RCA VET650 VHS VCR from 1981 Drum Servo and Speed Detection faults repaired

[@marvinwatkins8179]

My sister had one just like that one I really enjoyed watching you bring that video player back to life. Man to my eyes you are absolutely the best.💯💯💯💪🏽

[@zhaohaigaogu7821]

そのとおりでした。修理完了おめでとうございます🎉

[@SanAntonioNews78]

Where were you 30 years ago? My dad had this exact machine when I was a kid. I do not recall what the issue was with the unit but wish you could have fixed it! I used to love the clock display light on this deck. I still remember the remote control that you had to plug into the unit. LOL I still recall during summer vacation from school when I was a kid my mom would be trying to take a nap in the living room and the clicking of the machine would wake her up! Ahhhh memories.

[@Masterj3712]

Congrats Mr. Volts, it is a joy to see one of the pioneer Machs. that paved the way for successive models to follow. It gave us nostalgic appeal. thks. MJ in B'dos 😊

[@cajuncoinhunter]

Wow that's a oldie , back in 82 , 83 I had a radio shop and I ordered a bunch of Beta Max VCR's for real cheap from my supplier .... What I didn't know at the time , NOBODY wanted them anymore ..... I did sell a few and then a year or so later I sold them to my uncle that owned Abbeville Radio & Record shop in town for 15 bux over wholesale price...... A bought lesson is a learned lesson as he told me... He had a bigger customer line than I had though .... I stuck with the VHS's after that ..... I know you have a VHS instead of a Beta . I was talking about the OLDER units .....

[@rogertyler3237]

Yah Those Engineers Should Be Proud Of Their Selvs For Designing That VCR. If They Knew You Got That VCR Working They'd Be Very Proud Of You.

[@zx8401ztv]

From what i have seen, it's a well made old beast for it's era. It just needed your healing fingers lol. That spill looked like it was too close to those presets. I'm shocked that the machine runs that well. i know my old HR3320ek machine would not last as long. I was always fixing minor problems, but to be fair it was ancient allready. I learnt how basic vcr's worked from that machine. I had one sasho betamax machine, it never failed and gave a spot on picture, no supprise.

[@sunspot42]

I'm amazed you were able to get this old relic working again, and really without doing much to it besides lots and lots of troubleshooting to track down the faults. I wasn't very impressed by RCA's equipment during this period so I'm surprised to see this unit still functioning so well. I do recall their Dimension line being fairly well-received by reviewers in the mid-80s, but it was spendy and outclassed by equipment from Sony and others. I guess in theory all those discrete components mean it's at least possible to fix older units like this if the electronics go pear shaped, as opposed to impossible to source ICs on newer machines. It is remarkable comparing newer VCRs tho to hyper-complicated setups like this older unit. Why did it take so many years for manufacturers to simplify the mechanical layout of VHS VCRs and integrate the electronics? It feels like other devices during this era - like CD players - advanced much more quickly, although I suppose they were inherently mechanically simpler to begin with. Were there any manufacturers who you felt really led the pack when it came to streamlining the design of VCRs, or was it just a gradual evolution across all of them?

[@dlarge6502]

"streamlining" or "cost reduction"? A lot of the effort to simplify mechanisms and integrate circuits were for cost reduction reasons. Thus the reliability if an older unit can be terrible but the repair-ability is higher even though more involved as you have a lot to check.

[@marka1986]

It's a Panasonic so doesn't surprise me that it's fixable. Later RCA went with Hitachi for most of their vcrs.

[@heavymetalnewsdesk]

You're the best VCR guy on youtube. I've fixed 2 because of your videos. now if I can fix my portable toploader i'll be golden.

[@12voltvids]

I should know a thing or 2. I did this for a living for over 20 years.

[@heavymetalnewsdesk]

@@12voltvids I have a quasar VH-5300SE, its basically the same VTR as the Panasonic NV-3000. It is for a portable camera system. When I hook the camera up to the 10-pin connector, or into the audio/video input, I get sound and video out of the A/V outputs. But when I play a tape I get no picture or sound, not even snow on the screen, and it also fails to record from the camera or the video input. i have cleaned the heads, I replaced a very leaky capacitor that was an open circuit on the audio circuit, belts are in fantastic shape, it appears to have been serviced at some point in history. The tape light is functioning. The tape threads, tape plays at normal speed, test tape works in other VCRs. other than not working it seems like it's working fine. I don't know what to try next . I'm just hoping i will find another obviously bad part and it will suddenly start working

[@12voltvids]

Dont know where to begin. That thing is so old I wouldn't even bother myself. I have an old jvc professional camera that was about 12 grand when it was new with a bunch of problems that I likely will never fix. I just keep it as a display piece because it looks cool. Those portable units all had really shitty double sided boards and those ceramic modules in them that caused so many headaches. Many were dropped.

[@heavymetalnewsdesk]

@@12voltvids i would chunk it, but a camera i want to use wirelessly plugs into it, so i'll just keep trying i guess. Curiously enough, the same board you changed the capacitor on in this video, I had to remove and heat up a few solder joints because mine was doing the exact same thing, same exact board too. Honestly I'm going to keep working on it. I have signal coming from the audio head, and the control head, the vcr detects sp and slp and changes speeds by itself. and so i think there's a bad solder joint i just haven't found yet. As expensive as another "untested" portable unit is from ebay i hate to "test" another one only to wind up with the same issues

[@12voltvids]

Just wire the camera to a power supply. It runs on 12 volts.

[@alex1520]

haha that was eerie! your alarm went off and it just happened to be exactly 4pm here. lol

[@Lane42]

If I recall correctly, RCA wanted the 4 hour speed so an entire (American) football game could be recorded on one tape.

[@VHSGUY_ANALOGCOMPANY]

True

[@paulb4uk]

Superb work on saving a vintage machine one for the vcr collectors ,in the uk collectors seem to like ferguson machines these were rebranded jvc machines i have always prefered panasonic machines .My nans sharp from 1985 was a reliable machine went for over 13 years with lots of use, tension band gave up in the end i bought the part and changed it but never worked, years later i learned they need to have tension set correctly or you mess the heads up but i tried to save it a uk made sharp .

[@AlessandroCussino]

VCR's are so fascinating. In particular the vintage models. They are so "genuine" compared to the late 90's early 2000's ones. Especially the cheap ones.

[@12voltvids]

Well the newer models had far fewer moving parts and had all the circuitry integrated into a couple of chips. Much more reliable than the old models. About the only thing that goes wrong with them is power problems and mode switches. The old ones with all those discrete parts and all the wiring harnesses and many boards have many points of failure. As a serviceman i liked the older ones because they kept me busy and making a living. I do regret however going into the consumer electronics business. I wasted 20 years of my life working in an industry that had no future. What I was 20 and right out of school I didn't see that, I figured like everyone else in that business at the time that this would go on forever and things would always break and always need to be fixed but it was pretty apparent by the time the late 90s rolled around that wasn't the case and I started making plans to get out. That day came in the summer of 2003. I stayed away for 10 years and then have the idea of starting a KZbin channel and that got me back into repairing this old crap, which is now fun because I'm not under any pressure to do it, don't do it make a living just do it to make the videos to try and help others solve their problems because these days there are fewer and fewer repair techs around. As they say we're a dying breed because most of the guys I knew when I was in the business are six feet under now.

[@paulsi1234]

@@12voltvids I got out of my TV and VCR repair business (in Australia) in 2005, when I couldn’t make a proper living anymore. Went into broadcasting until I retired a couple of years ago 🙂.

[@12voltvids]

@@paulsi1234 i left in 2003 and went to work for the phone / internet / cable TV / security company where i still am today and counting the months till retirement.

[@rogertyler3237]

For Being An Old VCR It's Got A Great Picture.

[@Musicradio77Network]

Nice VCR. I remember the Fisher VCR which was the first VHS VCR we had since I was a kid. I wish Brendan’s Movie Corner would love to get this older one to run the French Canadian VHS of “Fantasia”.

[@dlarge6502]

In the UK as I was growing up in the 80's/90's all VCR's only had SP and LP. LP being 1/2 the speed of SP doubling the recording time. This includes all the JVC machines we had when I was a kid. Until very recently when I have picked up early 00's machines have I even seen one that has slower speeds. I find this very interesting that JVC in the US went to EP, something stopped them in the UK (possibly the PAL market as a whole). Also I find that your LP speed seems better than ours, when we recorded in LP god you knew it lol. I think nobody bothered recording in LP, nobody I knew. I only did it as a last resort when finding a gap in a tape I could record over. When a PAL VCR pauses in LP you have an image but typically it will be monochrome or have flickering colour. Thinking about it, I bet we started getting SLP as a speed right at the time that VCR's (PAL ones) were starting to add NTSC playback features. I remember a change during the early 00's where NTSC playback was in almost every VCR as a big selling point, not that I saw much point myself lol. Our tapes were sold with "E" numbers quoting the SP recording time. So an E120 was 2 hours at SP with LP doubling that. By far I remember everyone simply buying E240 tapes to get 4 hour SP recording, I still have a few. Funnily enough we also had E180 which seemed popular. I think over the pond your tapes were marketed under the LP speeds?

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

Tape speeds between PAL and NTSC are different. PAL SP is close to NTSC LP and PAL LP is close to NTSC SLP/EP. A T-120 tape is almost of the same length as an E-180.

[@dlarge6502]

@@crashbandicoot4everr I suppose thats one of the benefits of having 10 fewer fields per second

[@12voltvids]

Well first of all pal and secam tape speed isslower than ntsc the Head drum rotates slower 1500 RPM versus 1800 for ntsc. Your SP speed is right in the middle between the SP and LP speed for ntsc. That's why a t120 tape becomes an e180 tape on the pal and secam system. The lp tape speed on pal is the same as the SLP or EP speed on ntsc, 6 hours. Your e240 tapes were the same as our t160 which could record up to 8 hours. We also had a t200 and we had t180s as well. I actually have some and I should do a video to show off some of the really long tapes that I have. I used to use them in a time lapse security recorder and to log radio stations for audio in hi-fi because I could record 10 hours on one tape.

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

@@12voltvids I have an E-300 tape. I suppose it's the same as the T-200.

[@moshezaharia4666]

Well done! made me think of my Blaupunkt RTV211 (Panasonic NV-333) that had the rotary transformer go open because of the damn circuit glue that held it in place.

[@12voltvids]

Yep that's right I've seen a few rotary transformers go bad because of the circuit glue. I'm actually quite surprised that this one worked because at the age of it it shouldn't be working but it does.

[@MaximRecoil]

I have a JVC HR-D566U from 1985 or 1986 that I think might have a playback speed detection problem, but it's intermittent. Most of the time it plays tapes correctly, but sometimes the playback has a couple thick staticky horizontal bars through it (kind of like how FF/search looks like on a 2-head VCR), it looks like it might be sped up a little, and there's either no audio or choppy audio, depending on the tape. Usually ejecting the tape and reinserting it gets it to play correctly, but sometime it takes several attempts. It's done it both with tapes that it has recorded itself and with commercial prerecorded tapes. I only have tapes recorded at SP speed so I don't know if it happens with tapes recorded at other speeds or not.

[@12voltvids]

Could be the old loose tape guide problem.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@12voltvids I read that my VCR has some sort of optical sensor(s) instead of a mechanical mode switch, but I don't know where those are. I did see two tiny things that looked like they could be optical sensors of some kind, mounted on each side of the loading tray directly across from each other, and I cleaned those with some residue-free, safe-on-plastic electrical contact cleaner, and everything has worked perfectly since, but since the problem was intermittent to begin with, I don't know yet if cleaning those things actually accomplished anything or not. I'm not sure what the tape guide is or consists of. The tape wraps around the head drum and various posts/rollers when it's playing, and it all seems normal.

[@dazzfromaus4797]

That was back when they made vcrs to last. Also this machine was at the crossroads between the old professional machines and the later domestic vcr machines. So you really got a mixture of both professional and domestic services.

[@12voltvids]

They weren't very reliable in the day. What amazes me is the pedestal that people put these old dinosaurs on that aren't old enough to remember them. Anyone that owned one of these things back in the day would not praise it like people are praising them today. I used to love these old machines because I made a lot of money fixing them, belt kits idlers that stupid light bulb in the tape compartment that would burn out. Made a lot of money off these things. The ones that are still working are ones that haven't been used probably in the last 35 years. Most of these old mono machines that people bought in the early 80s were replaced by cheap Hi-Fi machines and delegated to the basement or put in a closet and forgotten about that's why when we haul them out now and plug them in for the most part they're still in pretty good shape it's not that they were built particularly well it's just they don't have the hours on them and that's why they're still working.

[@fflynnful]

@@12voltvids Idler pulleys and end sensor lamps made us lots of $$ in 1983.

[@12voltvids]

@@fflynnful yes i know. I bought a house fixing broken VCRs.

[@mikelexp]

What a beautiful beast!

[@coyote_den]

...and the number of RIFA caps a unit contains is directly proportional to the chance you'll be quickly opening all the windows in your shop.

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

I've had a RIFA cap explode in my bedroom. Yeah that was fun! :D

[@jamesbaker429]

Same erra I had an Akai 77 VHS weights a ton front loading LP and ELP ,slow motion forward and reverse hi fi sound all manual independent meters fantastic sound at all speeds and picture on Panasonic CRT it had the bonus of Dolby surround built into the VHS compleat with 15watt RMS amplifiers and a real brick remote with two layers of controls great picture even at ELP and the sound did not deteriate at a noticeable level one heck of a machine UK almost a thousand pounds new.

[@enricoself2256]

I typically consider Matsushita caps to be quite reliable, even on old machine like that they are still perfectly within spec. But then, here and there, an apparently good cap for unknown reasons goes bad. I had a similar problem with an old Technics CD player from mid 80's where some cap in the servo board have gone bad. If there are few tenth of caps it is feasible to check them all, but in VCR of that vintage there are hundreds of electrolytic caps, testing them all is out of the question. And a faulty cap can go unnoticed for years, but then it might stress nearby components and cause them to fail (e.g. it might drain too much current out of an IC causing an IC internal failure).

[@seand5719]

I just picked up the same player, brand new in unopened box at an estate sale today. I have bought and sold a lot of old VCRs and this one really caught my eye. I brought it home and fired it up and after a few tries I managed to get the fast forward & rewind working but it will not play. It wants to but it just stops and rewinds the slack. I do not have the time, tools or knowledge to fix it so I am going to sell it on eBay. It has the remote and instructions and is in the original box. Just wondering if it has any value.

[@radiotvrepair1059]

Thanks for this vedio.the capacitor you changed is Vedio signal

[@eDoc2020]

Is there a reason you can't get a freeze frame in LP mode? I thought if the tape stays still the head will scan the same frame over and over again, with the downside being the tracking coming in and out.

[@12voltvids]

If it had dedicated heads for lp it could. The machine has so heads 68micron and slp heads 22 micron. When recording in lp speed you have a 22 micron wide track and. 24 microns of blank tape. So when you stop it there is really nothing to see, half the picture would be snow. In sp and SLP the track width matches the head width.

[@janchristensen9858]

On the drum servo pcb there was a bad soldering on the ic one leg.

[@12voltvids]

Sure there was

[@pablov3716]

Hi, I have's error (21508, Sony VHS Model SLV L49) "Cam encoder error unleading direction" and "Power on stop", What can be?

[@KylesDigitalLab]

Can you explain how servo circuits work on VCRs? I feel like an old machine like this would be perfect for showing how the servo section of a VTR works because there's not many ICs. If you could explain things like phase error etc that would be awesome.

[@12voltvids]

There are plenty of ic on this one. Not LSI but plenty of ic. You have a free running 3 phase motor generator and drive circuit. An fg circuit to establish a speed loop. The frequency coming out if the fg pickup is compared to the oscillator that drives the circuit. The frequency is locked to the oscillator. On record the speed and phase locked to the incoming vertical sync (or a local osc if no video) on playback the control track is used for the reference. The tracking control just changes a delay on the control track pulse going into the capstan seevi circuit. Capacitors are used in the osc and sample and hold circuit. All analog. Newer sets went all digital.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

@@12voltvids Is there a book somewhere or any resources out there that you read/studied back in the 70s/80s when you worked as a technician on these machines? I know some service manuals have some information but most of the stuff I've found is for the PAL system and rare formats like the Philips N1500 which never made it to NTSC land. Does that Sony seminar from 1985 go over servo circuits?

[@12voltvids]

@@KylesDigitalLab I believe he went over a bit, but it was mostly superbeta stuff. I took several courses in the 80s. Forgot most of it these days.

[@directrix101]

VCRs that can record in LP do exist. All the VHS I had were SP and SLP.

[@markmarkofkane8167]

My saying is: "Electrolytic capacitors are the Kryptonite of electronics." Any reason the drum speed would need to be higher than 1800 RPM? (I might be mistaken on speed) Something I didn't know about those types of motors was the speed exceeding a certain amount. Anyway, interesting to learn.

[@12voltvids]

1800 for ntsc machines 1500 for pal. If it's fast or slow the horizontal frequency will be incorrect on the video.

[@marka1986]

I've done the wet finger thing with signal circuits too. Really helps localize circuit areas. Can't really put that on biĺl tho. Perhaps advanced circuit analysis would look better on a bill. For new folks here don't do this on power amps or high voltage circuits.

[@12voltvids]

Keep your fingers out of switch mode power supply.

[@amatorev]

chaos of cables, many boards and many capacitors that almost all of them have been operating for 41 years

[@12voltvids]

No, they haven't been operating for 41 years. They have been in storage for 41 years. My bet is this unit hasn't seen power probably since about 1986, because by the time hifi VCRs hit the stores people upgraded. This machine was in a box from a 1986 year RCA vmt285. So my guess is they bought a new VCR and and stuck this one in the box and to the basement it went till the house was cleared out and I got it. Most of these dinosaurs were scrapped relatively early because everyone wanted the new wireless remote VCRs and full cable tuners. When i was in the business we saw very few of these from about 1985 on because people were just buying new, the price started to drop big time by the mid 80s. I remember buying a cheap he branded Panasonic hifi machine for 333.33 at Krazy Krazy in 87.

[@amatorev]

@@12voltvids I'm glad you give me all this information. The unit is while customer; is it yours? and added it to your collection?

[@12voltvids]

@@amatorev this one is mine. Dead guy gave it to me. Same dead guy gave me Edison phonograph and 2 betamax and a bunch of other stuff.

[@rogertyler3237]

RCA Made Good Stuff

[@TheMaster79012]

I know this was 6 months ago but did you remember to take off the black tape off of the tape sensors

[@12voltvids]

Actually i left them on. I want it to snap every tape that goes in it.

[@MrElectrowhiz]

I see that you wind the power cord the same way like the manufacturers would in the 1970s and 1980s. After that, the cord would be just a fold bundle and a twist tie. I wind my zip cord AC cords that way they used to do it.

[@ThejasonJaw5442]

When you brought a VCR it was built to last, electronics were made to be repaired,

[@12voltvids]

These old ones had constant trouble. One thing after another. The new ones were more reliable and much easier to service due to reduced parts. The problem was the parts were harder to source when needed.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

They were really pushing the "SelectaVision" thing on their products back in the 80's.

[@12voltvids]

"It's not television, it's Selectavision"

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

@@12voltvids I don't australia had much in way of any rca stuff.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

@@12voltvids lol, nice marketing tosh! Apart from the vinyl video disc (named SelectaVision), what did it offer with other gear?

[@danialvereb]

Hello 12voltvids, out of curiosity, what do you do with the repaired units?

[@12voltvids]

Some get sold some go in my collection.

[@Raptor50aus]

Did I miss much :) Yeah change them all LOL

[@rogertyler3237]

So The Cap Is Bad Huh? I Had A Walkman With A Headphone Jack That Needed Soldering.

[@rogertyler3237]

& So Did Philips I Have A Philip's Portable CD Player I Bought At A Thriftstore & It Sounds Just Great.

[@CliveTrezona]

I had a National Panasonic which looked exactly the same as this.

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

That's because it is a Panasonic-made machine. I too have a National Panasonic which is almost identical to this RCA.

[@morrisonAV]

Yep. I had the US Panasonic model of this machine....PV-1750, IIRC

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

@@morrisonAV If it had a wired remote then it would have been the 1750 (VET650). If it was wireless then it would have been the 1770 (VFT650).

[@morrisonAV]

@@crashbandicoot4everr Yep, wired remote. The 1750 cost me $1000 in Dec. of 1980

[@rogertyler3237]

Hey Dave Did You Take That Video You'r Self? Hey Dammed Good Job On The VCR

[@rogertyler3237]

Who Ever Had It Took Good Care Of It.

[@12voltvids]

No they put it in a box and forgot about it.

[@rogertyler3237]

As Long It Works It's A Keeper.

[@wayneg296]

👍👍😎✌️

[@shakirali3836]

Kitna price hai

[@RustyTheGeek]

Yay!

[@andershammer9307]

Most of RCA VCRs were made by Hitachi.

[@12voltvids]

Early machines were made by Panasonic then then went to Hitachi for severl years then back to Panasonic and finally funai or daywoo. I was out if the game by that time.

[@rogertyler3237]

The Onlything With VHS Tapes Are They Dont Make Them Anymore.

[@12voltvids]

Thank God they don't make them anymore.

[@rogertyler3237]

It Could Be A Bad Plug