Is there a forum on DIY camcorder repair/adjustment?

[hpcampr]

Likely many people here have tried their own camcorders too and I'd welcome hearing tips from them. I wondered if there's another forum (like I've seen on DIY plumbing, car repair etc) where people might describe specific camcorders and how they made some basic adjustments that got them out of a jam. I'm archiving many of my old PAL minidv tapes. I have had a number of these camcorders over the years and they all broke. So the tapes were made on different ones. I bought two used PAL camcorders before returning to the States. They worked OK for a while but now I'm into the real problem tapes. I'm seeing if I can make adjustments within my very limited technical range. Basically, because of a tip I saw on Youtube, I've been adjusting the spindles (I think they're called flurry?). It's a painstaking process but by adjusting both of them 1/4 of a turn at a time I got a tape that was 80% inaudible down to 10% with a bit of artifacts (ca 10%). So I'd be very interested to read about how others might have approached this. I'm hoping to adjust the camcorders to fit the various minidv tapes irregularities if possible. Thanks

[Cornucopia]

4 words: DO NOT DO THIS.

[dellsam34]

You cannot adjust a camcorder if you don't have the alignment tape a.k.a reference tape, You could make one tape work but the rest of the tapes don't work, Most of camcorders problems are bad electronics such as SMD components. If the P guides are not loose the alignment is fine look somewhere else, could be the tape itself was recorded on a faulty camcorder.

[hpcampr]

You cannot adjust a camcorder if you don't have the alignment tape a.k.a reference tape, You could make one tape work but the rest of the tapes don't work, Most of camcorders problems are bad electronics such as SMD components. If the P guides are not loose the alignment is fine look somewhere else, could be the tape itself was recorded on a faulty camcorder.

Appreciate the warnings but I'm in kind of a unique situation. I'm assuming that the tapes were made on a faulty camcorder that's long gone. It was likely a situation I experienced many times where the tape played OK on the camcorder it was made on but not others. I just need to do what I can do get these tapes viewable and listenable. If I have to adjust it for every tape I'm up to do it. Once I get these tapes done the camcorder can get tossed. I just have the tiniest amount of technical knowledge but it got at least one tape to work well enough to at least see if it's worth more effort. It took me forever to do this the first time but since then I've gotten better at dealing with those hard to get to spindles. Like I said I'm a true beginner at this so if others have tried something similar or have some other ways to adjust the camcorder to read these tapes I'll be interested to try it. Thanks.