Tape stuck in Panasonic AG-1980

[natgun7719]

Hi all,

I'm new here so not sure if this is the right forum -- feel free to move my thread if its not! I found a Panasonic AG-1980 VCR that has a tape stuck in it. Unfortunately whenever I turn it on it only seems to have enough power to half thread the tape and then weakly try to eject it, achieving neither, and then turning off again. I'm not sure whether the tape inside is even threaded correctly. I work in an archive so this tape might be important (I've found no record of this machine having a tape stuck inside it in our documentation, so I don't know if people even know its there) and so I'm mostly concerned with getting the tape out safely, if that's possible. I don't think the machine is salvageable.

I've attached a few photos of the tape path, if that helps at all. I also have a copy of the service manual although it had no info on getting stuck tapes out. I unscrewed the top of the cassette carriage in the hopes that I might be able to disassemble it, but something there wasn't budging.
[Attachment 77520 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 77521 - Click to enlarge]

If anyone has any advice, let me know! I'm sure this issue will crop up again for me in the future haha

[lordsmurf]

The bands under the unit may be stretched.

Just FYI, when the AG-1980P have one issue get noticed, there tends to be multiple issues under the surface. These decks tend to cascade problems. I adored these machines for their quality for 15+ years, but now refer to them as "money pit decks". The failures and repairs just never seem to end. It's why I reserve these units as the 2nd defense for tapes, with a quality JVC being the 1st.

I just want you to realize the rabbit hole you're probably about to enter here.

[dellsam34]

These beasts are in their 4th decade of life, The engineers who designed them never intended for them to live this long even with proper servicing. Owning one of these requires owning the skills to repair them, There is hardly any techs left that can work on these decks not to mention the lack of parts which sometimes requires having two decks to make one working.

[natgun7719]

Hi y'all, thanks for the replies! I'm not trying to salvage the deck here, since it's pretty clear that's impossible. We use one working version of these decks for transferring archival tapes and have four broken machines laying around for parts, one of which is this one. The parts machines don't really get touched but I by chance noticed the tape stuck inside one. Again, since this is an archive rescuing the tape is my top priority as it might be unique collection material. If anyone has any advice on getting stuck tapes out of the machine, I'd be grateful. Thanks!

[dellsam34]

It's hard to describe with words but there are videos online showing how to manually extract the tape from the deck by manually turning the loading motor by hand or applying a 5V to it. TG grant at one point had instructions on how to remove a stuck tape.

[BW37]

Maybe something useful here?

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-repair/10617-panasonic-ag-1980-a.html

[natgun7719]

Thanks y'all for the tips! I managed to get the tape out. Now the tricky part will be figuring out where the tape belongs...