"Kevin Dooks" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:13:36 -0800, "Chris F."
wrote:

With Beta VCR's going for big bucks on Ebay (at least if in good working
order) I thought it might be worth fixing up and selling some of the ones
I've kept in storage for just such an occasion. Some aren't going to be
easy
though, and here's one I'm going to need some advice on.
It's a Sanyo VCR-4500, and the problem is that the tracking slowly and
constantly wanders back and forth. I tried tweaking some of the
adjustments
on the servo board, but still could not completely stabilize it. I admit
my
knowledge of VCR's is somewhat lacking; I never fully grasped the concept
of
servos and PG systems and much of the other complicated circuitury. I can
only guess that some reference signal is drifting in frequency, but that's
about as fancy a theory as I can come up with.
I thoroughly checked the power supply and all voltages are rock-solid. I
noticed that the capstan supply voltage, specified as 12VDC in the manual,
only measures 11.6, not sure if that would affect anything or not. I also
tried swapping the capstan motor from a known-good machine but that didn't
make any difference.
It's worth noting that the unit was working fine when I first acquired
it,
some six or seven years ago, and it has been in cold storage ever since.
Maybe some bad caps?
Thanks for any advice.

Well, I beg to differ with ALMOST everyone here. The SANYO beta
machines were by FAR the BEST beta machines ever on the CONSUMER
market. Inexpensive, reliable, easy to work on and most problems could
be fixed for less than $100 Canadian. The others (Sony and their
re-branded offspring being the WORST) were by and large radically
overpriced JUNK, unreliable, a pain to work on,expensive parts and
don't get me started about parts availabilty.
A Sony typically cost $150+ Canadian to repair and that was just the
parts !

Oh, BTW the ' wander tracking ' was usually (99.99999 % ) caused by a
defunct capstan motor. Good luck finding one of THOSE these days.

Pardon my pro-SANYO rant but I serviced 'em for many years both in and
out of warranty so I am obviously BIASED.


Kevin


Sanyo's were much worse about eating tapes, I can tell you that. If one was
an authorized Sony servicer and was familiar with the product, repairs
weren't so difficult. Further, Sony's were worth more from the start, and
customers were generally willing to spend more to fix them.

Mark Z.