Panasonic AG-1980 (Restoration & Repair)

[Deter]

Have spoken in these forums over the last few years about many of the issues with the AG-1980 units. These are great VCR's and very popular with members of this site. Have been contacted by members of VideoHelp.com and have been asked to repair a few machines. In today's age it is hard to find people or good repair guys that knows the in an outs of the AG 1980 units, but most important knows how to fix them. So I thought to offer my repair services to the members of VideoHelp.com.

If you are interested please PM my account and we can talk about your machine. Or post some of your problems below.

Basically what I do with each machine is go through in detail and write up an estimate. You than decide weather or not you want the machine to be fixed. The cost can add up with having to pay for shipping, labor and materials to fix the units. However in many cases it is well worth it to get a fully functional VCR.

These are old machines and many of the problems are based on dried out capacitors. These are not basic VCR's and have hundreds of capacitors with in the units. On one of the repair jobs, which was a broadcast deck, we replaced 92 caps. Most of the time you see a few other issues with in the unit itself.

Some units are not even worth fixing it just depends.

Signs that your unit may need to be fixed are as follows:
Dim Display on the front Panel
Humming noise with in the unit itself
Excess number of video drop outs in the picture on a good tape
Color shifting or dull color with in the unit, it may even go to Black and White.
If it takes a while for the unit to warm up.
Blue noise or lines in the picture.

What is the lenth of time on repairs? and the costs? It just depends on the unit, normally it takes a few weeks to fully repair an AG-1980 unit.

Can you fix other VCR's? Yes, just PM my account and tell me what the problems are.

Overall in dealing with AG1980's, would say that 95% of them need some kind of work. If you purchase them on EBAY, more than likely you will need them repaired.

[sirbyron]

I can highly recommend Deter. I had purchased a unit off Ebay for a decent price and knew beforehand it might need repair. After receiving the unit and powering it up with a tape I had these problems that "I" could see and knew about:
1) Bad humming from power supply.
2) Very low or "nonexistent" color in playback.

After I played the tape for about 1 minute (maybe at the max), the unit powered down, giving the infamous "error" code in the front display. For the length of time it "did" play I could already tell the picture itself was better than any consumer vcr I had ever owned in the past. The problem was:
1) it was in black and white and
2) it only lasted for about a minute! Well naturally that wet my appetite and I KNEW I had to get this thing repaired!

I will also say that shortly after it quit playing , it didn't have the power capacity to even eject my tape! I did manage to finally get my tape out.

So..... I then started searching the forums and various other places for some place and some ONE who REALLY knew these units and took the time to fix them correctly. NOT just fix what was broken, but to go through the complete machine and check everything. After reading many posts and calling several places of business, I finally decided that Deter was the person I wanted to fix my unit. I liked the fact that he was visible and active here in the forum community and not just a "website" out there online that you may not know what you are getting. I am not condemning other trustworthy businesses. I know there are good ones out there but I felt more secure sending the unit to Deter after exchanging several emails back and forth.

I have had the unit back now for several months and it is working absolutely flawless. I love the color and the way it plays back my tapes like no other unit I have ever had.

I will also add that Deter fixed and corrected other "technical" issues that he saw were bad within my unit. I was very well satisfied with the cost and with all that said, I am SURE I saved money compared to what it would have cost being repaired elsewhere.

Thanks again Deter! -Doug in NC

[Deter]

UPDATE:

Was offline for a while, still offering repair service for these units, it is kind of rare these days. Overtime the AG units need to be fixed up in order to work correct.

Thanks,

If you have problems with your unit, please PM my account to discuss the matter.

[JoseD]

"...Or post some of your problems below."

I have 2 FS200's, which are the European or Pal versions, the color and dim problems are starting to show.
However there's another problem that surprisingly showed up on both after about 3 years in storage without use, none of them had it. The buttons on the moving front faceplate have stoped working. The buttons that have stopped working are not the same on both units, seems to be sort of random. Also noticed that on some of them if I push VERY hard they end up working sometimes, but not all times and not all buttons. Could this be some type of oxidation on the contacts and hence why forcing sometimes works or it's in the circuits themselves ?

Cheers

[Deter]

You are too far away to have me repair these units. The shipping cost would be insane. But than again if you want them fixed I can do it. The buttons not working can be a few different things. Oxidation causing buttons to malfunction is a new one to me. Don't know the cause of the problem, so can't give you an answer. More than likely some of your components need to be replaced. The actual buttons may be fine. The color and dim problems are signs you need to have these looked at and repaired. What buttons are you taking about? The control panel doesn't have that many?

To find someone that understands how they run and how to fix the problems is rare. That is why I offer this service on this website. Before I started repairing these, had a hard time finding anyone in the US to do the work, in Portugal it may be harder, but you never know.....

[JoseD]

@Deter

"You are too far away to have me repair these units. The shipping cost would be insane. But than again if you want them fixed I can do it."

Maybe that could be done as a last resort but I'd like help on what could be the cause to try to do something about it first. If it's too complicated I probably won't be able to do it, don't even have an oscilloscope, but I can solder no problem.

"The buttons not working can be a few different things. Oxidation causing buttons to malfunction is a new one to me. Don't know the cause of the problem, so can't give you an answer. More than likely some of your components need to be replaced. The actual buttons may be fine. The color and dim problems are signs you need to have these looked at and repaired. What buttons are you taking about? The control panel doesn't have that many?"

I mean the ones on the front panel covering the cassette door that flips down. The eject button doesn't work on one of the machines and there's a tape inside. On the other the stop one doesn't. There are others on both...
I can try to replace some capacitors since you said those are normally a common cause of problems, but they're so many, I don't even know where to start
Probably the board on charge of the commands, if there's any specific for that, do the capacitors on these bulge or leak ?

"The problem is these are good VCR's and to find someone that understands how they run and how to fix the problems is rare. That is why I offer this service on this website. Before I started repairing these, had a hard time finding anyone in the US to do the work, in Portugal it may be harder, but you never know....."

I know about two or three places here in the Algarve which are competent enough, the problem is that doing a full proper restoration would involve too many hours, they'd charge a fortune. Haven't even asked them about it...

[Deter]

Changing capacitors is not going to eject a tape. The tape could be stuck, take off the lid and pull the thing out. If it is jammed or a mess in the machine, cut the tape. Buttons not working is not really a cap problem. Theses units have a lot of caps. Different things control different aspects of the picture. This is were theses competent repair guys never fix the problems or see the problems. For example the color levels or even something like blue noise or streaks in the picture. Problems with the TBC, good luck trying to figure that out. You need to be able to look at the machine and see that q,r,s,t,u,v causes problem x. fixing r will cause m,n,p to go bad than to fix m,n,p you need to make adjustments to a,b,c....understand, it is cause and effect. #1 you always need to find the problem and trace it back to the cause. That is how you fix the buttons it is all 1's & 0's. The stop button not working is not the cause it is the result.

[Deter]

Hi, haven't been around these forums in a long time. Right now I do have some extra time on my hands to do repair work. If people are interested in getting the AG 1980 units to peak performance; please contact. The machines are old and everyone that I have seen does need some kind of work, this is manly in the capacitor department. You would think this is easy, but these 20 year old VCR's have tons of caps. Which when they go bad creates all kinds of problems. However for VHS to digital, you can get really amazing results using a perfect working AG 1980 unit.

[swiego]

Hi Deter, I dropped you a note.

FWIW options are increasingly rare. I did check:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-repair/4435-best-place-jvc.html

I can confirm that Starlit TV in Michigan (on that list) no longer accepts AG-1980P units as of today due to how time consuming they are to repair vs. their other business. (Perhaps someone can update that digitalfaq.com post as I do not have an account there.)

I currently have three AG-1980p decks, all working properly with relatively minor zebra/color noise. One has a bright display, the second a bit dull, the third is bright but sometimes goes off. All three are fairly low hour decks. I'm essentially done with the bulk of my digitizing now, but want to figure out how best to offload two of the three units and in the process get the third refurbished sufficiently that I can have some confidence in it as a "only" deck for the next n years in case any family/friends tapes come out of the woodwork that need to be captured. I'll be moving soon and need to get rid of some of these 10+ SVHS decks lying around here!

[Deter]

Just want to update this post again, I have been contacted several times about doing repair work on these units. I am basically rebuilding these machines. Need to buy parts, figure out what is causing what, it can take 20 hours to over 100 hours. You have maybe a handful of places that can actually fix these things. This is skilled labor. Not only that I have never seen an AG-1980 unit that didn't need work. The rates are around $200 to $500 to fix these. Yes in some cases it can be like $75 but that is rare. Anything over $700 we trash the unit and buy another broken down unit on ebay and start again. Just at the point were I am sick of people contacting me than saying they want their units fixed than they say they have no money. No I don't want to trade stuff either, people tried to trade junk for repair service, it costs me out of pocket cash to fix these, normally a few hundred per machine. Don't waste my time. I offered this service to this site cause I used to be an active member when learning video restoration. It was a nice thing to do, because you don't have people who can repair these.

Can get these units mint, it just takes a while.

What you are buying on Ebay is a unit that needs repairs. If you are using an AG-1980 it more than likely needs repairs.

Skilled labor at $50 an hour and 35 to 50 hours on Avg to fix, do the math....

Most repair shops have no clue how these units work or everything that needs to be done to get them fully working. You may spend a few hundred getting it repaired.

How do you even know they fixed everything? you don't.

[Deter]

Ok, Milosz was that last customer on this site, before the NEW CHANGES, Repaired his AG1980 and AG1970


Offered this for many years to the community. Did work for some of the members, everyone got a perfect AG1980 in return.

One of the few in the entire UNITED STATES that can actually repair and rebuild these machines.

These are the BEST VCR's made period.......


Let me say this every AG 1980 I have ever played, that is a lot of them, needed to be repaired in some way. Not only are these units repaired they are rebuilt. Some of the people around here think this kind of work costs $50 or $100 or some repair service in Texas can fix these. No, more than likely if you own an AG 1980 unit, it has problems.


If you wish to order a FULLY WORKING, REBUILT & RESTORED AG 1980, pm my account, we can talk price. Have a few for SALE

[Deter]

Here is the NEW DEAL.

Flat rate of $375 to fix the VCR's.

You pay shipping both ways

If a part needs to be replaced, Power Supply, TBC, Video Heads, Sound & Video Board, Broken Gears, Loading Mechanism, Extra Labor you pay extra for that. (That can cost a lot)

All the normal problems are covered under the $375 fee.

If it is a simple issue like loading, of course not going to charge $375, however every AG1980 has issues am willing to bet, it is more than just the loading.

If you have more than one unit will discount the rate.


It takes 1 to 3 months to repair these units.


This is the REAL DEAL for getting these units in PERFECT WORKING ORDER, and yes the bill can get rather high with major issues to the machines.

Labor costs money and these are labor intense projects.

[Deter]

For example just got in a unit which had ****roaches in the unit, they ate the wiring and messed up the boards, not dealing with this or going to charge $200, to clean ****roaches out of a machine and than repair it. One of the units I did a for a member on this site took 5 months, if you add up all the labor for that it is like $2000, only charged him like $500. You need to meet me in the middle of the road. Over the last few years people didn't want to spend $150 on repairs my costs on avg are $100 to $300 per unit.

I fully fix these units in every detail or these other shops don't. Trust me I have purchased a few of them, and they all had to go under the knife.

[milosz]

quick testimonial for deter -- great job on my ag1970 (which was pretty beat, no sound and a malfunctioning loading mechanism) and ag1980 (which needed a recap). quick turnaround, reasonable price, and responsive to questions. happy customer.

[Quasipal]

I'm in the UK so don't get to see the AG1800 problems, however as an engineer I fully understand how complex and hard to fix VCR's are. Not only do you have mechanical parts but also electronics. All the end user sees is what is on screen, not all the mechanics working or components having to work 100% perfectly.

This looks a great service at a VERY fair rate - and I wish the UK had someone offering this service.

[Deter]

Here is a brief History, back in 2007 wanted to convert my VHS to digital, like many had no idea were to begin, found this website, got in a bunch of good VCR's and Betamax machines. The AG 1980 for me seemed to be the best of all the VCR's. Way better than the Panasonic and the Sony VCR that I had for years. It was like night and day in picture quality.

Used AG 1980, but kept seeing little issues. Converted a bunch of tapes, little did I know my machine was not producing the best possible quality picture It had color issues, the picture was dark, wavy lines, my display was dim, hard to see picture interference. Color shifting flicker and white or black drop outs.

Wasted hundreds of hours on converting tapes. Using my old VCR's and this AG 1980..

VHS has it limits, however the end goal is the same for everyone to capture the best possible picture.

Looked everywhere for someone to repair AG 1980 units, didn't really find anyone. Granted one guy wanted to charge me $750 to repair the machine he said it was the electronics and the video head was warn. Had to pay like $125 for him to look at it. That was the red flag that started this.

Got my VCR back, and was able to get a picture out of it. It still had major problems, it was a start.

Drove 200 miles and purchased four more AG 1980 units, everyone of them had some of the issues described in these posts.

Said maybe I can fix this myself. About a year of learning and working on AG 1980 machines, figured out how to finally rebuild the AG 1980 to perfect working order.

In Closing: One of the members of this site cgcarter just sent me his VCR. Didn't not charge him the full rate but want to explain his case.

After going through his machine, it was a refurbished unit. Someone was in the machine and replaced capacitors. However they failed to complete the job. It is sad cause if they would have done a few more things it would have never had to be sent to me.

The Loading was stiff
Fixed the loading on the Unit, the tapes go in pretty smooth. it is a big difference and will help in the long run to preserve this machine.

The VCR had dark level problems and the TBC was not working correct.
Fixed the dark level problem on the unit, and repaired the TBC

When I started the picture was fuzzy and a bit dull
By fixing the Dark Levels and the TBC, it fixed the sharpness issue on the VCR.

The saturation levels bleed in to the picture
This was also fixed

Than adjusted all the settings on the machine to the specs that I use.

Here is a guy who brought a pretty good AG 1980 unit were the capacitors were replaced, since the tech didn't fully understand the working of this machine it needed a second repair job. Didn't replace one capacitor in this unit and fixed a lot of problems from knowing how these machines work.

You are rebuilding these machines per say, and many of you have AG 1980's or 1970's, what I am saying don't waste time converting tapes on a machine that is not fully working, get it fixed.

If it is issues like cgcarter going to discount the fee.