Panasonic AG-1980 won't play a tape... it just ejects it

[syrist]

I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my VCR. It worked fine yesterday but today when I put a tape in, the VCR will eject it right away. The display has always been really faint so I can't tell if the fault code is A2 or H2.

The service manual says H02 fault code is "Cassette tape is not wound up during tape unloading, except in Eject mode. Check the capstan motor drive circuit." Seems my issue is when the tape is being loaded, not unloaded... so not sure what to make of it.

Any ideas?

Here's a YouTube video I shot of this happening. Notice in the 4th attempt it's clear the VCR is trying to move the tape, but then gives up.

https://youtu.be/cX9IO7LImv0

Thanks,
-Pete

[JVRaines]

Press up on the reel lock (through the round hole in center bottom) and advance the tape past the clear leader. Then see what happens. Is your capstan turning? Is the pinch roller making contact? A video from the front-left would be helpful.

[johnmeyer]

If you are trying to get it to play with the cover off, there is a light sensor in most VCRs that, when the cover is off, gets activated by the light in your shop and will cause the tape to eject. Turn off the lights and try it again. If that works, then find out where the sensor is (others in this forum may be able to tell you because this is a well-known model) and you can cover it up with some low-residue removable tape.

[syrist]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

JVRaines, I manually advanced the tape beyond the clear leader and it still ejects the tape.

johnmeyer, this problem first started happening a few days ago when the cover was on. I did try it again with the lights off and the top covered and it still happens.

I also noticed the pinch roller isn't lowering.... weird.

If it helps, I shot another video showing more angles including a view with the bottom cover removed.

https://youtu.be/djqBuBYXG0k

-Pete

[JVRaines]

There is a cam gear inside the pinch arm unit that is supposed to lower the roller into play position. If it's not turning, there could be a gear problem underneath. Or maybe the piece is hung up and needs lubrication. Or the mechanical linkage is broken. In any case, some serious disassembly is required to diagnose the issue.

[johnmeyer]

... and if you disassemble it, you will probably never get the timing gears aligned correctly unless you have service experience and a manual.

[JVRaines]

It's not quite that scary. The service manual is pretty good on this one. I would start by getting circuit boards out of the way so you can see what's going on with the gears. If you decide to take any gears or belts apart, take pictures of the timing marks first or make your own marks with a Sharpie so you can line them up again.

[johnmeyer]

I have a really nice JVC VCR where the gears slipped when a cassette got jammed and the timing got screwed up. I've tried a few times to fix it, but can't find a service manual. I wish there were still VCR service places (none around here) because for someone who has the right information and skill, the fix would be trivial. I got it close so that it runs once in awhile, but I don't have it close enough. I'm an engineer and have fixed hundreds of electronic devices without the need for schematics or manuals, but this is one where I can't do it without instructions.

Long explanation of why I wrote what I wrote. Bottom line: VCR timing gears worry me.

[JVRaines]

Which JVC?

[johnmeyer]

HR-S4500U. It was fairly high-end on their consumer line, but definitely not "prosumer" or professional. Flying erase heads, etc. I'd love to get it working again because it had a lot of really nifty features. If you have any hints, I'd be happy to take another crack at it.

[JVRaines]

You might find the Type 29 Mechanism section of this manual helpful for an overview. Examine the gears closely for timing marks, which may be bumps, indentations or holes.

[johnmeyer]

You might find the Type 29 Mechanism section of this manual helpful for an overview. Examine the gears closely for timing marks, which may be bumps, indentations or holes.

Thanks for that! I've downloaded the manual and will study if carefully when I get clear of the holiday.

[vhelp]

just wanted to say that i'm in the same boat as the OP. i'm pretty sure its related to either of two things: switching gear or thrown off timing from the gear marks. I believe its the latter. because it had to do with the tape being blocked from coming out of the unit, the one or more of the gears over-ran (by a few teeth or more) another gears'. so the system is off timing and the result is that the system determines to eject the tape.

my AG-1980 still gives out good picture, imho. I was reviewing one of the conversions i made to hevc and was impressed with the quality when i played it in my new 23" monitor. so far, the rest of my vcr collections can't compare to the 1980. in fact, i was so impressed, that i've decided to hunt for another one, this one last time. i'm going for it because i happen to know the person that sold it to me had two, and i bought the first. so i will be contacting the person today, hopefully, to see if its still for sale. i'll let you all know how that goes.

[JVRaines]

You might find the Type 29 Mechanism section of this manual helpful for an overview. Examine the gears closely for timing marks, which may be bumps, indentations or holes.

Thanks for that! I've downloaded the manual and will study if carefully when I get clear of the holiday.

Also this guy has some vids that may help you.

[johnmeyer]

Also this guy has some vids that may help you.

Oh wow!! I just watched bits and pieces from various parts of that video, and if I can't fix it after looking at that, I need to retire for real. Because of the holiday (tomorrow is Thanksgiving for us, because my doctor daughter is working today) I won't get to this until the end of the weekend.

P.S. I apologize to the OP for semi-hijacking this thread.

[Deter]

Have a Betamax machine, the gears went bad, no way of getting parts. One of the gears snapped. This was a new fix for sure. I just ripped the entire loading Mechanism out of the machine. Just have a rag that I place in the front window so no dust can get in. When I want to use the machine pull the cover off load the tape, place some weights on the tape so it locks in to place and the machine runs perfect.

Keep in mind when I opened the Betamax unit, the original owner had lubricated the hell out of this thing, had goo everywhere, it sucked....


It seems to me many of the JVC decks tend to have more issues with the loading gears over time, it is cheap plastic, once they snap or get all messed up it is really hard to put back together.

The AG1980's, have better loading for sure, normally it is a something blocking the loading that messes them up. Putting these things back together is a royal nightmare. The AG units seem to be a little bit easier to do than the JVC decks on the Loading....Once you start replacing little plastic gears it is really hard to put it back together. I used to repair a lot of AG units, if it was not an easy fix on the loading, I sent it out to someone else to do the work. Or we would just buy another unit on ebay, cause they are all broken down, and take that loading gear out and replace it in the fully working AG Unit. Granted I repaired these things.

Honestly very rare on the AG units did I find major issues in the loading, like I said above it was normally something blocking it. The problem with the AG units was having to basically rebuild the dang machines, you would just get endless problems in the color, noise in the picture and a lot of other issues.

PULL THE COVER OFF OF THE AG 1980 AND WATCH IT LOAD THE TAPE, THAN YOU WILL SEE THE PROBLEM AND THE DANG THING MAY EVEN LOAD WHEN YOU PULL THE COVER OFF. THE TAPE JUST NEEDS TO ALIGNED CORRECT TO HAVE THE VCR LOAD IT. KEEP TRYING MANUALLY. THE TAPE LOADING THAN UNLOADING NORMALLY MEANS SOMETHING IS STUCK.

[Deter]

If a tape gets jammed in your machine, don't try to rip it out. Open up the VCR and see what the problem is. If the tape is tangled in to the machine take scissors and cut the tape. The loading on VCR's kind of work like a garage door so to speak. If the load gears are broken, help the machine to eject the tape.


Here is a look at my Betamax loading Mechanism, the plate and the gears snapped making the entire loading Mechanism dysfunctional.

[Deter]

Let us move on to JVC, I have a 9900 with loading issues going to fix it in this post.....

The tape is loading in half way sometimes full than it ejects itself.

[Deter]

Here is a short video of the loading problem shot on my iphone.

It loads up than ejects

[Deter]

Pulling off the cover as I stated above is the key you have to see the problems.

Had to test over and over to see were the problems are. The VCR was making loud noises in the gears.

As I stated above, alignment is the key. The VCR would not align itself correct, so on a few loads I would press down on the bar plate, kind of like when you have braces putting your teeth in to alignment.

Than a few times by the pressure of my hand made the tape work.

I checked the belts and manually looped them.

Last off; one of the gears was getting stuck with the noises took some WD-40 and gave it a spray. Didn't hit any of the electronics just the gear.

Didn't read the JVC manual for this nor do I watch YouTube videos, just made it up as I went...

[Deter]

Finally after about 15 minutes, put a tape in, it loaded fine, played the tape for about 15 seconds, than pressed stop and it ejected perfect.

It is all about cause and effect, what causes something to do something, and how to fix it.

What causes it to work and than what causes it not to work. Than you have to use your intelligence to work out a solution.



When learning how to rebuild AG unit, it was cause and effect times 10. You would change this, and it would mess up this that and this....You would keep balancing it out to finally it worked. The reason why I had to learn how to do this, cause nobody could and every freakin machine had problems, trust me I had so many AG 1980 units it was not even funny.

When I started learning this stuff and video restoration about 7 years ago, knew nothing, Lord Smurf over in his forums and these forums was like a trainer / mentor, it was like going to college again but with no text books, just results is how you measured your grade. It was all about the details, and knowing things could be improved. Most important it was finding someone who knew what the hell they were doing and was good at it, thank goodness Lord Smurf offered his help, cause I sure as heck dove him nuts with things like Marco Blocking. How to code mpeg2 videos, what bitrates to use. The LSI chip set....Ect.....

[Deter]

Here is one more, glad I found this post, cause I just fixed two of my VCR's which I have been too lazy to look at.

This one is a JVC 9800; It loaded OK, however you had to hold the tape in place, the right side of the loading would push out more than the left, creating an uneven load in to the machine.

After going through the unit, found the top loading bar to be the problem.

[Deter]

On the 9800 had to unscrew the top bar to get the loading bar out.


Over and over would try to fit this piece; than at some point when loading a tape it would get pulled apart. This happened over and over. Would try different ways of doing this. You have to understand this top level bar has springs on both sides and on the far left when it goes in to the machine it runs on a gear and when it loads the tape it latches up and releases the tape. Unloading it does the same thing in reverse. To get this plastic / metal piece in place was really hard.

This one took over an hour of playing with.

Now the machine loads great..


Remember this; if one of the gears or plastic pieces are broken, you need a new part to fix. Most of the time the parts are not broken just messed up...

Understand this even if I could find a VCR repair shop for both these JVC machines to be fixed it would have cost around $150 and that is on the low end. My guess around $225 to $250.

My Betamax machine that I pulled apart and removed wires from the circuit board would be like $1000 to fix. Why fix it, it runs great as a Ghetto VCR.

If the original poster sent me his VCR just the shipping back and forth would be like $70. Lets say the thing was broken, so we would have buy another unit to get the parts, make sure that machine didn't have broken parts, than replace the entire loading device, which would take hours. Look how the costs can go up....

I don't do much work on VideoHelp anymore, cause people come to me to rebuild AG1980's and they don't want to pay for it. This is a highly specialized service these units cost $2400 back in the day. Any machine you buy on EBAY, I will bet has problems, if I tested out the unit, cause I have dealt with so many would find the issues in 2 seconds. One of the machines that was sent to me took about 5 months to repair but when it was done, it worked like a champ.

The best email I got was from a Roman Catholic missionary wanting a discount for his church, saying he could only pay like $105, my costs alone are greater that. Let me repair the unit and pay for it. Yea ok buddy.......I believe in God and Jesus, come on.....

[Deter]

Pete,

The Dim display on the 1980 is a clear sign of other problems and faulty capacitors with in the unit. I don't have your unit in front of me so I can't tell. You may not have enough power to load tapes, it could be an issue on the circuit board. That is rare even with the machine getting limited power. The capacitors hold a charge than release a charge, and every one of the AG 1980 units has bad caps, they were made in 1995. The caps are bad on every AG 1980 around, besides my units (LOL). Yes after a year, I have had to go back in an re fix my own units before. I have no idea what the error codes mean, more than likely your problem is combination of many things.

Even if you fix the loading the machine will never preform how it is supposed to.

Mind you I fixed a Broadcast Panasonic machine, and replaced 196 capacitors, the AG 1980 units have a lot of circuit work and are heavy duty electronic pieces of work for 1995. They are built the old way. Have been preaching in these forums for years if you are going to use an AG 1980 you need to pay to have it fixed.

You have a few companies that do this work still, again I have never tested out their work or purchased a fully working AG unit. Now I just buy JVC decks cause I don't have to deal with the mess in the AG 19080ties. Not going to buy them, fix them and sell them for $500, it is a waste of time.

However I still believe if you are going to video work you do need an AG 1980, it helps with some tapes, you just have to pay the cash and get the thing fixed. Even if you purchase another unit, more than likely still going to have some kind of issues.

[syrist]

Deter: Thanks for the reply... I decided to give up on this machine. Nobody was able to identify this specific problem and I was left with replacing the caps, gears, etc. without knowing if it'll help.

[Quasipal]

I will just add that yesterday my own HD660 - same loading as the AG1800 - would just eject a tape. In my case, nothing was broken or out of place, just that the loading cariage was worn so as the tape went in, one side of the slider was jamming as the guide pin (white plastic) has shrunk a bit through wear and was going out of place.

Fixed by replacing the whole carriage from a donor unit and making sure the gear on the chassis was timed correctly - they want to go out by one tooth due to spring tension then it won't load at all.