Panasonic NV-SD260B VHS recorder won't load tapes anymore?

perished rubber drive band

Your VCR needs a belt job. When these things sit idle for long period of time, the belts that drive the loading deck and tape transport mechanism stretch and become too loose to make the mechanical stuff work.

Don't know how much a belt job would cost now, but when my daughter ran a TV repair shop (90s era), they charged about $50 plus the cost of the belt kit. If you're mechanically inclined, you can do it yourself if you can find the proper belt kit. Here are some links to vendors that I have bought TV, VCR, and other A/V parts from:

You sould also search Google for VCR Belt Kit NV-SD260B and see what turns up. Good luck with the repair. VCRs are long obsolete and parts are getting scarce.

Dave M

M.Joshi wrote:

The old favourite was the sensor bulb blown - its a thin vertical post in the middle of the deck that pokes up a hole in the bottom of the cassette.

Later models used an IR LED - AFAIK: these never caused problems, so might be a belt job as others have suggested.

Thanks for the replies.

Is there anywhere online I can download a service manual for this? Haven't managed to find a belt/kit yet.

Hello Ian,

I did wonder if it was the tape sensor post - I have had to change the lamps in the past on another unit.

However, I thought that was just to sense tape end? They appear to be the IR type. The tape isn't being lowered into the mechanism so I guess it probably is a snapped belt?

Can't remember ever seeing a snapped belt - they do go limp and floppy sometimes.

The synthetic rubber ones firm up with a short squirt in the microwave - the natural rubber ones blister and shrivel up!

Yeah but realistically, only the 1st/2nd generations of vhs decks used those incandescent light bulbs, the machine would have to be from the late 70's, early 80's.

I always figured it was a safety feature, a stupid one, where if the bulb burned out, the machine wouldn't power on. The only logic behind it was if the bulb did fail, there would be a possibility of snapping the tape on ff or rew when it hit the end and threw the machine in the stop mode. No bulb, no stop at the end of the tape.

Remember the dew sensor?

The early machines had some kind of peice of ceramic with a coil like thing on it. If it thought there was too much humidity around the video head area, it wouldn't let the machine power up either, but at least there was a "dew" light, usually yellow saying why.

But I always though those lamps should of had a "lamp out" indicator too.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

Do you hear a motor run when you try to insert the tape? If not - possibly the loading motor is open-circuit (or even shorted).

Locate the motor and try rotating it by hand at the moent it should run. Does it take off and start to work?

Pretty common for PM motors which have not been used in a long time.

Mark Z.

Download a copy of the service manual at

H> Thanks for the replies.

Last VCR I returned either didn't have a dew sensor, or it didn't work.

It was a sony and the LP function didn't work on the longer tapes, just as I returned it to the store I remembered I'd left a tape in it. The suggestion to plug it in and hit eject resulted in a tightly bound head drum.

Having been carried outdoors then taken into a busy store with lots of humidity, it developed an abundance of condensation.

On the bright side - I didn't have any difficulty persuading the store it was defective.

Hello Dave,

Thanks so much for the link.