sony slv-810 and slv-825

[newzealand]

im not very good when it comes to servicing videos at all ,record players and cd players not to bad ,
i do not know how to clean a vcr head and may very well have damaged it ,
can any one point me in the right direction ,
what is happening is ,i have lots of horizontal screen noise on the 810 and the 825 just will not switch on at all .
im hoping that some one can walk me though a system to find out what may be up with these units as i have been using the 810 till the heads became dirty and i tried to clean them ,things got worse from there
thanks for taking a look at this .
mike

oh i can take detailed pics if you need to see any thing

[Electronic M]

How did you clean them to make things worse?

[newzealand]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

How did you clean them to make things worse?

now please dont think poorly of me but i used a cotton bud , now i have learnt that is not the way to go,i have tried paper and card with no results,
im thinking i have damaged it some how ,
i may have to try to fix the 825 or if heads are the same swap them out,
please do tell me how are my two players rate in the video player world
thanks
mike

[Electronic M]

Hopefully you didn't chip the head if that's the case it is game over. You can't really swap video head drums and have it work without doing an alignment that requires specialized equipment. You can't use cleaning pads with fiber or anything that can catch or clog the heads...

The best thing to do would to have been to order a VHS cleaning tape...Another method is to cut a strip of standard blank copy paper about 1/2"x11" give it a quick dunk in isopropanol ie rubbing alcohol and wrap the paper strip around the drum, then by hand spin the drum 2-3 times one direction and 2-3 times the other. Flip the paper over and repeat till no dirt appears on paper. Never rub the video heads up and down. only in the direction of tape travel/head rotation otherwise you can break them off.

The 825 I would change the Electrolytic Capacitors on both sides of the power transformer and check fuses.

The only VHS Sony's I own/ have owned is an SLV-N55 which is junky but it did give me a few good years after buying it used and some SLV-1000Rs that while capable of AMAZING picture and sound performance is like the VCR personification of all the worst things you hear about the reliability of brittish cars...

If you want a tank of a VCR try to find a mid 90s sharp with 30 sec rapid rewind. My first VCR was one of those and after about 10 years of heavy use on rentals and timeshifting it and occasional use there after it still works well. 90s-03 JVC SVHS decks also seem to perform and hold up well.

[newzealand]

hi
thanks for your help
can i ask a faver of you and post a pic of a broken head and a good head?i dont know how to work out if i have broken it or not
thanks for chatting any way
how are you holding up with the lock down?
mike

[Electronic M]

I don't have an image. It would be hard to see without a jewlers loupe or microscope. Most decks have 2-4 heads mounted on the bottom edge of the drum rotor. Those heads are typically thinner than a mechanical pencil lead and less than 1/16" from leading edge to trailing edge with a 19micron gap in the center and they just barely protrude from the drum. To find a head look for fine dashes on the bottom edge of the rotor, or put a piece of paper over the gap put your finger over the gap and spin the drum till you feel something tiny bump the paper up under your finger.

I've been enjoying working from home, but I miss restaurants and the outdoors/driving .

[newzealand]

the head has 4 wee little black things with copper wire at the base,
i cleaned them with paper and alcohol this time ,how do you clean the groves on the drum? and what are they for?
with a multi meter can i test the head for cond? in case i have damaged a wire?
if this one is no good ill recap the other player and see how it works out

its very boring here but im trying to keep busy

[Electronic M]

I've never gotten the drum grooves dirty enough to need to clean them....If they appear to have a significant amount of dirt in them maybe take a small piece of news paper margin where there is no ink wet it with isopropanol and press it into the grooves with a fingernail or toothpick and spin the drum. The drum rotor is typically grooved and the stator is typically mat finish to develop a thin cushion of air between metal and tape to help prevent tape stiction to the drum.

Are the copper wires you are referring to on the bottom of the drum stator where the drum bolts to the deck, or the bottom of the drum rotor (if so are they sticking out the gap between the stator and rotor or did you remove the rotor)?
If the first case those are probably slip ring contacts or the head output connections and there is no reason to disturb them.
If the latter something is probably damaged rather badly and a picture may be necessary to properly assess.

[newzealand]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I've never gotten the drum grooves dirty enough to need to clean them....If they appear to have a significant amount of dirt in them maybe take a small piece of news paper margin where there is no ink wet it with isopropanol and press it into the grooves with a fingernail or toothpick and spin the drum. The drum rotor is typically grooved and the stator is typically mat finish to develop a thin cushion of air between metal and tape to help prevent tape stiction to the drum.

Are the copper wires you are referring to on the bottom of the drum stator where the drum bolts to the deck, or the bottom of the drum rotor (if so are they sticking out the gap between the stator and rotor or did you remove the rotor)?
If the first case those are probably slip ring contacts or the head output connections and there is no reason to disturb them.
If the latter something is probably damaged rather badly and a picture may be necessary to properly assess.

hmmmm can you give me a idea of what the pic looks like when heads are damaged?

[Jeff]

I found some info on video heads here. From what that site is saying, if you don't break the video heads completely during cleaning, than you could still damage some of the fine wires. I don't know about later cassette players, but if you had an identical player, I would think you could swap main boards and see if the head is still any good.

[djfivos]

Bringing a cotton swab anywhere close to a video head is asking for trouble. You can only use them to clean the lower and upper drums but not the actual ferrite-chip heads. You must use a piece of writing paper or a professional head cleaner stick for those. The most common problems with this series of Sony decks are the blue loading gear that breaks and the ELNA electrolytics in the power supply that leak and corrode the PCB very badly.

[Dave A]

The tiny magnetic head gap in a VCR has a N/S alignment relative to the E/W sideways mounting/spinning of the full head. A horizontal horseshoe arrangement if you will. It can be clogged by any number of problems, fibers, dirt, shedding oxide. The problem is in the pollution in the gap. Wiring is a separate problem.

The trick is to not induce more problems with fibers, paper dust, or others.

Here is where I use many years of clearing clogged heads first with problems with 2" quad tapes going south on one head on air. Just press your fingernail against the spinning head The ultimate crude fix in the day. Usually worked. You cleared the problem in the gap.

With VHS I have and continue to use a gentle N/S rub across the head gap with my finger dipped in Isopropyl or similar. E/W sometimes works.

I wet my fingertip and turn the drum until I find the heads (all of them) and gently rub it N/S. You are not going to snap a head off with gentle fingers. Then move on to the next head. It is as gentle as anything I can think of and addresses the N/S problem across the gap where all the problems and cotton fibers lie.

[newzealand]

thanks for the input, i have found another player that very well be a better model any way,its a slv-1000 ,would that model be better then the one im having trouble with?

[Electronic M]

Performance wise it will probably be a step up, reliability wise it may dissapoint. I have a stack of 3 of the North American version that my friend traded me for a Marantz badged JVC SVHS deck....He had the loading gear (for one of the drum wrap fingers) crack in half at least twice*, the power supply module burn up to the point where replacing the board was the only viable option and some other board fail despite having 3 parts decks to keep it alive he eventually got sick of how regularly it would break and asked me for a trade....these decks are worth stupid money even as parts so if it works use it till it fails and sell it as a parts deck, or sell it now as a working unit and buy several less expensive more reliable decks with nearly as good of performance. In my experience 90s and newer Sharp and JVC SVHS decks perform nearly as well (heck a Professional series JVC SVHS deck I have might be better than the Sony), last much longer under very heavy use and are easier to service.

* Those plastic gears seem to be a huge problem in slv-1000 decks... I'm surprised nobody has made a metal replacement for them. If I ever fix the good deck in the pile my friend traded me I think I'm going to try and make a mold of the gear and cast a new one in lead so it will never crack again (Murphy's law states the other gear in contact with it will then break when the mechanism hangs up).

[centralradio]

I would find a good magnifying lens and see if the tips are still there.Agree on dont use Q-tips.They work great on audio heads but not on video heads..

Also you can try to get a clean macro close up with a camera and post it on here for we can analyze it and see if its all there....

More info here.Not affiliated to these sites..

https://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/in...ken-video-head