Sony Betamax front loading and lace-up magic. SL-T30ME.

[@oldgoody1]

Hi Colin, I've had a couple of machines where the black plastic gear had split too badly to be repaired. From a hobby shop I was able to source a brass gear designed for slot car motors with the right dimensions apart from being a little long. I sawed it down to size and it was a good interference fit on the Sony shaft. Some grease applied and it's worked well.

[@rudie2902]

Great to see that you are well past 5000 subscribers, so I imagine that Scot is looking forward to playing the video games. Great fix on the gears and very interesting to see how the Betamax mechanism operates.

[@zx8401ztv]

Well done :-D It does look rather confusing, but after operating it slowly by hand it becomes more obvious. Maybe the motor is a bit weak and watery, that would make it labor a bit. Splitting gears are a pain.

[@Madness832]

I've got an SL-2710, NTSC deck, w/ the same type of transport. In my case, a tape would load, lace & play. But it wouldn't unlace & eject, unless I gave the end roller a push, as you did, early on. Took the mechanism apart. And sure enough, the black gear is cracked. Didn't have any epoxy, so I tried JB Weld. Worked for a few tries, then gave way again. But at least I know that fixin' the gear will fix the deck!

[@andrewsung3965]

loved the clicking noises this betamax plays, exactly like robocop.

[@Super8Rescue]

That's a beast of a machine

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

That small black gear always splits on the 711B chassis which is what this model is based on. The later 711B2 chassis (SL-F30 etc) solved this problem.

[@video99couk]

I wasn't aware there was a chassis change. I have seen some later models though (F25?) with very fragile front loading carriage tracks made of brittle plastic.

[@Vintaginside]

711B2 chassis based machines fail the same.

[@REEUNSWORLD]

Yup thats what exactly i need that black gear Any idea where can i buy that and name of that gear?

[@lukasgayer5393]

Sony Betamax? Broken down? Impossible! :D

[@instantwow]

Instead of a c type clip holding the planetary gear in place, my SL-HF900 has what I’ll call an O clip. It looks similar to a C clip but goes all the way around. What’s the best way or tool to remove those and what are they called? I don’t want to be too forceful.

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

Yes I've seen those O clips before and I think only Sony used them. A small flat head screwdriver will work but be very gentle.

[@instantwow]

@@crashbandicoot4everr Thanks. I used a dental pick and kept moving it to different spots and it came off! The black gear on the bottom is perfect, but the plastic motor shaft that couples with the orange center planetary gear has a hairline crack that is likely causing some slippage. Any idea on how that can be strengthened?

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

@@instantwow The HF900 is based on the newer 711B2 chassis and I haven't seen any of those with a broken black gear. Probably JB Weld or epoxy will hold it back together if the gear hasn't split completely.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

The Betamax was the best machine with the best picture quality but lost out to the VHS

[@pHD77]

Yes... and no. If you are referring to when Beta launched their first decks with B1 speed, then surely, yes, the quality was indeed a lot better than VHS, at the cost of less recording time. At B2 speed, the difference in quality was somewhat negligible, although still in Beta's favor. Don't get be started on B3 speed.... I'd say it wasn't until Beta launched their ED Beta system close to the end of Beta, that Beta truly could claim to be the better system. At least a derivative of the Beta system found a spot within the pro-sumer and broadcast market with the (digital) BetaCam system.

[@frankowalker4662]

You talked about this fault in your video called 'Working on Sony Betamax video recorders' from 12 Jul 2019. Great to see the actual repair, and possible problems. Nice work. Edit : Great, I have the SONY SL-C6UB mk2. Typical. LOL.

[@video99couk]

If not already done, replace the Sanyo 0.22uF capacitors in the capstan servo circuit with ceramic and reset the capstan freewheel speed. Very common problem with those.

[@morrismckinnon6047]

We never had a Betamax, we had a V2000. Me and my brother were about ten years old at the time and we kept annoying my mum to get a VHS player because everytime we went to go rent a video at the shop it was getting harder and harder to find new films on V2000. We finally got a VHS but it was a shortplay only version. When we'd borrow a tape from friends it would sometimes be recorded in longplay and would sound like the chipmunks!

[@video99couk]

VHS Long Play was a curse anyway. As if VHS wasn't bad enough, slow it down and make it even worse, not to mention potentially incompatible with other players, even LP ones. I think the ratio of V2000 to Betamax sales in the UK in the early 80s was similar to the ratio of Betamax to VHS. It never stood a chance. Millions upon millions of Betamax machines were sold, but V2000 didn't do much outside of certain European countries.

[@GoldSrc_]

It's more like the solenoid was also used for the pinch roller, the solenoid's main purpose it to make possible loading/unloading and threading/unthreading. Then engineers just figured out how to use something that was already there to push the pinch roller. You can see a lever that it's also used to push the pinch roller on more modern Sony Beta mechanisms, it just doesn't use a solenoid anymore. Also, this mechanism was always noisy.

[@video99couk]

Sanyo had eliminated solenoids on their Beta machines from about 1983. But they were also noisy, and needed an extra motor on the front loading models.

[@metingokbulut837]

💯⭐️🇹🇷👍 I have about 100 betamax and vhs devices in stock, I have about 10,000 betamax and vhs tapes, these are excellent devices and cassettes.

[@MyPOLYSTAR]

Top Line

[@FatedSnowfox]

Hi Colin. Stumbled on your videos entirely by accident, but I'm certain I know you. Did you work for BBC OBs at some point?

[@video99couk]

Alas no, I never worked for the BBC. I only wish I had done! My "day job" career was in the semiconductor industry: Plessey, Nortel and Austria Microsystems.