Emerson VCR ejecting tapes, power light blinks

JR North ha escrito:

or alternatively you could try to repair it (after all this is REPAIR not JUNK IT newsgroup!) first, open the case and see if there is some obstruction or foreign object inside.. look also on fixer.com for your model. maybe a belt has perished or the casette basket is out of alignment with the rest of the deck.

-B.

The purpose of this newsgroup notwithstanding, we have to be practical about these things. It's a matter of economics. Depending entirely on how much the original poster paid for the VCR when it was new, it may not be cost-effective to have it repaired. It can cost more just to have the unit looked at in a repair shop before any work is done than a new VCR costs these days. I've seen new VCR/DVD dual decks by Emerson (!) et al. going for under $50 at Big Lots, so if it will cost much more than that to have yours repaired, I'd just pitch the old machine and get a new one. Besides, if you have your VCR repaired, again depending on how long you've had it, you may run into other problems with it in the future.

Of course, if this is an expensive unit with stereo/MTS sound and so on, I'd say by all means at least have it looked at. I once had a Panasonic VCR with VCR+ I'd had for a couple of years that ate a cassette. Paid something like $80-90 for it when it was new in the late '90s. Didn't have it fixed. Knowing that it probably would have cost me more to have it looked at and/or repaired (before I tried to get the tape out myself) than I'd paid for it when new, I just threw in the towel and bought a brand new one from HH Gregg the next day (same brand, only no VCR+).

Most modern VCRs have plastic gears and other parts anyway, which are very prone to breakage after a certain length of time. Also, many if not most VCRs made in the last ten or fifteen years or so, and all recent ones, have few if any belts; the drive mechanism mostly relies on gears. It is possible for gear trains to go out of sync after X number of years as well, so this has to be considered as a possible cause of the trouble being described. However, there is the repair cost to be considered as well, so it may not be worth it.

VCRs are obsolete technology these days anyhow. I'd get either a dual deck (DVD/VHS) or a standalone DVD recorder and transfer all my VHS cassettes to DVD eventually. DVDs take up less room in a storage area than VHS tapes; DVDs usually produce much better pictures than VHS as well, and DVDs (the discs themselves) don't wear out or jam, etc. as VHS cassettes can and often do over time. One could use this argument to make a good case for transferring audio cassettes to CDs as well, as I am presently doing with my large collection of audio tapes.

The sound quality of CDs (and DVDs) is much better than cassettes as well. VHS cassette sound tracks are not usually recorded in stereo, let alone surround sound; many if not most commercial DVDs do have stereo sound, Dolby 5.1 and all the other refinements the digital video age has spawned.

I realize all of this may not be what you want to hear (read), but from a practical standpoint it makes sense. As I said a couple of paragraphs ago, if your VCR is very recent (and out of warranty) or only a few years old, having it repaired may get it working for now, but the machine could develop other more serious problems in the future; the next time it goes bad, the problem may be serious enough (bad heads, etc.) not to be worth repairing--you'd wind up pitching the unit anyway.

It's your choice, of course, but I just wanted to point out that having a VCR repaired that you only paid, say, $60 or less for at a discount store could cost more than a brand new one with stereo sound and perhaps a DVD deck. Again, I'd consider getting a dual DVD/VHS unit and eventually shelving or outright getting rid of your old obsolete VHS cassettes. As kids say these days, VHS is soooooo '80s!

Kind regards,

Jeff, WB8NHV (email addy not shown to deter spammers) Fairport Harbor, Ohio USA

Jeff, WB8NHV ha escrito:

IMHO if it can be repaired , it should be repaired. as we speak, landfills are bulging as are the pockets of the manufacturers who take it upon themselves to sell us the latest flimsily made, incompetently designed piece of junk whilst lifesytle magazine sexhoirt us to throw things which have served us for years away.

Especially in the case of VCR, buying a new one is NOT a solution! repair what you have if poss. without spending a fortune obviously. Certainly forget buying any dual dvd-vcr crap. those unit drop like files and are nearly all made by funai or orion. I have cd-r s of material I burned 6 years ago (onto cd-r audio) that are now unplayable. So much for the new technology, That is pure marketing, glad i kept all the originals! lots of morons swallowed this stuff about how great optical digital is, followed the 'done thing' of the time and chucked out their collections of analogue and have lost out because of it. Dvd is also a technology that works by the skin of its teeth. this idea that you have to dump all your existing stuff when something new comes out only benefits corporate interests. let's cut the bullshit here.

-B.

Dvd is also a technology that works by

Amen. Despite its warts, VHS has a GOOD track record for longevity. I have MANY tapes recorded in the late 70's which play fine. No, they are not up to the quality standard of VHS today, but still they are quite good. OTOH, I have a few DVD's which were burned last year and I am having trouble playing in them in several players. Most of the VHS decks today are pure garbage, price point junk. But - there is a ton of old ones out there which, with a little TLC, will be running well into the next decade. I for one will keep my old stuff repaired, there is good money in copying video home movies on VHS to 'better' formats. (ha)! regards, tom

I have opened up the VCR and have watched the operation. Everything seems to be moving freely and smooth. The sympton has changed. Now as soon as I plug it in, it tries to load the tape, when there is not a tape in the carrage and then ejects and shuts down. My conclusion it is the mode switch. MSW-18 0520244003 The switch just has 003 on it. I can't see how to open the swtch without destroying it. I have not been able to find a seller for this part. Emerson EV787 VCR Stereo just two years old If I can get the switch for under $10.00 would be a lot cheaper than $50-60 for another unit. I don't believe in these dual DVD/VCR units. When they crap out you lose both units. It's a shame to trash it for $2-5 part, but thats how they sell you another one every couple of years instead of 10 to 15 years on the older models.

If all else fails, repair it the nasty way. Solder some wires to the board and hang a new switch out the front of the device. As long as there is no AC power on it it will work and be safe enough.