8 MM VCR Pioneer VE-D70

Well, it's around 20+ years old, not 10.

That model is a re-badged Sony and you might have better luck figuring that model out and looking for it instead of the Pioneer manual. At one time or another I stumbled into a couple websites that had reviews of 8mm decks from that era.

That particular machine was noted because it was one of the few that supported the PCM recording format, audio only and would provide 24 hours at LP mode on six tracks.

The downside to it (besides being tape, a dying breed) is it was prior to the Hi8 format and isn't as useful as one thinks. #2 on this list is parts were nearly unavailable for it in the early 90's when those deck first started to fail. These days unless you get one for parts and make one out of two, nothing in there can be ordered anymore.

The reason I mention that is your specific problem is likely on the power board, or what resembles one. I might be confusing it with another chassis but I beleive all roads to the transport end up at an STK device which was an oddball. At the time (late 80's) there was a concept of splitting the power supplies, one to feed the video/audio sections and another to do the dirty work with the motors and transports.

So likely where you are measuring things at now are coming from a different source than where the motors get fed from. I'd look towards the back of the machine, the stk was mounted upside down, possibly using the rear as the heat sink or it was on a heatsink and it was bolted to the chassis.

That deck is a challenge to work on because of the way it's built and I agree, you probably aren't going to get anywhere without the manual.

Thinking about it, the Sony model was maybe ev-700 or ev-800.

But is from the mid/late 80's, that I'm sure about.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

Hallo Bruce,

That was a good help explaining that this machine has a split powersupply. I located the STK5362 and discovered it has 15 VDC as an Input to pin7 and all the other pins are zero or very low. You are right data on the STK5362 is very rare, guess the machine will need 5 and 12 VDC at some points. I'll try to reconstruct the voltages using external powersupplies and if I resurect the Pioneer VE-D70 this way I'll modify the STK circuits using some state of the art Voltage regulators.

I don't know if you received the email, got similar ones from two different accounts.

The Sony model of that machine is the ev-s700 and a picture of it is here:

Like I said, it'll still be looking for a needle in a haystack for the service manual but better odds on Sony than Pioneer.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 14:50:25 -0700 (PDT), Brasto put finger to keyboard and composed:

My vrt databook describes the STK5362 as a "VC, Dual, +5.1V/1.2A,

FWIW, other "VC Dual" (Video Recorder) parts include ...

STK5346

- Franc Zabkar

Bruce & Frank TY for your support. I did figure out the pin-out of my STK 5362 and substituted its 5VDC and 9VDC output momentarily by external powersupplies and turned on the VCR.........There was light and rumble now...the casette compartment opened flawlessly and was brightly illuminated. I flipped an 8MM casette into the machine, but the door failed to latch....One could see/hear some motoraction as the tape threading process was initiated but the guideposts never moved from their unthread position.

After a while compartmentlights went out, (recycling mains & 5-9 VDC had no result, probably some component had opened up the 9VDC ckt as current had became a solid zero mA.

Still not having its schematics I was fortunate with the SONY EP-S700 info as provided by Bruce, a friend of mine told me he has a working EP-S700 at home which I can borrow to do some further experimenting to fault isolate my machine. Bruce, you are right almost 25 years old....and a lot of bundled wires and screws but.....too good looking for the trash and...... being retired I can afford to waste more time and energy.......