NV-HS950 repair help

[Traderbam]

Hi, as a novice I'm trying to get a Panasonic NV-HS950 repaired. Initial error was F04 which was sorted after a re-timing which eventually I managed after a long look at service manual. Mode switch cleaned with contact cleaner, worm gear verified to be fine.

Now when I enter a tape it is laced correctly, no F04 errors, but pressing play does nothing. What other things should I be checking?

[aramkolt]

"Not playing" is kind of vague, but I'd say first thing to try would be seeing if it'll play if you use a remote. Could just be a bad play switch maybe. I assume the other buttons like eject ff/rew work?

[Traderbam]

Play, ff, rwd dont work - I know the front buttons like FF are ok as I can enter service mode.

I just noticed that the pinch roller doesn't seem to swivel into position properly. It lowers as expected down the shaft, but doesn't move with the spring towards tape.

[aramkolt]

Ah, when you said it "does nothing" when pressing play, I assumed you were looking at the deck mechanism and it acted as though no button was pressed at all which doesn't sound like is the case.

But yeah, pinch roller being stuck could be the cause.

[Traderbam]

Got a bit more progress by replacing pinch roller and re-timing but then had F06 error. I could eventually get tape laced again properly, pinch roller working better, but play or FF would only work for around 1 second. Capstan is spinning fine. I thought it might be the tape sensor which unfortunately I broke being too rough with remounting the mechanism. It is almost impossible to fix that without taking the whole board out on the 950 with no access from bottom side. It would need resoldering of a new sensor.

I think it'll just get put into my spares pile but annoyed that I couldn't solve it finally.