Its actually really fun to watch someone who legit knows how VCR's operate. Everyone else on youtube seems to mess around hobbyist style until they fix it through observation. I like how you explain it all
Thanks for the video! I was almost sure that the problem was in an old electrolyte cap somewhere near Q108. Who would have thought that those decks have a switch to mess up the video! Brilliant!
Found your channel today and I have really enjoyed this video. Watching you step through everything and showing how it all works was thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks for sharing. Well worth the time I spent watching it. Cheers.
THANK YOU! Video was a big help fixing a Sony SL-HF600. Loading mechanism was messed up, I think someone forced a tape into it. Cleaned the switch, and re-timed the gears, and it works perfectly after cleaning.
Very interesting video! The mechanism indeed is a great design, I love those tape guides that just fold out of the way! I knew about that 'video black' switch, I saw it in one of the videos of TH-cam user videoholicreturns, but I would have never guessed that that was the problem just watching this video :) Unfortunately Sony never produced a PAL version of the SL-HF1000, the best Betamax you can get over here in Europe is the SL-HF950 which is basically the same as the SL-HF750.
DrCassette I "should" have known about the black video switch, as I used this machine, actually a pair of them for about 7 years editing videos from 1986 when I bought both of them, and about 1992 when I made the jump to professional Betacam, and ran that format right up to 2000 when I made the switch to professional DV (that JVC camera featured on my shoulder on the home channel screen, and in a service vid) and then to HDV in 2005, only to shut down my production business a few years later. What the black switch is used for is to allow a generating a black screento lay down a control track on a blank tape. That tape is then subsequently edited in insert mode, as opposed to assembiing video. In assemble mode, the full track erase head is used and it wipes everything prior to recording. In insert mode you can record video clips, and audio either together or separately. A common use was say for music videos of the day. You would record a black screen, and then record the music track.The video tracks clips are all just short clips where the performers lip synch with their music, so the tracks are all start stop. The editor now can sync up the video, with the pre-recorded audio track, and insert each video clip to produce a finished program. In the next little while I will set up 2 SLHF1000 decks, and 2 monitors, and will do a full real time demonstration of the editing process. I intend to re-edit a couple of videos I have on my channel, probably the Quesnel radio station video, and will shoot the entire process, and then compare it to how it is done on the computer. Should be an interesting comparision, especially for the younger generation that grew up with computers, and smart phones.I am actually looking forward to setting up a temporary studio in my garage, so show how it was done, and how an automated assemble / insert system works. For those with a broadcast background this will bring back memories to the 3/4 and betacam edit controllers, except that the sl1000 has the controller built in.
I have a front loading beeta, it sat in someones life or multiples..then came to me in 1995. It then lived with me a couple of year before going in a drafty , cold , damp outside shed for 20+ years. Now its back in the house..it was a beauty..now ?? Who knows...its ornament .
Great video, learning alot here. I need to reseat the 3 sets of gears in the front loader mechanism because I didn't note how they were seated before the time. Any chance you have a document or video on what the white gear positions need to be?
Ugh, I know how that can be when you're thinking "it's broken it must be something here!" and you find out its working as intended you just totally didn't think about something. But, as you said it's great to see the inside of that beast, I love the serviceability with Sony of yesteryear. Hell, I just miss Sony as an incredibly reliable and innovative brand.
narunetto They turned out some great gear. Sony was the innovator for so many years, and had some great products. Had they marketed Betamax better there would have never been a VHS, but good marketing dethroned them. What initially threw me was the odd flash of pix, which looked like a bad transistor, but was just dirt in that switch.
Thank you for very clear presentation about loading system! I have a SL-C30 that is not working. When powered up there is kind of buzzing sound from the pendulum motor and it refuses to take cassette in. What could cause this?
¿Es un placer ver tus vídeos y cómo lo explicas, tengo un problema con un sl-hf950, después de repararle algunos problemas, enhebra la cinta, aunque le falta un poco para llegar al final, pero el rodillo presor al no entrar en el cabrestante, dónde está el eje del capstan vuelve a desenhebrar la cinta, si le doy con el dedo al engrane que va al motorcito, entra en play, funciona todo, pero al darle a stop la cinta no desenhebra,¿ Que puede pasar? Gracias.
bonjour je viens de récupérer 1 Sony hi8 evo-9800 p et je n'ai pas d'indications sur le panneau avant pourtant il avale bien les k7 mais aucune action sur les touches eject,rew,play,f.fwd pause le compteur n'est pas allumé ainsi que les diodes si vous pouvez m'indiquer ce qui se passe j'en serais reconnaissant. MERCI
great video and not a wasted effort on the black screen switch just not being switched on/off. perfect lesson to show check the simple things first. happens to the best of us, including myself. ask me how I know...(smirk)....having said that, I can see how back in the day, just changing out an entire board would lead to a quick expedient repair. I have an acquaintance who repairs hospital test equipment, i.e. CatScan, MRI, X-ray, ultrasound machines. BIG BUCKS for each call and per hour after that. I think he gets $250 just for knocking on their door, and then another $150/hour after that, and that was years ago...he probably gets even more now. anyway, the boards are stored in large drawers like a dresser drawer, and he opens them, locates and diagnoses which board it is, and then just changes the entire board as a plug-in. the old board goes back to mfr. for rebuild, or scrapping. what you are doing it old school, signal tracing down to the component, which requires an in-depth understanding, patience, and lots of experience to do, and ability to read schematics. all schematics are not created equal, some are really lousy hard to read....ask me how I know again...(laughter....) anyway tracing to component has become a lot art in these days of low-quality wave-soldered Chinese made electronics...we used to bitch the Japanese stuff in the 70-80's, now we pine for those days...the Chinese electronics make the Japanese look like high end German electronics or a Swiss watch....what amazes me is I can plug in an old USA-made radio from the 1920-40's era and they fire up and work many times....what happened ? I have a Telex 8-track changer from the 1970's, made in USA, that holds 12 tapes and plays them like a merry go round, got it NOS- played it for a year, the logic circuit died. it would not cycle tapes. I traced it out without a schematic, and just changed all the transistors and caps in the logic circuit, cost me about $35 and a half hour soldering time. presto it's fixed...sometimes a shotgun repair is the cheapest, quickest way to go....it all depends....
That is what they do at work. When a line card, or transport card fails they swap it out, and send the old one back for repair. Same for the DSLAM cards, fiber and T1 cards. They are all repaired by a single repair facility. Some of these cards are 40+ years old, as we are still using an old GTD5 switch at the central office, and they haven't made that in 40 years, so the manufacture has long abandoned the old tech, but the thing is the #5 was so advanced that even today it is still a very functional switch, and as they say if it ain't broke.... All that infrastructure was paid off many years ago, so now for the telco's still using it, there is only the maintenance costs, and it has proven to be very reliable. Of course all that technology came out of the space program, so it was all over engineered. You are correct about the old American made stuff. Was all very good. Old Zenith and RCA TVs were fantastic until they moved to Mexico. Some of the best stuff I have seen in recent years has been the Bose gear that was made in the USA. The best cell phones I have also seen were the Blackberry phones that were made in Canada. The last of those was their first Android phone the Priv (which is what I have, and bought it specifically because of where it was made) All their current phones are now made in China, as Blackberry couldn't compete with the labor of off shore. As they say, if you can't beat em, join em. Right again about the Japanese stuff from the 70s. We used to call it junk. Consumer electronics was a totally different industry than other industries. We had to repair to component level because replacing an entire board was cost prohibitive. I remember when the DV cameras first came out, and that was the first time we saw BGA on consumer electronics. All those BGA chips on the digital board. I knew right then that the electronics repair industry was doomed. I had a camera come in where the 1394 connector (firewire) was damaged due to the fool customer buying into the monster cable advertising dogma and due to the stiffness of the cable, it didn't take long to rip the connector off the board. Board cost, 890.00 on a 3000 camera. Not covered by warranty due to physical abuse. I though the owner of the camera was going to get ina fist fight with the shop owner, and I got a suspension for "opening my big mouth" about the cable damaging it. (The shop had sold the 150.00 cable as an up sell to the "flimsy" sony cord. There was a reason that the Sony cord, which was thin like a telephone line was like that. So as not to stress the fragile connector on the camera that is held in place by just a little bit of solder. Never forgot that. I was banned from talking to customers going forward from that time. When I did up an estimate, I gave it to the service advisor whom would call the customer and blow smoke up his a5s! The current crop of TVs now you basically swap boards, but I think it is highly unlikely that people are getting new boards. All these sellers are just taking boards out of broken TVs and reselling them. Some work, others don't and when a bad board goes out they just exchange it many times. Must be enough profit in re-cycling old boards as there are enough companies doing it.
funny...I cleaned out an old TV/VCR repair shop, the owner retired and gave me all the contents for free. it took weeks to empty it. I walked around the store with garbage bags just filling them with NOS parts. sold it all to guys like you who had interest in it, and kept some for myself. I took 17 flat screen TV's out of there, including 2 big Plasma TV's that take 2 guys to carry them. the ones that I could not get working, I sold the boards on Ebay. Every single board sold with good feedback. I kept the big plasmas and one flatscreen Akai. the problem with the Akai, was one resistor that cost me $1 to replace, true story. poof it came right on. I was amazed how easy those TV's come apart with boards. there's almost nothing inside them. Zenith really was the zenith of old TV technology. the shop owner told me that, Zenith was the best, Magnavox and RCA also good, but parts were hard to get for Magnavox sometimes. when I asked him what was the best new TV for price and reliability/parts, he said SHARP. He was an authorized service center for all these brands. I got 6 garbage bags full of NOS parts, have one bag left. I listed all his specialty VCR tools, scopes, testers, manuals on Ebay- every single unit sold. it was then I realized the VCR formats have an underground following still alive, much like the reel to reel tape, and 8-track cartridge audio formats do. Some of the stuff was just too well built to throw in the trash, even if obsoleted by digital dvd/cd technology- and the techies will recognize that and save it. There is always something about old formats that is sacrificed, when technology moves onward for more convenience and compactness. There is no free lunch. I still watch a Sony Trinitron CRT made around 2005 or so. It still has a better refresh rate and colors than the average flat screen. I got it for $50.
12voltvids we had a used cellphone recycle box at our church/school. someone got a Blackberry new for Christmas, and later that year, donated it for recycle, new in the box. I was tasked with packing/shipping the phones to recycler every month. well that one I pulled out. the rest of the phones donated were always cheap Korean or Chinese made crap that were broken. that Blackberry was a real work of art for a phone. I still have it. just can't part with it. could not see it being ground up for metals content at the recycle center...
tunnelportterror I have used them at work for years. I have a bunch of old ones. curve, bold, Q5, and my current classic which the Q5 and classic are Chinese made and not great quality. personally I have a torch (original with slide out keyboard) Z10 Z30 and now the Android priv. these ones made in Canada. I still use the old Q10 Z10 and Z30 as music players. they are great as I just pop an SD card in and let it play. bulletproof. very well built.
This is hilarious. I wondered if the machine had some sort of "Video Muting" switch - those high-end Sonys had all sorts of crazy features. When you started tracking down faults though I assumed you were finding an actual problem with some component. So imagine my surprise when you suddenly found it was a switch setting after all! This is sort of a demonstration of the old saying "if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Since I have no ability to repair anything electronic, and only limited mechanical abilities, I immediately thought "look for a switch that's set funny" because that's about the limit of my troubleshooting skills. Whereas you can trace circuits, test components and so forth. Unfortunately, this meant you had the hammer, and went looking for the nail. My stupidity would have saved me from this particular goose chase. Proof that sometimes it pays to be dumb.
I completely forgot about that black switch. It was to give a black screen so titles could be placed over a black screen. Some day I should haul out both my slhf1000 and shoot a staged repair video shot on and edited on beta just for fun and the actual video will be the process of doing the edit on analog gear. I did that years ago with them using old footage.
@@12voltvids I think this occurred to me as a possible problem because I had a VCR that had a similar switch, one that allowed you to view either the tape or of the line input, which was often of course blank. Something like that. Anyhow that might be why, "I wonder if it's some switch?" came to mind almost immediately. Some of these high end decks were so complicated you practically needed a pilot's license to operate them. I worked at a television studio for a couple of years in college and even I found them confusing.
@@sunspot42 input switch completely different. This just blacks the incoming video but keeps the sync from the tuner so titles could be overlaid. Switch to line i without a video signal there would be no sync and no titles as sync needed for character generator.
@@12voltvids Yes no I understand. I worked in a TV studio eons ago. I'm just saying it's something vaguely similar - an unusual switch (on a consumer VCR anyhow) that switches from the tape to some other input (in your case, a sync signal with no picture, on my old VCR, the external input).
I found the issue of the video board. There is crap in the middle. The connection between life or dead. Is it possible to get this board VI-18?? Please advise.
Don't feel bad about that little oversight of the black video switch. It happens to all of us, where we think too hard about the problem, ignoring the obvious solution right in front of us. I had a friend who worked as a repair tech and he was dealing with an SL-5000 and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't play BII and BIII recordings properly; they would always play at too fast a speed. He was in the midst of doing circuit level work to try and fix it. Turned out there was a switch that enabled BI only playback on the lower right rear of the VCR (if memory serves me about the location of the switch, that is). It was set to play cassettes in BI mode only. I pointed that out to him and he was like "what?!" So, he undoes the work he was doing and sets the switch to the correct setting and the VCR begins playing BII and BIII recordings like it was supposed to. It's always a good reminder that, in troubleshooting, always chase after the simplest stuff first.
Hi there, I hope all is well with you. I hope you can give me some advise. I have the same model Betamax. Last few months it gives me trouble, When the machine cold very thing fine however, when it get warm the video stumble or no video but the sound still great. Could you advise which system Board and which I should look ? Thanks in advance Alan
hi there, I hope all is well with you. I got a very CLEAN Sl-HF1000 however, no picture AT ALL(perfect hi-fi sound). Could you advise which section should I look at? no damage on Video board. Thanks in advance
Any chance you have a video or even a picture inside of the piece you have removed? I have an SL HF600 and I have no idea how everything is supposed to line up.
i have the SLHF 500 looks the same as the one you are working on, my tape will load all the way the head will not spin up after 5 secs the tape will unload and eject it self. any idea ? i already replaced regulator in power supply. got it from NTE.
There's something about Beta mechanism that makes them really interesting just to watch how they work, I feel like VHS look boring, it may have something to do with how huge the drum looks. Great video as always.
Gordon Freeman I have the servicing video of that unit up. MV or NN 9300 I believe is the model. 3/4" is cool to watch in operation because the drum is so large, and the tape is huge. If you look at a Umatic vs a Beta, you will see the resemblance.They are almost identical, except the Umatic is the reverse. Tape runs from righjt to left, drum spins clockwise, threads opposite direction. Very nice picture..
abood issa I was surprized that I had the manual. I must have `stolen`that from my former employer. I actually have a few old Sony manuals. When stuff was being converted to digital, I grabbed a stack of manuals.
One thing I notice about this Beta machine is the loading ring goes clockwise when loading like the U-Matic machines you have shown. The Beta machines in videos I've watched before have the loading ring going the other way. This machine looks more like a miniature U-Matic for that reason. I guess it doesn't matter which way it operates or which half of the drum you wrap around, just so you get the 180 degrees. Why is this machine backwards from the other Beta machines?
It isn't backwards. per say. If you watch a umatic and an original Beta, you will see that the tape goes directly to the erase head, and the large loop of tape is on the return path. umatic tape runs from right to left. Beta runs from left to right. On the 711 chassis (this one) the tape is threaded with 2 loading arms, not just one. It is actually pulled out both directions, with the supply side under tension, and the pinch roller actually moving on a separate loading gear.This was designed first for the SL2000 portable unit, and carried through all the slim line decks. It was cheaper, and inferior in design to the original design. See my SL5200 hifi deck in operation. That one was no question the best deck they made for standard Betamax. The SLHF1000 had much better video quality as it had Beta1, plus the super high band capability for Beta1, but the original design was simpler and more reliable. BUT it came at a cost, size. They wanted it smaller for a portable recorder. I have an SL3000 I should pull apart. That is a portable, but the full size deck so you can see how big that machine is. I do have quite the Betamax collection.
Oh trust me they were. On the original design, on the SL2000, 2500 and 2700 they all broke off. 100% failure, especially when a dumbass customer put in one of those wet cleaning tapes.Sony came out with a repair kit, that required using a specialized tool called a "nipper" which resembled needle nose pliers with a flat cutter on the end to nip off the broken plastic hinge embedded in the loading ring. Then a new guide with a metal hinge built into the base could be installed. Put in hundreds of these guide pin kits over my career. At the time of this design Betamax still had 40% market share in North America, and closer to 45% in Canada. I would service probably 10 Betamax machines a week, and 40 VHS machines, in addition to 20 televisions a week, and that was just me. There were 2 other techs working in the shop, however I was the master certified tech, so I got all the tough stuff.
Hi, thanks very useful video. I recently got Sony sl- hf900 almost same as this Betamax, it have good picture ,video is good in both B2 and B3, but absolutely no audio even small humming noise when turn the volume to max, nothing. And two led left and right input levels indicators are in zero, only one bar. And front display is too dim. I did not find any unusual shape capacitor or other components on boards , however I found two large 10000 uF capacitor in power supply that bulged and swelled on top, there is not any visible leakage around them . Can those two capacitors caused this problem in audio and dim display?
Probably not. Is it a hifi tape or mono. If you mono, have you cleaned the audio control head. Audio records on top edge of tape, control track on bottom.
@@12voltvids thank you for responding. I tried many cassettes all original movies HiFi and standard , I cleaned all heads, display is too dim, has very good video but no audio at all I even connect to old Crt tv but no audio.
This was a great video and I learned alot by watching this as I have 3 Beta VCRs which have loading issues. Where can I order one of those toothed gear belts. I need one for a Sony SLHF 900. One of the vcrs has an issue it will load the tape fine but will not play. Capstan motor issue?? I also have a Sony SLHF 870D that will take the tape in but will only load halfway and then it kicks the tape back out. Any comments for repair appreciated. I have downloaded service manuals for the SLHF-900 Decks but don't have one for the SLHF-870D. Hope you can help me with these Sony Decks. Thank You, Mike
This video has gotten me halfway to sorting out my SL-HFR30. When everything is in sync I can load and play no problem. Eject is the problem. All mechanisms move as they should but the metal sensor on the right doesn't rotate. I need to stick a flathead screwdriver in front of the sensor to trip the release mechanism and it will unload as normal. Would make a great video to see how to get that part rotating. As far as I can tell everything is there... springs etc.
That is rotated by the half loading ring gear that moves the pinch roller block. You are probably out of time by one tooth. When it retracts all the way back it turns the detection coil towards the mount post.
@@12voltvids Thanks for the speedy reply. I'm scratching my head trying to figure how to align that detection coil. I don't want to make things worse. Ha. I know you've got a busy bench and I don't expect you to cover this but it would be a great video if you have the time. Big fan here. Thanks for the hours of edu-tainment. Just joined your Patreon. Cheers!
@@timkowalski8127 that bench is not that busy. I'll see if I can dig out a beta machine and go through that at some point I got to got to find one I don't have one sitting in the shop at the moment the one I fixed last week is already gone back to its owner
Hello sir, I hope all is well with you. I hope you could give advise where to look to solve my sl hf 1000. My deck was work fine till last week. When I play a tape for around 3 mins the picture goes dark but the hi fi sound ok. Is it some capacitor gone? Where and how can trouble shot it? Thanks in advance
Try heating the capacitors in the head amp with a hairdryer. That metal box behind the head drum. If the picture comes back and fades out again, it's the capacitors of the head amp that have gone bad.
B1s is only slightly better than B2s because the recorded frequency is the same signal to noise is better as cross talk between the tracks is reduced. B1SHB on the other hand bumped the horizontal resolution from 260 to 300 lines. Turn off the hifi sound and it jumped to 320 which made it very close to 3/4" Umatic. This was due to the higher fm carrier frequency and larger deviation. It also made the recordings not compatable with non SHB players just like svhs will not play on standard VHS.
I should add that the pro-x tape is complete garbage. The binder failes and coating just peels off. If you have any special recordings on pro-x tape you will be lucky to get one play before the tape self destructs and leaves a pile of colbalt coating shards all over the inside of the machine.
+morrisonAV Yes I did reconnect it. The black video switch wouldn't work without it. The reason I totally forgot about that switch is because I never used it.In my studio I had a black video generator, which is essentially just a video camera with the beam shut off on the tube. (standby mode)What the switch was for is if the recorder was connected to an antenna, or cable TV, the incoming broadcast signal could be used for color black, and that switch just muted the video, while allowing the sync, so the OSD character generator could overlay the time code, or generate crude titles.I used to use Letraset rub down letters and shoot them with a camera for my title cards, and then I could superimpose them. I had this super impose titler, that you could take your title, and it would grab a freeze frame, and then super impose that over video passing through it. It was a fine piece of Sony home editing crap that they had back in the 80s. I probably still have some of that crap around here somewhere that I will eventually come across, and will rip it apart and shoot a video of it when I locate it.My beta equipment I try to keep in top condition, as transferring beta tapes is a good money maker. Lots of VHS machines around, but not many 8mm decks around, and even fewer Betamax machines in working condition.
+12voltvids I sure wish you and I lived closer. I have a lot of Beta gear and some high-end VHS stuff that needs help. Many thanks for the videos you produce. You give me the courage to tackle some of my "easier" repair projects myself.
Hello 12voltvids. I was reading a post and see you also worked at Sony some time ago. I worked at Sony from 1972 to 1982 in the Detroit area. What service center did you work at? I am working on a SLHF-1000 today that a friend picked up for $200. I suspect the power supply. the most noticeable thing is the drum motor either does not spin, or it spins slow and eventually stops. My ability to do repair work has been very limited for the past years due to health issues. Send me a private message back if you can.
These units didn't have many problems, but keep this in mind.If the super beta, or BI-SHB switch is in the incorrect position you will not get the best quality.When playing a beta tape, toggle the superbeta switch and look at the picture.One will give the best picture.You have to match the playback to how the recording was done. If you have a standard Betamax recording, and you turn the superbeta switch on, this will degrade the picture as the playback circuits are tuned for signals that are not recorded. At the same time if you play a superbeta tape and fail to turn the switch on, then the picture quality is reduced because you are not playing back the full bandwidth that was recorded.These are fantastic machines. One of the finest Betamax units that Sony produced.
A very informative video. I found it because I have an SL-HF1000 that I bought when it came out. The unit has been sitting idle (not plugged in) for several years now and I want to transfer some tapes to digital. The problem I am encountering is that the tape goes in and loads properly. But when I press Play the solenoid kicks in pressing the pinch roller to the capstan (as I think it should) and the drum motor spins, but only for a couple of seconds then the solenoid deactivates. At this point, the only option is to press the Eject button which works fine. Trying FF or REW at this point does not work. If I load the tape and try either FF or REW before pressing Play the tape does the appropriate thing but once I stop the FF or REW and press Play I get the behavior I've noted above. Turning the unit on and off does activate or deactivate the solenoid so it appears that power may not be the issue. What can I look at to determine where the problem is?
Plays for a few seconds and stops check the lubrication on the reel drive motor. It gets gummed up and stalls the reel drive on low speed (for play) which triggers emergency stop.
@@12voltvids It looks like I have to take out the whole transport assembly to get to the reel drive motor. Is that possible from the top, or do you need to attack this from the bottom as well? The two screws in the back of that assembly are straight forward, but the assembly is connected at the front with no visible screws holding it in.
OK, I figured out how to get access to the transport assembly and can see the reel drive motor, but there doesn't seem to be gummed up. The motor spins easily, however when engaged to the take up hub it does present more resistance. I'll keep looking.
@@12voltvids Found the video where you worked on the reel motor. Thank You! Followed the process and cleaned and oiled the spots you pointed out. But the behavior still remains. Drum spins for a few seconds and then stops.
12voltvids The chassis of this SL-HF1000 is an a evolution of the simple 711B2 Chassis, this chassis is very friendly service, especially the reel assy and the loading (threading) mechanism. Pay attention at the guide no.2 and no.3 it's break easily.
LibraAudioLaboratory Early units, namely the SL-2000, 2500 and 2700 yes, the guide pins were always breaking as they just had a pin looped through a formed loop in the loading gear.The mod kit had us tech clipping the broken pieces of plastic away using special nippers, and replacing the guide blocks with new ones that the entire base is metal. Those ones were fine.The first generation decks were destroyed when people stuck in an Alsop wet type head cleaner. Those were deadly to the original 711 chassis.
Alan Wong I received a ton of training, especially on Betamax when I worked for the Sony corporation at an apprentice video tech way back in 1984 when I was hired as a temp to "modify" literally thousands of beta units that had bad parts in them. They hired several of us for the refit, and then they offered me a permanent position, in Winnipeg. No thanks, so I left, and went to work for an independent warranty depot, where I quickly became the master certified tech, and ran the service department for 20 years before the writing on the wall became very clear that there was no way I would be able to continue in that line of work due to falling prices, and the general shift in technology. So I left in 2003, re-trained for a totally different industry, and figured I had hung up my soldering iron for good, and then I got this idea to make this series of videos to teach others what the generation of engineers and technicians before me taught me over my 20 year career. I started an apprenticeship when I was still in high school, and got my red seal in 1984 while I was working at Sony.
Hi there, My sl hf1000 having problem. When I try to record there is sound but no picture. Could you advise which section of the video I should look at? Is it the capacitor cause it? Please advise
@@12voltvids I opened it this morning check the pre-amp no leaking cap. then I checked the video head it caught some fiber then I cleaned it. Now solved the playback issue. Now it playback perfectly. Buy still recording issue. Please advise where can I look?
I have a Sony SL-HF500 and it will not load the tape. The power light will not light but the clock is working and the Beta III lights up and can be changed to Beta II and if I push the record button the record lights up momentarily. It seems like there is no power to the loading parts. I have replaced the Voltage regulator, STK5441, and it didn’t change anything. Any idea what the problem might be??
If the power light doesn't come on and the solenoid click when you turn on the problem there is a voltage missing and probably the str regulator. If you bought one on eBay it is probably a pull and also defective . I pulled one out of my skhf900 to fix my 1000
Thanks for our reply. That's what I thought. it is a new part. I watched your above video and it seems to have the same problem that yours had is the reason I replaced the regulator. Any other ideas what may be the problem?
@@tommills8368 It's easy to test. There is power in unswitched out and switched out plus power control in. Measure the control in if it toggles on and off and the switched out does not switch then it is the regulator IC. If no control signal then you have to look back and see why the control signal isn't changing.
Check the upper drum to see if it is shiny like a mirror due to polishing by the tape. It should be dull. If shiny it needs to be removed and the surface de-polished using comit cleaner.
@@alanwong3980 rotary transformer came apart on one of my slfh1000 decks. So i robbed the drum from my slhf900. Works perfect except no flying Erase heads. Next step (after the heads wear out) will be to pull the disk off the seized 1000 drum and put them on the 1000 that has the 900 drum in it. Use the 1000 with the transplanted drum to transfer beta tapes to digital all the time.
Paul Wilson No I didn`t stage that. I think you can tell the surprize in my voice as I was tracing the muting line from print to print and then spotted the switch. It is right there on the front between the MPX filter, and the tape length switch.Of course, the MPX filter is for recording video when the sound was sumucast on an FM radio station, which was common before stereo TV became popular, and was needed to cancel the pilot tone as it would mess up the sound. The tape length switch was to select an L500, L750 and L830 tepe length, and that was used to calculate the remaining tape length.3 switches that are NEVER used! I was sure it was going to be a bad transistor due to the intermittent video flicker, where it would momentarily flash, but as it turned out that was just dirty contacts on the switch.Good thing this was mine. If I was still in the business, and that was a paid customers unit I spent an hour chasing a `customer` control, the work order wouldn`t have said reset switch. I probably would have just cut that diode I did during the test, and sent it on it`s way, and would have never found the switch, and billed then an hour of time to boot. (Well, the shop would have, because the owner wouldn`t have been happy paying me for an hour of unbillable time.)
Paul Wilson Some of my videos, common faults, namely on a few of the VHS VCR were staged. I planted the faults, and therefor I know the solution going in, and just go through the motions that would normally be done to service these units. Think the alignment of the timing videos, and so forth. Then there is the true fault videos, which on this one was what I believed was the case, and started isolating stages and using the service manual to trace the circuit. So I was quite surprized to find that switch there, as I had totally forgotten about it. When I learned electronics, this is what my instructor would do. He would go, and put in a bad part, and then turn us loose and see how long it would take us to find it. Find fault, move on to next lesson. Don't find fault, find yourself on the Special High Intensity Training program or shit list.
@@infinitecanadian Nope. I never complain about my job, I just go do it. I di hear my friends chirping about their job all the time though. Canada post, BC Ferries are apparently jobs according to my friends that work there that you don't want. I have thought about what would be the ultimate job as far as I can see. That would be the guy that drives the street cleaner. Drive around all summer driving a big vacuum cleaner around the neighbourhoods sucking up all the leaves and dirt from the roads during the summer. In the winter drive the snow plow. That sounds like a pretty stress free job to me. Sit in a nice air conditioned cab and drive slowly around the streets.
@@12voltvids Also, driving around in one of those warehouse electric trucks (many of which are made by a Canadian company called 'Motrec' would be fun. It's just that having to work can be a pain sometimes.
Its actually really fun to watch someone who legit knows how VCR's operate. Everyone else on youtube seems to mess around hobbyist style until they fix it through observation. I like how you explain it all
Thanks for the video! I was almost sure that the problem was in an old electrolyte cap somewhere near Q108. Who would have thought that those decks have a switch to mess up the video! Brilliant!
ngadla The switch was there to allow creating a continuous control track for insert editing.
Found your channel today and I have really enjoyed this video. Watching you step through everything and showing how it all works was thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks for sharing. Well worth the time I spent watching it. Cheers.
ngl777777 Many more videos to come.
THANK YOU! Video was a big help fixing a Sony SL-HF600. Loading mechanism was messed up, I think someone forced a tape into it. Cleaned the switch, and re-timed the gears, and it works perfectly after cleaning.
Yeah Dave but it was fun ! And we all got to see a bit deeper into the circuitry. Good Stuff !
Very interesting video! The mechanism indeed is a great design, I love those tape guides that just fold out of the way! I knew about that 'video black' switch, I saw it in one of the videos of TH-cam user videoholicreturns, but I would have never guessed that that was the problem just watching this video :)
Unfortunately Sony never produced a PAL version of the SL-HF1000, the best Betamax you can get over here in Europe is the SL-HF950 which is basically the same as the SL-HF750.
DrCassette I "should" have known about the black video switch, as I used this machine, actually a pair of them for about 7 years editing videos from 1986 when I bought both of them, and about 1992 when I made the jump to professional Betacam, and ran that format right up to 2000 when I made the switch to professional DV (that JVC camera featured on my shoulder on the home channel screen, and in a service vid) and then to HDV in 2005, only to shut down my production business a few years later. What the black switch is used for is to allow a generating a black screento lay down a control track on a blank tape. That tape is then subsequently edited in insert mode, as opposed to assembiing video. In assemble mode, the full track erase head is used and it wipes everything prior to recording. In insert mode you can record video clips, and audio either together or separately. A common use was say for music videos of the day. You would record a black screen, and then record the music track.The video tracks clips are all just short clips where the performers lip synch with their music, so the tracks are all start stop. The editor now can sync up the video, with the pre-recorded audio track, and insert each video clip to produce a finished program.
In the next little while I will set up 2 SLHF1000 decks, and 2 monitors, and will do a full real time demonstration of the editing process. I intend to re-edit a couple of videos I have on my channel, probably the Quesnel radio station video, and will shoot the entire process, and then compare it to how it is done on the computer. Should be an interesting comparision, especially for the younger generation that grew up with computers, and smart phones.I am actually looking forward to setting up a temporary studio in my garage, so show how it was done, and how an automated assemble / insert system works. For those with a broadcast background this will bring back memories to the 3/4 and betacam edit controllers, except that the sl1000 has the controller built in.
I have a front loading beeta, it sat in someones life or multiples..then came to me in 1995. It then lived with me a couple of year before going in a drafty , cold , damp outside shed for 20+ years. Now its back in the house..it was a beauty..now ?? Who knows...its ornament .
Great video, learning alot here. I need to reseat the 3 sets of gears in the front loader mechanism because I didn't note how they were seated before the time. Any chance you have a document or video on what the white gear positions need to be?
Ugh, I know how that can be when you're thinking "it's broken it must be something here!" and you find out its working as intended you just totally didn't think about something. But, as you said it's great to see the inside of that beast, I love the serviceability with Sony of yesteryear. Hell, I just miss Sony as an incredibly reliable and innovative brand.
narunetto They turned out some great gear. Sony was the innovator for so many years, and had some great products. Had they marketed Betamax better there would have never been a VHS, but good marketing dethroned them. What initially threw me was the odd flash of pix, which looked like a bad transistor, but was just dirt in that switch.
Thank you for very clear presentation about loading system! I have a SL-C30 that is not working. When powered up there is kind of buzzing sound from the pendulum motor and it refuses to take cassette in. What could cause this?
¿Es un placer ver tus vídeos y cómo lo explicas, tengo un problema con un sl-hf950, después de repararle algunos problemas, enhebra la cinta, aunque le falta un poco para llegar al final, pero el rodillo presor al no entrar en el cabrestante, dónde está el eje del capstan vuelve a desenhebrar la cinta, si le doy con el dedo al engrane que va al motorcito, entra en play, funciona todo, pero al darle a stop la cinta no desenhebra,¿ Que puede pasar? Gracias.
bonjour je viens de récupérer 1 Sony hi8 evo-9800 p et je n'ai pas d'indications sur le panneau avant pourtant il avale bien les k7 mais aucune action sur les touches eject,rew,play,f.fwd pause le compteur n'est pas allumé ainsi que les diodes si vous pouvez m'indiquer ce qui se passe j'en serais reconnaissant. MERCI
great video and not a wasted effort on the black screen switch just not being switched on/off. perfect lesson to show check the simple things first. happens to the best of us, including myself. ask me how I know...(smirk)....having said that, I can see how back in the day, just changing out an entire board would lead to a quick expedient repair. I have an acquaintance who repairs hospital test equipment, i.e. CatScan, MRI, X-ray, ultrasound machines. BIG BUCKS for each call and per hour after that. I think he gets $250 just for knocking on their door, and then another $150/hour after that, and that was years ago...he probably gets even more now. anyway, the boards are stored in large drawers like a dresser drawer, and he opens them, locates and diagnoses which board it is, and then just changes the entire board as a plug-in. the old board goes back to mfr. for rebuild, or scrapping. what you are doing it old school, signal tracing down to the component, which requires an in-depth understanding, patience, and lots of experience to do, and ability to read schematics. all schematics are not created equal, some are really lousy hard to read....ask me how I know again...(laughter....) anyway tracing to component has become a lot art in these days of low-quality wave-soldered Chinese made electronics...we used to bitch the Japanese stuff in the 70-80's, now we pine for those days...the Chinese electronics make the Japanese look like high end German electronics or a Swiss watch....what amazes me is I can plug in an old USA-made radio from the 1920-40's era and they fire up and work many times....what happened ? I have a Telex 8-track changer from the 1970's, made in USA, that holds 12 tapes and plays them like a merry go round, got it NOS- played it for a year, the logic circuit died. it would not cycle tapes. I traced it out without a schematic, and just changed all the transistors and caps in the logic circuit, cost me about $35 and a half hour soldering time. presto it's fixed...sometimes a shotgun repair is the cheapest, quickest way to go....it all depends....
That is what they do at work. When a line card, or transport card fails they swap it out, and send the old one back for repair. Same for the DSLAM cards, fiber and T1 cards. They are all repaired by a single repair facility. Some of these cards are 40+ years old, as we are still using an old GTD5 switch at the central office, and they haven't made that in 40 years, so the manufacture has long abandoned the old tech, but the thing is the #5 was so advanced that even today it is still a very functional switch, and as they say if it ain't broke.... All that infrastructure was paid off many years ago, so now for the telco's still using it, there is only the maintenance costs, and it has proven to be very reliable. Of course all that technology came out of the space program, so it was all over engineered.
You are correct about the old American made stuff. Was all very good. Old Zenith and RCA TVs were fantastic until they moved to Mexico. Some of the best stuff I have seen in recent years has been the Bose gear that was made in the USA. The best cell phones I have also seen were the Blackberry phones that were made in Canada. The last of those was their first Android phone the Priv (which is what I have, and bought it specifically because of where it was made) All their current phones are now made in China, as Blackberry couldn't compete with the labor of off shore. As they say, if you can't beat em, join em.
Right again about the Japanese stuff from the 70s. We used to call it junk.
Consumer electronics was a totally different industry than other industries. We had to repair to component level because replacing an entire board was cost prohibitive.
I remember when the DV cameras first came out, and that was the first time we saw BGA on consumer electronics. All those BGA chips on the digital board.
I knew right then that the electronics repair industry was doomed.
I had a camera come in where the 1394 connector (firewire) was damaged due to the fool customer buying into the monster cable advertising dogma and due to the stiffness of the cable, it didn't take long to rip the connector off the board.
Board cost, 890.00 on a 3000 camera. Not covered by warranty due to physical abuse. I though the owner of the camera was going to get ina fist fight with the shop owner, and I got a suspension for "opening my big mouth" about the cable damaging it. (The shop had sold the 150.00 cable as an up sell to the "flimsy" sony cord. There was a reason that the Sony cord, which was thin like a telephone line was like that. So as not to stress the fragile connector on the camera that is held in place by just a little bit of solder.
Never forgot that. I was banned from talking to customers going forward from that time. When I did up an estimate, I gave it to the service advisor whom would call the customer and blow smoke up his a5s!
The current crop of TVs now you basically swap boards, but I think it is highly unlikely that people are getting new boards. All these sellers are just taking boards out of broken TVs and reselling them. Some work, others don't and when a bad board goes out they just exchange it many times. Must be enough profit in re-cycling old boards as there are enough companies doing it.
funny...I cleaned out an old TV/VCR repair shop, the owner retired and gave me all the contents for free. it took weeks to empty it. I walked around the store with garbage bags just filling them with NOS parts. sold it all to guys like you who had interest in it, and kept some for myself. I took 17 flat screen TV's out of there, including 2 big Plasma TV's that take 2 guys to carry them. the ones that I could not get working, I sold the boards on Ebay. Every single board sold with good feedback. I kept the big plasmas and one flatscreen Akai. the problem with the Akai, was one resistor that cost me $1 to replace, true story. poof it came right on. I was amazed how easy those TV's come apart with boards. there's almost nothing inside them. Zenith really was the zenith of old TV technology. the shop owner told me that, Zenith was the best, Magnavox and RCA also good, but parts were hard to get for Magnavox sometimes. when I asked him what was the best new TV for price and reliability/parts, he said SHARP. He was an authorized service center for all these brands. I got 6 garbage bags full of NOS parts, have one bag left. I listed all his specialty VCR tools, scopes, testers, manuals on Ebay- every single unit sold. it was then I realized the VCR formats have an underground following still alive, much like the reel to reel tape, and 8-track cartridge audio formats do. Some of the stuff was just too well built to throw in the trash, even if obsoleted by digital dvd/cd technology- and the techies will recognize that and save it. There is always something about old formats that is sacrificed, when technology moves onward for more convenience and compactness. There is no free lunch. I still watch a Sony Trinitron CRT made around 2005 or so. It still has a better refresh rate and colors than the average flat screen. I got it for $50.
12voltvids do you still do repairs on the side ? if so I'd like to contact you. do you have a website ?
12voltvids we had a used cellphone recycle box at our church/school. someone got a Blackberry new for Christmas, and later that year, donated it for recycle, new in the box. I was tasked with packing/shipping the phones to recycler every month. well that one I pulled out. the rest of the phones donated were always cheap Korean or Chinese made crap that were broken. that Blackberry was a real work of art for a phone. I still have it. just can't part with it. could not see it being ground up for metals content at the recycle center...
tunnelportterror
I have used them at work for years. I have a bunch of old ones. curve, bold, Q5, and my current classic which the Q5 and classic are Chinese made and not great quality. personally I have a torch (original with slide out keyboard) Z10 Z30 and now the Android priv. these ones made in Canada. I still use the old Q10 Z10 and Z30 as music players. they are great as I just pop an SD card in and let it play. bulletproof. very well built.
This is hilarious. I wondered if the machine had some sort of "Video Muting" switch - those high-end Sonys had all sorts of crazy features. When you started tracking down faults though I assumed you were finding an actual problem with some component. So imagine my surprise when you suddenly found it was a switch setting after all!
This is sort of a demonstration of the old saying "if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Since I have no ability to repair anything electronic, and only limited mechanical abilities, I immediately thought "look for a switch that's set funny" because that's about the limit of my troubleshooting skills. Whereas you can trace circuits, test components and so forth.
Unfortunately, this meant you had the hammer, and went looking for the nail. My stupidity would have saved me from this particular goose chase. Proof that sometimes it pays to be dumb.
I completely forgot about that black switch. It was to give a black screen so titles could be placed over a black screen. Some day I should haul out both my slhf1000 and shoot a staged repair video shot on and edited on beta just for fun and the actual video will be the process of doing the edit on analog gear. I did that years ago with them using old footage.
@@12voltvids I think this occurred to me as a possible problem because I had a VCR that had a similar switch, one that allowed you to view either the tape or of the line input, which was often of course blank. Something like that. Anyhow that might be why, "I wonder if it's some switch?" came to mind almost immediately.
Some of these high end decks were so complicated you practically needed a pilot's license to operate them. I worked at a television studio for a couple of years in college and even I found them confusing.
@@sunspot42 input switch completely different. This just blacks the incoming video but keeps the sync from the tuner so titles could be overlaid. Switch to line i without a video signal there would be no sync and no titles as sync needed for character generator.
@@12voltvids Yes no I understand. I worked in a TV studio eons ago. I'm just saying it's something vaguely similar - an unusual switch (on a consumer VCR anyhow) that switches from the tape to some other input (in your case, a sync signal with no picture, on my old VCR, the external input).
I found the issue of the video board. There is crap in the middle. The connection between life or dead. Is it possible to get this board VI-18?? Please advise.
Don't feel bad about that little oversight of the black video switch. It happens to all of us, where we think too hard about the problem, ignoring the obvious solution right in front of us.
I had a friend who worked as a repair tech and he was dealing with an SL-5000 and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't play BII and BIII recordings properly; they would always play at too fast a speed. He was in the midst of doing circuit level work to try and fix it.
Turned out there was a switch that enabled BI only playback on the lower right rear of the VCR (if memory serves me about the location of the switch, that is). It was set to play cassettes in BI mode only.
I pointed that out to him and he was like "what?!"
So, he undoes the work he was doing and sets the switch to the correct setting and the VCR begins playing BII and BIII recordings like it was supposed to.
It's always a good reminder that, in troubleshooting, always chase after the simplest stuff first.
Hi there,
I hope all is well with you.
I hope you can give me some advise.
I have the same model Betamax. Last few months it gives me trouble,
When the machine cold very thing fine however, when it get warm the video stumble or no video but the sound still great.
Could you advise which system Board and which I should look ?
Thanks in advance
Alan
hi there, I hope all is well with you. I got a very CLEAN Sl-HF1000 however, no picture AT ALL(perfect hi-fi sound).
Could you advise which section should I look at? no damage on Video board.
Thanks in advance
Any chance you have a video or even a picture inside of the piece you have removed? I have an SL HF600 and I have no idea how everything is supposed to line up.
That camera does a good job of zooming in!!
i have the SLHF 500 looks the same as the one you are working on, my tape will load all the way the head will not spin up after 5 secs the tape will unload and eject it self. any idea ? i already replaced regulator in power supply. got it from NTE.
You made my day with the "defect"! And I thought I had a s***y day! 😂🤣
There's something about Beta mechanism that makes them really interesting just to watch how they work, I feel like VHS look boring, it may have something to do with how huge the drum looks.
Great video as always.
Gordon Freeman You think beta looks cool, how about 3/4"The first clip on my opening intro shows a 3/4" unloading. The drum on those suckers is huge.
12voltvids What about EIAJ?
12voltvids
Yeah, I was going to ask about that in your intro, I know those things are huge.
Gordon Freeman I have the servicing video of that unit up. MV or NN 9300 I believe is the model. 3/4" is cool to watch in operation because the drum is so large, and the tape is huge. If you look at a Umatic vs a Beta, you will see the resemblance.They are almost identical, except the Umatic is the reverse. Tape runs from righjt to left, drum spins clockwise, threads opposite direction. Very nice picture..
12voltvids
Thanks, I will check that out.
fantastic video, and I'm totally surprised to see it, and I was shocked to have service manule
Thank you very much and appreciate you :)
abood issa I was surprized that I had the manual. I must have `stolen`that from my former employer. I actually have a few old Sony manuals. When stuff was being converted to digital, I grabbed a stack of manuals.
One thing I notice about this Beta machine is the loading ring goes clockwise when loading like the U-Matic machines you have shown. The Beta machines in videos I've watched before have the loading ring going the other way. This machine looks more like a miniature U-Matic for that reason. I guess it doesn't matter which way it operates or which half of the drum you wrap around, just so you get the 180 degrees. Why is this machine backwards from the other Beta machines?
It isn't backwards. per say. If you watch a umatic and an original Beta, you will see that the tape goes directly to the erase head, and the large loop of tape is on the return path. umatic tape runs from right to left. Beta runs from left to right. On the 711 chassis (this one) the tape is threaded with 2 loading arms, not just one. It is actually pulled out both directions, with the supply side under tension, and the pinch roller actually moving on a separate loading gear.This was designed first for the SL2000 portable unit, and carried through all the slim line decks. It was cheaper, and inferior in design to the original design. See my SL5200 hifi deck in operation. That one was no question the best deck they made for standard Betamax. The SLHF1000 had much better video quality as it had Beta1, plus the super high band capability for Beta1, but the original design was simpler and more reliable. BUT it came at a cost, size. They wanted it smaller for a portable recorder. I have an SL3000 I should pull apart. That is a portable, but the full size deck so you can see how big that machine is. I do have quite the Betamax collection.
Those spring-loaded guides on the loading ring (instead of rigid ones) seem like a disaster waiting to happen. These are very interesting mechanisms.
Oh trust me they were. On the original design, on the SL2000, 2500 and 2700 they all broke off. 100% failure, especially when a dumbass customer put in one of those wet cleaning tapes.Sony came out with a repair kit, that required using a specialized tool called a "nipper" which resembled needle nose pliers with a flat cutter on the end to nip off the broken plastic hinge embedded in the loading ring. Then a new guide with a metal hinge built into the base could be installed. Put in hundreds of these guide pin kits over my career. At the time of this design Betamax still had 40% market share in North America, and closer to 45% in Canada. I would service probably 10 Betamax machines a week, and 40 VHS machines, in addition to 20 televisions a week, and that was just me. There were 2 other techs working in the shop, however I was the master certified tech, so I got all the tough stuff.
Hi, thanks very useful video. I recently got Sony sl- hf900 almost same as this Betamax, it have good picture ,video is good in both B2 and B3, but absolutely no audio even small humming noise when turn the volume to max, nothing. And two led left and right input levels indicators are in zero, only one bar. And front display is too dim. I did not find any unusual shape capacitor or other components on boards , however I found two large 10000 uF capacitor in power supply that bulged and swelled on top, there is not any visible leakage around them . Can those two capacitors caused this problem in audio and dim display?
Probably not. Is it a hifi tape or mono. If you mono, have you cleaned the audio control head. Audio records on top edge of tape, control track on bottom.
@@12voltvids thank you for responding. I tried many cassettes all original movies HiFi and standard , I cleaned all heads, display is too dim, has very good video but no audio at all I even connect to old Crt tv but no audio.
hi how do i change color coil of sony betamax video
12V, how to check the
end sensor coil on a SL-2500?
Hi there, I got another one these vcr. It does not eject tape.
Please please advise how to fix it?
This was a great video and I learned alot by watching this as I have 3 Beta VCRs which have loading issues. Where can I order one of those toothed gear belts. I need one for a Sony SLHF 900. One of the vcrs has an issue it will load the tape fine but will not play. Capstan motor issue?? I also have a Sony SLHF 870D that will take the tape in but will only load halfway and then it kicks the tape back out. Any comments for repair appreciated. I have downloaded service manuals for the SLHF-900 Decks but don't have one for the SLHF-870D. Hope you can help me with these Sony Decks. Thank You, Mike
This video has gotten me halfway to sorting out my SL-HFR30. When everything is in sync I can load and play no problem. Eject is the problem. All mechanisms move as they should but the metal sensor on the right doesn't rotate. I need to stick a flathead screwdriver in front of the sensor to trip the release mechanism and it will unload as normal. Would make a great video to see how to get that part rotating. As far as I can tell everything is there... springs etc.
That is rotated by the half loading ring gear that moves the pinch roller block. You are probably out of time by one tooth. When it retracts all the way back it turns the detection coil towards the mount post.
@@12voltvids Thanks for the speedy reply. I'm scratching my head trying to figure how to align that detection coil. I don't want to make things worse. Ha. I know you've got a busy bench and I don't expect you to cover this but it would be a great video if you have the time. Big fan here. Thanks for the hours of edu-tainment. Just joined your Patreon. Cheers!
@@timkowalski8127 that bench is not that busy. I'll see if I can dig out a beta machine and go through that at some point I got to got to find one I don't have one sitting in the shop at the moment the one I fixed last week is already gone back to its owner
@@12voltvids That would be great! I hope you can find a suitable deck.
YOU ARE THE KING OF BETAMAX>> ITS YOUR INFO KNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE >> ITS HELP US TO UNDERSTAND ELECTRONICS> THANKS 12VOLTVIDS
It could be io board right?
Hello sir,
I hope all is well with you.
I hope you could give advise where to look to solve my sl hf 1000.
My deck was work fine till last week.
When I play a tape for around 3 mins the picture goes dark but the hi fi sound ok.
Is it some capacitor gone? Where and how can trouble shot it?
Thanks in advance
Try heating the capacitors in the head amp with a hairdryer. That metal box behind the head drum. If the picture comes back and fades out again, it's the capacitors of the head amp that have gone bad.
Yes, I am studying it on TH-cam. I hope I can repair it. The record and playback picture in top quality. I managed to record beta 1 on brand new tape.
Beta 1 in shb, mode looks almost as good as 3/4" umatic.
I wonder if you wouldn't happen to sell any spare parts for Betamax equipment.
I am in need of a supply side end sensor for an SL-HF400.
I do have a parts machine that probably has the part you are looking for.
I've sent you a personal message. Thank you.
I had sent an email but have gotten no reply.
It will be on my computer and I have been away for a few days. Should see something today.
12:46 that´s just the orange belt I need.
is it sold brand new??
I may have one I can part with.
what is quality like in B1s? with greate tape like pro-x?
B1s is only slightly better than B2s because the recorded frequency is the same signal to noise is better as cross talk between the tracks is reduced. B1SHB on the other hand bumped the horizontal resolution from 260 to 300 lines. Turn off the hifi sound and it jumped to 320 which made it very close to 3/4" Umatic. This was due to the higher fm carrier frequency and larger deviation. It also made the recordings not compatable with non SHB players just like svhs will not play on standard VHS.
I should add that the pro-x tape is complete garbage. The binder failes and coating just peels off.
If you have any special recordings on pro-x tape you will be lucky to get one play before the tape self destructs and leaves a pile of colbalt coating shards all over the inside of the machine.
That was fun! I sure hope you rejoined that diode before you buttoned it up! ;-)
+morrisonAV Yes I did reconnect it. The black video switch wouldn't work without it. The reason I totally forgot about that switch is because I never used it.In my studio I had a black video generator, which is essentially just a video camera with the beam shut off on the tube. (standby mode)What the switch was for is if the recorder was connected to an antenna, or cable TV, the incoming broadcast signal could be used for color black, and that switch just muted the video, while allowing the sync, so the OSD character generator could overlay the time code, or generate crude titles.I used to use Letraset rub down letters and shoot them with a camera for my title cards, and then I could superimpose them. I had this super impose titler, that you could take your title, and it would grab a freeze frame, and then super impose that over video passing through it. It was a fine piece of Sony home editing crap that they had back in the 80s. I probably still have some of that crap around here somewhere that I will eventually come across, and will rip it apart and shoot a video of it when I locate it.My beta equipment I try to keep in top condition, as transferring beta tapes is a good money maker. Lots of VHS machines around, but not many 8mm decks around, and even fewer Betamax machines in working condition.
+12voltvids I sure wish you and I lived closer. I have a lot of Beta gear and some high-end VHS stuff that needs help. Many thanks for the videos you produce. You give me the courage to tackle some of my "easier" repair projects myself.
Hello 12voltvids. I was reading a post and see you also worked at Sony some time ago. I worked at Sony from 1972 to 1982 in the Detroit area. What service center did you work at? I am working on a SLHF-1000 today that a friend picked up for $200. I suspect the power supply. the most noticeable thing is the drum motor either does not spin, or it spins slow and eventually stops. My ability to do repair work has been very limited for the past years due to health issues. Send me a private message back if you can.
Hi there,
I got the same Betamax today. It is in working condition.
Is it possible to fine tune to get the best video quality?
These units didn't have many problems, but keep this in mind.If the super beta, or BI-SHB switch is in the incorrect position you will not get the best quality.When playing a beta tape, toggle the superbeta switch and look at the picture.One will give the best picture.You have to match the playback to how the recording was done. If you have a standard Betamax recording, and you turn the superbeta switch on, this will degrade the picture as the playback circuits are tuned for signals that are not recorded. At the same time if you play a superbeta tape and fail to turn the switch on, then the picture quality is reduced because you are not playing back the full bandwidth that was recorded.These are fantastic machines. One of the finest Betamax units that Sony produced.
Thanks for your advise. Cheers
A very informative video. I found it because I have an SL-HF1000 that I bought when it came out. The unit has been sitting idle (not plugged in) for several years now and I want to transfer some tapes to digital. The problem I am encountering is that the tape goes in and loads properly. But when I press Play the solenoid kicks in pressing the pinch roller to the capstan (as I think it should) and the drum motor spins, but only for a couple of seconds then the solenoid deactivates. At this point, the only option is to press the Eject button which works fine. Trying FF or REW at this point does not work. If I load the tape and try either FF or REW before pressing Play the tape does the appropriate thing but once I stop the FF or REW and press Play I get the behavior I've noted above. Turning the unit on and off does activate or deactivate the solenoid so it appears that power may not be the issue. What can I look at to determine where the problem is?
Plays for a few seconds and stops check the lubrication on the reel drive motor. It gets gummed up and stalls the reel drive on low speed (for play) which triggers emergency stop.
@@12voltvids It looks like I have to take out the whole transport assembly to get to the reel drive motor. Is that possible from the top, or do you need to attack this from the bottom as well? The two screws in the back of that assembly are straight forward, but the assembly is connected at the front with no visible screws holding it in.
OK, I figured out how to get access to the transport assembly and can see the reel drive motor, but there doesn't seem to be gummed up. The motor spins easily, however when engaged to the take up hub it does present more resistance. I'll keep looking.
@@rickmcleod1630 Bottom. I have done videos on the reel motor on these mechanism
@@12voltvids Found the video where you worked on the reel motor. Thank You! Followed the process and cleaned and oiled the spots you pointed out. But the behavior still remains. Drum spins for a few seconds and then stops.
Great Video, the tape path is ok?
LibraAudioLaboratory Tape path is fine. Beta units don`t generally go out of alignment, unless the drum has been taken apart.
12voltvids The chassis of this SL-HF1000 is an a evolution of the simple 711B2 Chassis,
this chassis is very friendly service, especially the reel assy and the loading (threading) mechanism.
Pay attention at the guide no.2 and no.3 it's break easily.
LibraAudioLaboratory Early units, namely the SL-2000, 2500 and 2700 yes, the guide pins were always breaking as they just had a pin looped through a formed loop in the loading gear.The mod kit had us tech clipping the broken pieces of plastic away using special nippers, and replacing the guide blocks with new ones that the entire base is metal. Those ones were fine.The first generation decks were destroyed when people stuck in an Alsop wet type head cleaner. Those were deadly to the original 711 chassis.
Haha. Great video. I like to learn your trouble shooting skill
Alan Wong I received a ton of training, especially on Betamax when I worked for the Sony corporation at an apprentice video tech way back in 1984 when I was hired as a temp to "modify" literally thousands of beta units that had bad parts in them. They hired several of us for the refit, and then they offered me a permanent position, in Winnipeg. No thanks, so I left, and went to work for an independent warranty depot, where I quickly became the master certified tech, and ran the service department for 20 years before the writing on the wall became very clear that there was no way I would be able to continue in that line of work due to falling prices, and the general shift in technology. So I left in 2003, re-trained for a totally different industry, and figured I had hung up my soldering iron for good, and then I got this idea to make this series of videos to teach others what the generation of engineers and technicians before me taught me over my 20 year career. I started an apprenticeship when I was still in high school, and got my red seal in 1984 while I was working at Sony.
Hi there,
My sl hf1000 having problem. When I try to record there is sound but no picture.
Could you advise which section of the video I should look at? Is it the capacitor cause it?
Please advise
Does it playback
@@12voltvids Yes it playback normal. But sometime the picture disappear.
@@alanwong3980 if playback is good then heads are fine, problem in record amp probably. Would need troubleshooting. Unlikely a capacitor issue.
Today I tried to play prerecord tape the picture is gone. I can sent you the video I took if you can give your mail address.
Please help.
@@12voltvids I opened it this morning check the pre-amp no leaking cap. then I checked the video head it caught some fiber then I cleaned it. Now solved the playback issue. Now it playback perfectly. Buy still recording issue. Please advise where can I look?
I have a Sony SL-HF500 and it will not load the tape. The power light will not light but the clock is working and the Beta III lights up and can be changed to Beta II and if I push the record button the record lights up momentarily. It seems like there is no power to the loading parts. I have replaced the Voltage regulator, STK5441, and it didn’t change anything. Any idea what the problem might be??
If the power light doesn't come on and the solenoid click when you turn on the problem there is a voltage missing and probably the str regulator. If you bought one on eBay it is probably a pull and also defective . I pulled one out of my skhf900 to fix my 1000
@@12voltvids What is a "pull"? It is a new Sanyo part from Consolidated Electronics in Ohio
@@tommills8368
A pull is a used part pulled from a recycler
Thanks for our reply. That's what I thought. it is a new part. I watched your above video and it seems to have the same problem that yours had is the reason I replaced the regulator. Any other ideas what may be the problem?
@@tommills8368
It's easy to test. There is power in unswitched out and switched out plus power control in. Measure the control in if it toggles on and off and the switched out does not switch then it is the regulator IC. If no control signal then you have to look back and see why the control signal isn't changing.
Great video. I have the same machine it can fast forward but cannot rewind.
Please advise where I should look at?
Check the upper drum to see if it is shiny like a mirror due to polishing by the tape. It should be dull. If shiny it needs to be removed and the surface de-polished using comit cleaner.
I hope you can fix my edv 9000
Your thumbs tired yet??
GOT A 570. Plays perfectly, but loading mechanism is stuck
no on screen display too
There is. 2 outputs one with osd, the other without.
12voltvids I try both. No video signal at all. No video come through line one.
I tested recording. It works perfectly. Picture and sounds works on another Betamax.
@@alanwong3980 rotary transformer came apart on one of my slfh1000 decks. So i robbed the drum from my slhf900. Works perfect except no flying Erase heads. Next step (after the heads wear out) will be to pull the disk off the seized 1000 drum and put them on the 1000 that has the 900 drum in it. Use the 1000 with the transplanted drum to transfer beta tapes to digital all the time.
Nice that you admit that you are human.........:)
Paul Wilson No I didn`t stage that. I think you can tell the surprize in my voice as I was tracing the muting line from print to print and then spotted the switch. It is right there on the front between the MPX filter, and the tape length switch.Of course, the MPX filter is for recording video when the sound was sumucast on an FM radio station, which was common before stereo TV became popular, and was needed to cancel the pilot tone as it would mess up the sound. The tape length switch was to select an L500, L750 and L830 tepe length, and that was used to calculate the remaining tape length.3 switches that are NEVER used! I was sure it was going to be a bad transistor due to the intermittent video flicker, where it would momentarily flash, but as it turned out that was just dirty contacts on the switch.Good thing this was mine. If I was still in the business, and that was a paid customers unit I spent an hour chasing a `customer` control, the work order wouldn`t have said reset switch. I probably would have just cut that diode I did during the test, and sent it on it`s way, and would have never found the switch, and billed then an hour of time to boot. (Well, the shop would have, because the owner wouldn`t have been happy paying me for an hour of unbillable time.)
I was not saying you did....as I have done the same thing many times myself.
love all your work as I am learning from your video's...many thank's Paul
Paul Wilson Some of my videos, common faults, namely on a few of the VHS VCR were staged. I planted the faults, and therefor I know the solution going in, and just go through the motions that would normally be done to service these units. Think the alignment of the timing videos, and so forth. Then there is the true fault videos, which on this one was what I believed was the case, and started isolating stages and using the service manual to trace the circuit. So I was quite surprized to find that switch there, as I had totally forgotten about it. When I learned electronics, this is what my instructor would do. He would go, and put in a bad part, and then turn us loose and see how long it would take us to find it. Find fault, move on to next lesson. Don't find fault, find yourself on the Special High Intensity Training program or shit list.
You found the problem though
What was your daughter going on about?
Probably about how she hated her job.
@@12voltvids Ha! Don't we all?
@@infinitecanadian Nope. I never complain about my job, I just go do it. I di hear my friends chirping about their job all the time though. Canada post, BC Ferries are apparently jobs according to my friends that work there that you don't want. I have thought about what would be the ultimate job as far as I can see. That would be the guy that drives the street cleaner. Drive around all summer driving a big vacuum cleaner around the neighbourhoods sucking up all the leaves and dirt from the roads during the summer. In the winter drive the snow plow. That sounds like a pretty stress free job to me. Sit in a nice air conditioned cab and drive slowly around the streets.
@@12voltvids That would be cool.
@@12voltvids Also, driving around in one of those warehouse electric trucks (many of which are made by a Canadian company called 'Motrec' would be fun. It's just that having to work can be a pain sometimes.
( BLACK ON- OFF) SWITCH !!!!>> >>GOD SAVE YOU AND CANADA .