I needed something for transferring 8mm videotapes to DVD, and I bought
this non-working video walkman hoping to at least get the VCR section
working. The unit powers and the OSD works fine, as do all the mechanical
functions of the VCR, but the video is very dark and has lost both vertical
and horizontal sync. I found a post regarding a similar unit on a website,
the guy had the exact same problem, but of course there were no replies. Is
this a fairly common problem for these, and is there any quick solution? I
don't care about the TV part as long as I can output the video to something
else.
Thanks for any advice.

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Chris F. wrote:
I needed something for transferring 8mm videotapes to DVD, and I bought
this non-working video walkman hoping to at least get the VCR section
working. The unit powers and the OSD works fine, as do all the mechanical
functions of the VCR, but the video is very dark and has lost both vertical
and horizontal sync. I found a post regarding a similar unit on a website,
the guy had the exact same problem, but of course there were no replies. Is
this a fairly common problem for these, and is there any quick solution? I
don't care about the TV part as long as I can output the video to something
else.
Thanks for any advice.

It could be the common problem of the guide posts lossened up and moved
out of alignment. A proper alignment and locking the posts would solve
this.
Or... If small surface-mounted capacitors are used on the boards - like
similar Sony 8mm camacorders, there could be dozens of leaking caps
making repair difficult to impossible.

But first try giving the entire tape path a good cleaning.

Or... If small surface-mounted capacitors are used on the boards - like
similar Sony 8mm camacorders, there could be dozens of leaking caps making
repair difficult to impossible.

I forgot to mention that the audio cuts in and out, and the same symptom are
present whether playing a tape on the built-in LCD, through the A/V out, or
when using the A/V in. There are indeed tons of those caps, some round and
some square, and I was wondering if they might be responsible.

I should have figured the caps were bad - the first one I removed from the
board was leaking electrolyte. There are at least a couple dozen of these
caps, so this will definately be a long-term project to just poke away it.
One question though - what type of caps are the square black ones? They have
values similar to the round silver ones, but I can't locate any replacements
that would physically fit in their place.
Thanks.

"Jumpster Jiver" wrote in message
news:adDhh.1442$Pq4.545@trndny08...
Chris F. wrote:
I needed something for transferring 8mm videotapes to DVD, and I bought
this non-working video walkman hoping to at least get the VCR section
working. The unit powers and the OSD works fine, as do all the mechanical
functions of the VCR, but the video is very dark and has lost both
vertical and horizontal sync. I found a post regarding a similar unit on
a website, the guy had the exact same problem, but of course there were
no replies. Is this a fairly common problem for these, and is there any
quick solution? I don't care about the TV part as long as I can output
the video to something else.
Thanks for any advice.

It could be the common problem of the guide posts lossened up and moved
out of alignment. A proper alignment and locking the posts would solve
this.
Or... If small surface-mounted capacitors are used on the boards - like
similar Sony 8mm camacorders, there could be dozens of leaking caps making
repair difficult to impossible.

But first try giving the entire tape path a good cleaning.

Well I decided to tackle this project after all, guess I have too much
time on my hands. After replacing all 40+ of the round silver surface-mount
caps (all of which had physically leaked), I finally got the tape section to
work - however it will only output through the A/V jacks - the built-in LCD
is still the same, with the loss of sync and dark image. What could I have
missed? There are some other polarized caps in rectangular black cases, I
tested a couple of these and they were fine with no leakage. I assumed these
were tantalum and did not require replacement.
I suppose this is good enough, I only needed the tape signal to copy to
another format, but it would be nice to fix the LCD too. (I did replace the
caps in the LCD section). There can't be many of these units still in
working condition.
"Chris F." wrote in message
...
I needed something for transferring 8mm videotapes to DVD, and I bought
this non-working video walkman hoping to at least get the VCR section
working. The unit powers and the OSD works fine, as do all the mechanical
functions of the VCR, but the video is very dark and has lost both
vertical and horizontal sync. I found a post regarding a similar unit on a
website, the guy had the exact same problem, but of course there were no
replies. Is this a fairly common problem for these, and is there any quick
solution? I don't care about the TV part as long as I can output the video
to something else.
Thanks for any advice.

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