Panasonic AG 7350 UK service, DIY or buy another one?

[thegreatbear]

Hi

I have an AG-7350 that has 'fairly low' hours (1150) on the head but has just started to develop a transport fault. On longer tapes, E180's after loading it will play, RW and FF but only if it's not at the beginning of the tape! Once it's rewound, all the transport buttons part from the Eject do not work.. Interestingly with shorter high quality tapes this problem goes away.

I'm guessing this is a tension / clutch problem or something similar. Anyone know of reasonable service people in the UK for machines of this type?

My other thoughts were more long term to get a service manual and DIY, especially since the deck only cost £20 GBP. I have some electronic experience, a scope etc but no VCR repair experience and no VHS test tapes or gauges.

This kind of thing must be common now for members - seems like there's three choices: Pro. service, DIY or buy another one cheap on eBay and hope for the best!!

adrian

[Peetee]

I have an AG-7350 that I've had from new. I just laughed when you said you'd picked the machine up for £20, mine cost me £1860 trade new, so £20 is a fairly stunning buy. Have you looked inside at the build quality? Its quite impressive.

Its hour count is about 2400 now. Its on its 3rd upper cyliner and, going by the service schedule, due a lower cylinder and also overdue a fuller service. The picture has began to deteriorate and I'm not sure what's caused this. I've yet to sit down and investigate it. Its happened in a relatively short space of time (like about the last 20 hours of playing time so I'm guessing its not head wear?)

Its a guess but I'm going to agree your problem is down to tension or clutch/s. Even from new my AG-7350 would behave erratically with the odd tape. Its been routinely used with E180 and usually E240 tapes. Occasionally it would seemingly lock into a higher speed plackback of the tape but the machine only supports standard speed tapes.

I have a service manual for the machine.

Its a long time (several years) since I replaced the upper cylinder but from memory it was £122. The bottom drum at that time was about £350. Has anybody seen current pricing for these items?

[victoriabears]

Can you comment on how much better the VHS picture is from this machine than , say a JVC S-VHS with tbc/dnr?

[themaster1]

My bet is on the heaviness of the tape which causes troubles. I've read the E240 bring this problem on the table in vcrs and actually with my jvc vcr i have experienced a similar issue with E240. So i try to not play these particular tapes.

I think you could get your vcr serviced it doesn't seem to be an important issue to me.

[lucky65]

Hi all,
first of all compliments for the forum, very interesting.

Just bought an used AG-7350 on ebay, 100 Euro.
Looks like a very good machine, but very often I have an "E-7" error on display ;
any suggestion on what this error is ?

I am also looking for the service manual to repair it, but I don't know which site to trust for buying ; any link please (also PM) ?

Thanks all,
regards