TV
My vcr has a pretty small psu too and I hope that doesn’t occur to me, or it doesn’t fail.
Is it possible to buy an ESR meter like yours or similar? I can't seem to find them anywhere
I built mine from a kit. The company that made the kit I have is not around anymore but there are others.
People are weird. I just had a fellow with a Samsung ct-5500. Bad power supply. MOSFET blown. I tried to reject the repair citing to go buy one at value village , but nope he wanted it repaired. I gave him the not interested price of 90.00 for the repair. He picked it up today and it was a beat up unit too….so sometimes you never know. It was a blue ray player but still was beatup…
But generally your right. No one wants to pay big for repair.
It also helps for the viewer to search it, if different problems have their own video.
I'll keep this fix in mind, as have very intermittent shutdown problem in my vcr, but at least for now, it always starts back up immediatly, and occurs very very rarely, works most of the time just fine. But if it gets worse, good to have ideas from your videos, what might be wrong with it :)
Intermittent are the hardest to find.
There may be only a few like me, but If I had a rare electrical item and I could afford the cost of the repair, I WOULD spend the money to have it repaired. I'm nostalgic like that.
I wouldn't. If it was mine and I couldn't repair it myself, I wouldn't spend anything to repair, I would buy a new one.
Man I love your videos, inspires me to want to fix my VCR that has this problem where it wrinkles the audio portion of the tape (very top of the tape). But I am too scared to move anything because I do not know how to approach that problem LOL.
You could try to clean the black pinch roller and pin.
Check for filthy guides.
Drink lots of tea to lubricate the brain lol.
@@zx8401ztv Will do! For the guides, is cleaning with a Q-tip suffice? I know it is a huge no-no with the video heads as the lint can damage the heads. I have also heard aligning might be needed. Thanks for the tip with the tea haha.
@@GWindows3.1 A drop of metholated spirit or better can help you get the crud off the pinch roller/pin and mucky guides, just don't adjust the guides.
A torch is handy to light up the guides and keep your fingers away from the video heads drum.
Observe if the tape is flat on the guides and not riding up or down.
Only use a hammer if you are really pissed off ha ha :-D
People have no respect for skilled craftsmen.🤨
The problem is stuff is so cheap they just don't repair.
its a good thing the PSU failed while you had it on the bench... its worse when the customer gets it home and then it fails and the unit becomes a boomerang :)
There is one sitting in the shop now a reel to reel I fixed a broken connector for head block. Now it plays for 45 minutes and the sound fades out. On top of that customer dropped it loading in the car so probably even more trouble and a betamax I worked on last month to repair a cracked gear is making a trip across the country because after about 20 hours the drum motor shut down. Old electronics. Even though different problems hard to get anything out of anyone the second time.
Great video people like myself are still whiching vhs movies in my house 7 days of the week and my family does everything proven online VCR players cleaning tapes vhs movies are making a comeback last week there was a video online now days there's thing's out there that people don't know about now days
VCRs wear out. I used to change about 20 head drums a month back in the 80s and 90s. Used to be able to get after market drums for about 20 vs 100 from manufacture. One day it looks ok and the next it can't play its own recent recording bit old recordings are fine and pre-recorded fine. Plus it would make a recording that would play fine on another machine. That's the first sign and the as head wears more picture quality on playback starts to rapidly decline. In the last 2 years I have worn out the head on 1 VHS and a hi8 deck. Parts are now very hard to find. People selling parts machines for higher prices than the parts are worth. People asking over 100 for a broken hi8 camera just to steal the drum out of. Here is the kicker i get people out of the blue contacting me offering to sell me their old gear to use in repairs. (many are viewers) and want me to but their equipment for more than i would get using the parts to fix something. They get upset when i tell them they are welcome to donate the device to me but they pay the shipping. I don't pay for old equipment. Locals mostly give me their old gear as opposed to taking to recycling but I get on average 2 offers from strangers thinking that they will cash in and sell me a parts donor. Doesn't work that way, at least with me.
Well that was a bugger, you did a crappy job lol. joke
Well that's better than a Cappy job lol
Dead format.
Dead for years, wonder why people are still using.
Dead because the prejudice has imposed conditions.
@@12voltvidsIt's still a wonderful device,the wicked system demonized the VCR.
@@maxwelltlmm4583 no, it's called old age. The stuff was never designed to last this long.
Just a quick question.......I have a sony edv-9000 ed beta video recorder and is full of elna caps, are you saying that they are garbage too? I need to know badly! Thanks Dave.
I’ll answer this one. Yes they are cappy….umm whoops I mean crappy… get them done……
Elna caps were horrible. They will leak corrosive crap on the board.
I have a similar JVC HR-D970U VCR. Recapped the power supply, unit ran for a bit and the same thing crapped out. I struggled with that one for awhile and then started reflowing the solder.
Dave, curious on it you could do a video on betamax beta III tracking problems. I’ve got some BIII recorded tapes that track fine on one betamax player but not on a SL-HF900. I can’t get rid of the noise lines. Would like to learn more about how to diagnose this and fix it. I know BIII is extra hard to track.
@@instantwow B3 is't that much harder to track, however beta3 used an overlapping scheme with no guard bands.
On B2 each track buts up against its neighbour. No guard bands. B1 had a guard band that was equal to about 1/2 the track width between each track. This virtually eliminated cross talk.
B2 buts the tracks up against each other. Because the tracks are recorded +7 and -7" azimuth there is 14" difference in the azimuth so cross talk is minimized.
B3 or BIII used the same track width as B2, and remember B2 the tracks are just touching each other, but on B3 they are actually overlapping each other. So the A head lays down its track and the B head overlaps and overwrites 1/3 of the track. Yes it does erase some of it, but due to the angle difference it only attenuates it slightly and on playback the A head sees mostly the A track and a little bit of the B track but due to the angle difference it is not causing much interference.
A slight reduction in signal level which results is slightly lower color level as that is amplitude modulatred not FM as the lumanence. What is important however is the condition of the playback heads. When heads wear the first thing that goes is beta 3 playback. Also tapes stored for a long time in beta3 tend to fare worse just due to the natural demagnetizing effect of the overlapping track.