The kit for replacing those heads was very small in most cases, just those 2 small video heads on the tiny PCB. You used a microscope and a setting jig to get the head height, azimuth and projection right so the head ran on the right path and at the right angle with respect to the tape and just far enough to get reliable tape contact. Note the first linear head is an erase head followed by the tracking clock head, and the second one is the audio erase head and the stereo record/playback head. Still have 2 of these monsters left, but the 4 fully mechanical ones ( as in all mechanism parts were done with levers and rubber bands and springs) went to scrap a decade ago, as even Sony thought they were uneconomical to repair. You probably still can have these fixed by Sony's professional service centres, though I wince to think of the price. They probably still are used in broadcast rooms to play back old tapes, and there likely is a huge library of old tapes for them in tape libraries. Pretty much every function aside from level controls and tracking can be done via the wired remote control.
We sure as hell do get some of this old stuff in. I work for a certain broadcast repair company which is a Sony ASC. We every now and again see these old Betacam,HDCAM and DVCAM decks coming in. Not so common anymore because of solid state media taking over. Recently I had a J30 player come in which refused to eject cassettes. It was just a matter of the lubrication on the tension arm becoming glue and not moving. Cleaned the gunk off and re-assembled. Fascinating things to work on.
Oh yes please! It would be interesting to see the differences between Digibeta and the older Betacam SP drums which i've also done a teardown on. What's the best way to contact you?
It was helpful for repair.Thank you👍
The kit for replacing those heads was very small in most cases, just those 2 small video heads on the tiny PCB. You used a microscope and a setting jig to get the head height, azimuth and projection right so the head ran on the right path and at the right angle with respect to the tape and just far enough to get reliable tape contact.
Note the first linear head is an erase head followed by the tracking clock head, and the second one is the audio erase head and the stereo record/playback head.
Still have 2 of these monsters left, but the 4 fully mechanical ones ( as in all mechanism parts were done with levers and rubber bands and springs) went to scrap a decade ago, as even Sony thought they were uneconomical to repair. You probably still can have these fixed by Sony's professional service centres, though I wince to think of the price. They probably still are used in broadcast rooms to play back old tapes, and there likely is a huge library of old tapes for them in tape libraries. Pretty much every function aside from level controls and tracking can be done via the wired remote control.
We sure as hell do get some of this old stuff in. I work for a certain broadcast repair company which is a Sony ASC. We every now and again see these old Betacam,HDCAM and DVCAM decks coming in. Not so common anymore because of solid state media taking over. Recently I had a J30 player come in which refused to eject cassettes. It was just a matter of the lubrication on the tension arm becoming glue and not moving. Cleaned the gunk off and re-assembled. Fascinating things to work on.
genial, gracias .
hi,please can you tell me from
where can i get this part?
Think I should get up the rest of the photos of ythe player, seeing as it went to the scrapyard as 20kg of steel.
indeed, they are certainly more interesting engineering than a cheapo VHS machine.
I have some old digibeta drums if you wanna dismantle one of those !
Oh yes please! It would be interesting to see the differences between Digibeta and the older Betacam SP drums which i've also done a teardown on. What's the best way to contact you?