On Wed, 1 Aug 2012 15:05:24 -0700 (PDT), Amanda Riphnykhazova
wrote:

I posted a while ago about an SV4000 which had suddenly stopped working when the power supply died

I was told to flip burgers till I could pay for a new one and then carry on, which seemed like good advice. Except that I found a used SV4000 on ebay for a few bucks which was described as non-working but which did in fact work fine and has continued to work for a year or so

This week, the picture started giving wavy vertical lines and flashing white dots tearing away across the screen horizontally, which I take to mean the heads are dying.

So I put its power supply into the otherwise working original SV4000 and it powers up fine now. Except that on insertion of a tape, for some reason (before I try to play) about a foot of tape spews out into the interior of the unit.

Is this the standard idler wheel problem and does anyone know how I identify the idler wheel please? It doesn't look like an RCA (etc) unit where the idler is obvious. I have the whole other unit for spares now. I do know that one can revive a worn idler with rubbing alcohol to get the rubber to matte again for 6 months or so and that for a longer term repair, the idler tyre can be turned around to present an unworn surface; if we are convinced that this unit has an idler and that this problem is the idler.

Or with these symptoms, would I do better trying to move the head drum from the older machine to the newer one and is this something which can be done with a minimum of technical knowledge and no instrumentation?


Try rotating the head cylinder with a head cleaning cloth saturated
with 99 % isopropyl alcohol pressed against the head cylinder with
your finger before trying to change out the head assy. Also check the
tension assy. band on the supply reel to see if the cloth pad has
fallen off. Chuck