I played with three units. I got one working just by using it, or letting it warm up and work the FF REW play, etc. The other two I have tried everything and they still have problems with sticking tape. Some work better. i just did another Sony Beta and I got it working replacing the belts. I notice other units DO rewind the tape from the heads to FF or REW, whick makes the HF900 more problematic in sticking. I guess to use the editing functions, the head must be active.
A long time ago I removed the dark screens from the displays to make them more visable.
On Jun 22, 12:43=A0pm, snipped-for-privacy@zekfrivolous.com (GregS) wrote: > I played with three units. I got one working just by using it, > or letting it warm up and work the FF REW play, etc. > The other two I have tried everything and they still have problems > with sticking tape. Some work better. i just did another Sony Beta > and I got it working replacing the belts. I notice other units > DO rewind the tape from the heads to FF or REW, whick makes > the HF900 more problematic in sticking. I guess to > use the editing functions, the head must be active. >
I work at a Hollywood post house where we deal with old 2" quad tape, some of which often sticks really bad. We bake the tapes in a food dehydrator at 135 F for 12 hours and they play like new again. I don't know if Beta tapes suffer from this problem but we have baked some
3/4' U-Matic cassettes with success.
You DON'T want to use a home oven for this as you're likely to make things worse but the dehydrator with the accurate temperature control and circulating fans works great.
Sony in general uses really crappy lubricants that gum up in a few years. SGL grease is one of the worst. Nye lubricants are not cheap but are truly excellent. We use 368AX, 363F and Nyeoil II. Your deck might benefit from a total tear-down clean and re-lubricate. We do this a LOT on digital and analog BetaCam decks. We also change LOTS of capacitors.
If the tape is sticking to the drum, then it could be a worn drum, dirty drum, or bad tape. Sometimes one bad tape will contaminate the drum, and cause other tapes to stick. Sony tapes from the late 70's through the mid 80's are particularly bad at going sticky. Even a new tape can be bad if it was stored improperly. Andy Cuffe
One machine was in continous use, but not much use. The other machines were in storage, and one of those started working after some workout. So, bad tape could very well be a major influence.
My HF900 got slower and slower on rewinding tapes and eventually would not. Of course would no longer play either. The reel motor is gone. Perhaps yours are at some phase of reel motor failure.
Before not working at all, it could wind to nearly the end, where more torque is needed and then stop. Would play fine away from the end of tape.
There's a known problem with the design of the reel motor bearing. As it wears out, the rotor starts scraping against the coils. Unfortunately, it's part of the mechanism base, so there's no way to replace it. Sony did sell a repair kit that was just a small plastic spacer that you dropped into the bottom of the bearing. I doubt it's still available, but it wouldn't be too hard to cut something to fit. Andy Cuffe
I know it requires replacement of the reel table or some like named assembly to fix. It is a good working machine otherwise. If only a spacer is required, that ought to be easy to cobble up.
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