Sony SLV-780 Resurrecting The Beast

I can no longer recall the brands they were used in (Akai?), but NEC uPcs in VCRs were problematic. We stocked them. IIRC, the numbers on them had the prefix uPc.

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John-Del
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I have, I think a 720 which uses the same mech and chipset. With the lack o f information it is a learning tool, iused it to figure out a few things, l ike using only the record prevent switch and end sensors for the front load ing mech. Nifty way they didit actually. Saved components and cost but stil l works. Wellit did.

Only the truly deserving get a one way trip to the dumpster. "

My yard was 3,500 sq ft. It wasn't all that nice and I abused it. The junk I had would have overloaded the dumpster for years. I had a junk room that got so full the (wood) floor broke through. What did I do ? I put more junk in it. the building wasn't long for this world anyway.

But I do not deem high end VCRs worthy of a trip to the dump. Some people s till like them, use them, and others fix them.

What I need is a beta rewinder. I shit you not. I have an SLHFR60 and HFP10

0 hifi adapter and ;lots of old tapes, some of them camcorder tapes with me mories on them. Same with the VHS.

More on it in my reply to Terry.

Reply to
jurb6006

I find new shows and movies much worse. They switch the video so much so fa st that you can't see anything. Flashing on the screen - ifit was red and b lue you would think you sre getting stopped by the cops. Thoroughly annoyin g, as if some little kid is working the board. Not to mention effects that almost make you think your TV is malfunctioning. And they can't seem to get the picture size and aspect ratio right on some channels. Plus there is n o creativity anymore. Simply unwatchable.

good equipment. Unless the screen is small, and even then..... "

The picture quality was fine for most of my life. On my projo KPR36XBR the display from the Sony SLV920HF had the smallest test I ever saw on a stand ard NTSC TV. On that set it was sharp and clear. I had aligned the COMB fi lter to perfection. The convergence was perfect. It was actually better tha n a direct view. Even though the screen pitch of the lenticular wasn't that fine, each section reproduced all colors in the exact same space, a color CRT can't do that. In the stores they had these things right next to the di rect views and they looked as good except for the vertical viewing angle. T he horizontal viewing angle was about 170 degrees or something like that. T he small text was broken up on a direct view, my projo reproduced it perfec tly, and that is without even an SVHS (Y/C) input.

The Sony VHS video performance is superb, for standard HQ VHS it is only su rpassed by beta. Of course later formats were better, higher frequency vide o carriers on the tape, less white clipping and compression, and a few othe r things. With only SVHS it only went through COMB filter instead of 3. No w that I am more used to the Y/C input I am even more sensitive to a poor C OMB filter.

But the quality is actually fine. I don't even have an HDTV anyway, and don 't really want one. I can't see much difference unless it is very large scr een anyway. My sister has an HDTV in the upstairs apartment, I can always w atch that but I don't see enough difference to make it worth it. Maybe she does because she has better eyesight.

I remember fixing VCRs, I did alot of them. On soem I had to call the custo mer and give them the bad news that fixing theirs would cost almost what a new one would be. Some of them OKed the job, why ?

For one they finally learned to work the timer. Those were the days when yo u could use that, now you have to rent a DVR to effectively record or you a re stuck to one channel until you physically go and change it. That would h ave been nice when there were good programs on. Now it is hard to find anyt hing worth watching. Back then though sometimes there were multiple things on at the same time. With multiple VCRs and raw cable you could do it, and not worry about losing everything in a crash. You had the physical tape out of the machine.

It wore out, sometimes the machine would damage them, they had their drawba cks, but for what I want they fit. I also have a turntable that plays 78s. A Dual 1216, a decent quality one. I bet you would have to go at least a mi le to find another one who can play a 78. And I can transfer it to the PC a nd burn it to a CD. I don't really play 78s, but I do play some vinyl once in a while. And on audio forums (fora ?) there are people who have $ 10,000 turntables, soem even more. It does have a certain quality to it, though t hat might not be so objective. However there is onre thing, the frequency r esponse does not drop like a rock right at 20 KHz, it rolls off smoothly. S ome people may be able to hear the difference. In fact I was reading that s ome people can actually see light wavelengths that others can't. Into the U V or IR or whatever. They might be the people with superior night vision. M y buddy is like that. We were walking out in the stix and he had no problem , I was practically blind.

My ex-boss could see the numbers on planes in flight. Later though he neede d reading glasses. He was a licensed pilot, something I would have loved to do but I was born with bad eyes. I was about to join the air force like my Father and Uncle but found out that I was not likely to ever fly because I needed glasses.

Last but not least, most of what I watch was originally recorded in standar d NTSC. There is no way to get back the lost quality of that system. There is only one system worse in the world, the old one they used in the USSR. E very other country in the world either has NTSC, and many have something be tter. Well had, with digital that is all out the window.

Everything I own is over 10 years old except my PCs and printer, and they a re getting close. And I like it.

Reply to
jurb6006

in VCRs were problematic. We stocked them. IIRC, the numbers on them had the prefix uPc."

Some Sonys IIRC as well. A few others but not every model. There were also TA (Toshiba), LA (Sanyo) and a couple others.

They were all power products and subject to failure. Sometimes the PC was d iscolored near them due to heat. Also STKs in the earlier non-switching pow er supplies, changed a bunch of those. I don't know if those are Sanken or Sanyo.

One bad micro I saw was in an RPTV, a Hitachi. A proprietary part. I ran it down to the shutdown input that came from the HV and current detectors. Th e whole chip was alright except for the pulldown resistor for that pin. A s imple 10K resistor fixed that.

With jungle I+CS it was about 50/50. I avoided changing them until everythi ng else was checked and it was usually a cap or high value resistor.

I was the one who fixed things the other techs couldn't and sometimes I got them with the jungle already changed. I could change them with zero damage usually, even the fine pin ones, as long as they were through hole. I got them half butcherd with ;lifted pads and they were jumpered in, so I had to check that before even beginning to actually troubleshoot.

Then one day it was mentioned that I used more solder wick than the other t echs, I replied "Yeah, and I've seen their work". You are not normally supp osed to be able to tell a repair has been done. Add to that the fact that t hey needlessly changed a bunch of ICs because they were not good troublesho oters. Usually when I called it the chip, it was the chip. The others seeme d to guess. That's why I got the big bucks. Now I am practically unemploya ble. But I do what I can, it just takes longer.

Reply to
jurb6006

Easy enough, I got a Technics SL-2000 all it took was a simple change to the direct drive feed back. Instant 78 RPM, then a Shure M78 cartridge.

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"I am a river to my people." 
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Reply to
Fox's Mercantile

The only way you can tell I've been "in" something is the date code on the part is newer.

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"I am a river to my people." 
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Fox's Mercantile

Of course your average Joe can't do that. I looked at the print and it does n't look like it's quartz locked. But then that is not required. Looks like a resistor change and you were in business.

With cartridges like that I like to get another headshell. It is much easie r to change. Also, I see it uses the screwing in and out counterweight meth od of applying stylus pressure. That means you can weight the headshell to get the proper 78 tracking force, which I believe is higher. The anti skate probably isn't calibrated for this anyway, and it might not even need adju sting. I assume you wired it for mono right there to nip some of those tick s and pops in the bud.

I can't really weight the headshell in the Dual because the tonearm is tota lly statically balanced and the stylus pressure is applied by a calibrated spring. Sure I could do it but lose that balance. Probably not a big thing but it is cool that when setup properly it will play up on its side. It wo uld play upside down except for minor details, like the record falling off. And I have seen alot of them without the E ring or whatever holds the plat ter on.

What you did, it will wear out the motor faster, but not bad. It will proba bly have to work a bit harder but only during startup.

Pretty cool anyway, still not many people can play 78s.

Have you heard about them picking up the material on 78s optically with a L ASER ? When I read about that I thought it would be a waste.

Reply to
jurb6006

is the date code on the part is newer. "

Yup, I clean the PC board. I try to get the same amount of solder on all th e pins of an IC. At Electrasound they had us clean the board with Qdope thi nner which is toluene. I usually use acetone. And I do it after desoldering and before soldering. The flux won't be burnt so it is not conductive and provides just a wee bit of insulation.

One thing I do my way regardless of hoe the manufacturer did it is that I a pply the heat sink compound in a daub or bead and when mounted and tightene d let the pressure squeeze it out. This prevents air pockets which could oc cur if you spread it out first. Apparently it is cheaper for the manufactur ers in some cases to spread it out, and you can tell it was done by a machi ne, because if anyone, they should know this.

There are a few other things I do that enhance reliability here and there. Or did actually. At Electrasound which was authorized for just about anythi ng, even GM car computers and radios, they said "Do you want to take their name off of it and put yours on ?".

In some cases - yes. If I have to fix it if it breaks again I will do whate ver I deem necessary to prevent that callback. The customer will blame me n o matter how bad of a piece of shit they built.

And you can't tell them shit. Like different problems. I fix a convergence problem then it has a totally different problem and it is my fault. I try, "If I put brakes on your car and the radiator goes, do I have to change tha t for free ?". Falls on deaf ears. Ignorant ears actually. Like if i fix t he right channel in an map and the left channel goes, that's me ? Bullshit.

Stupid people wrecked that business. They told me a long time ago that you get enough money out of them the first time to cover such things. I didn't like that but over the years I learned that's the only way to really keep g ood customer relations. Just fix the damn thing.

And then when it comes to the complaint, "It was working fine and just went out". You get it alive and find out it has a weak CRT, convergence issues, noisy digital board, needs caps all over the place with retrace lines. Wor king fine eh ?

I am glad to be out of it. I argued with the boss, a customer was tired of waiting, we had ordered parts. Under Ohio law there are some strict guideli ne about estimates, but still, once the customer OKs the estimate that is a contract. So I said "OK, tell them to pay the bill and they can have it un fixed". Hey, we ordered expensive parts for that thing and now they are goi ng to sit on the shelf ? I would even let them come and pick up the parts w hen they come in. But they CAN'T take it to a bunch of shops that might be hacks and expect the estimate to hold. So it is back to that. If nothing ha ppened the price is still good, if something happened then we'll see.

I was sick of getting f***ed up the ass without lube.

One time we lost a TV. (not my shop, I worked there) It was not economicall y fixable so it wasn't worth much but they sued for $ 800. The thing MIGHT be worth that in like new condition. Well we found the set. They said OK an d the boss and them agreed to just forget about court. So he didn't go, but this prick did and got a default judgement.

Towards the end of my days owning a shop I got to the point where I would n ot work on anything I hadn't sold. That did not cause me to get out of busi ness, I got partners because we had the space and wanted to go into applian ces. These kids wee not old enough. Quite frankly neither was I. If I knew then what I know now I would have never let them into the business. Maybe h ire them and they could work for me, but that is it. No more partners ever again.

Enough of my rambling. I seem to have hijacked my own thread. LOL

Reply to
jurb6006

On Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at 2:49:29 AM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrot e:

the pins of an IC. At Electrasound they had us clean the board with Qdope t hinner which is toluene. I usually use acetone. And I do it after desolderi ng and before soldering. The flux won't be burnt so it is not conductive an d provides just a wee bit of insulation.

I used to buy a lot of Flux-Off when it first came out, then other non-freo n based cleaners as they were introduced to clean any pc solder work (looks nice and it may turn up an unintentional adjacently soldered land). Nowad ays I use acetone and a fiber brush. Much cheaper.

apply the heat sink compound in a daub or bead and when mounted and tighte ned let the pressure squeeze it out. This prevents air pockets which could occur if you spread it out first.

On transistors and small ICs, I put a dot on the die area and just screw it (or the heatsink) down. But I've found on very large ICs (like the STK co nvergence outputs), there is no way to tighten the mounting screws tight en ough to squeeze most of the compound out. On large flat ICs, I carefully p ut a very thin schmear on the IC and tightened it just snug. After solderi ng the pins, I'd give it another quarter turn as the compound relaxed. Aft er test running a couple of hours, I'd give it a last torque when hot to sq ueeze the rest out.

Reply to
John-Del

On STK type ICs if they screw down I run a bead between the screw holes. If they clamp down I put the bead in the middle across most of it and squeeze the shit out of it until it starts oozing out of the edges. At that point I am careful not to lift it off the heatsink. Sliding it around helps somet imes if it is large and you heatsink compound is thick, but not so far that it can introduce air in there.

And shit is the word, we used to call it bird shit.

It also makes a good insulator for CRT anode caps, and it never dries. You can usually get it wet and it won't arc if you use it. On projo TVs they ar e usually siliconed to the glass and need to be replaced once you take them off.

Reply to
jurb6006

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