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A few years ago I bought a VCR/DVD recorder. It worked for about 6 months then quit working. I had intented to return it under warranty, but it got put on a shelf and forgotten about for almost 2 years. Well I had thought of getting a new flat screen TV with tax money. Then I got in an accident (not hypermiling related, I made a mistake and paid for it) and those plans went out the window.

Well last week I decided to pull it back out and see what I could find out. After about 3 min of Google searches I found out that a capacitor on the power supply has a habit of going bad. Well I pulled out that capacitor, looked and found another one that might have been bad. I left that one in at the time not having any way to be certain. I replaced the first capacitor and, believe it or not it worked.:)

Well almost. The DVD half worked, but the VCR was a no-go. So, after replacing the 2nd capacitor I plugged it in and what do you know, both worked.:D

Well almost. (Notice the pattern?) Both the DVD and VCR will play, but the VCR won't display a picture, but I think that may have to do with some settings than a bad part.

After not having picked up a soldering iron in 10+ years I am proud that I did so well. Now pardon me while I do a happy banana dance.:D
:bananahuge::Banane25::Banane25::Banane25::Banane25::bananahuge::Banane25::Banane25::Banane25::Banane25:

Great job! :D

If the VCR section is getting "no picture", note whether you are getting any sound through the RF output. Typically, the RF (coaxial cable) output has the monaural audio from the stationary audio head, while the red&white stereo outputs contain audio from the audio heads mounted on the video drum. No picture could be clogged video heads, which can be cleaned with a little rubbing alcohol on a foam swab (do not use cotton - that usually clogs the heads even worse). Remember to rub the swab in the same direction of the grooves on the drum, not up and down where the brittle heads can crack and break away.

I have resurrected a few old video recorders with a generous dab of alcohol swabbed and then blotted away with a dry swab. Then let the recorder "dry" for 10 or 15 minutes because any alcohol inside the drum will move outwards under centrifugal force (the drum spins at 1800rpm) and contaminate the tape, causing the tape to stick to the drum and get ripped out of the cartridge at approximately 13mph (the writing speed for VHS).

Maxx, I am leaning more towards another bad component since this model has a history of problems. But, I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

I may not even worry about the VCR not working since we hardly use it.

The DVD/VCR combo decks can be tricky. The RF out usually displays whichever "half" is selected, as does the composite (yellow) and Y/C (5-pin) video output. But the component (RGB color, labeled Y Pb and Pr) display DVD output only.

VHS is a "color-under" system, with luminance (black & white video with sync) recorded along with the chrominance (colors to fill in the black & white) recorded under the luminance (at 629KHz) instead of near the top (at 3.58MHz). There is a video processor circuit that strips out the chroma signal with a low pass filter and the rest of the video with a high pass filter. Then it re-encodes the chroma at 3.58MHz, sending the separate luminance and chrominance out through the S-Video as well as mixing them back together to send out as composite video. The composite output is also mixed with the monaural audio and passes to the RF modulator to be encoded as channel 3 or channel 4.

If you are getting monaural audio, the drum servo or motor could be out of whack. Follow the wires from the drum to the circuit board - that is usually where the video processing mentioned above takes place. Check and make sure you didn't partially dislodge any connectors (or incorrectly installed them if you had to remove them to get at the power supply). Since the hi-fi stereo audio heads spin along with the video heads on the drum, any faults with the speed or stability of the drum or a severe head clog (usually also shows trailing streaks of brownish color on the drum behind each head) will knock out both video and hi-fi audio. In most cases, you will still get monaural audio because the control track is still readable (it's in the same housing as the stationary audio head), so the tape speed is stable enough to get fairly clear sound.

It's true that the VCR isn't really worth worrying about, but if you want to take a whack at it, you may find something fairly obvious as you trace the signal path and find a quick no-cost fix.

Here is one quirk about this model, Maxx, the only way to view anything played on the DVD or VCR is through the standard RCA jacks, S-Video, or component. Just the way it is designed. So likely the problem lies in the video processing you mentioned. That should help me narrow down what is wrong. Like I said in the original post I have a feeling that some settings may be causing the problem. But, unfortunately since it hasn't been used in 2 years I am not quite sure where the remote is.

I studied electronics for a year and a half in high school, so I was actually able to follow some of what you were saying.:)

The monaural sound and video signals follow separate paths as they are read by different heads - monaural sound via the stationary audio head that is just "before" the capstan and pinch roller in the tape path, and video via the spinning drum or "headwheel". They are mixed only for conversion via the RF modulator to channel 3 or 4.

If you pop the top off the machine and insert a blank tape (or one you don't care much about), you will see four tape guides extracting about a foot of tape from the cartridge. The drum will spin for a moment and then wind back to a stop. The tape path runs from left to right if the machine is in front of you and facing you. The first pin on the left side is the tensioner and is attached via a spring to a felt brake band on the supply reel. During stop/ff/rew operations, the pin remains close to the point where the tape leaves the cartridge. Past that tensioning pin is the full erase head ("on" during recording), then around a pair of pins with one upright and another canted to the same angle as the head drum, allowing the tape to tilt and hold tightly against the drum. There is a matching pair of pins on the other side of the drum. On the right side is another stationary head that reads the control track at the lower edge of the tape and the mono audio track at the top edge. Beyond that is the capstan and pinch roller, and then another guide that's there to ease the bend back into the cartridge and to keep the tape from sticking to the pinch roller.

When you press play, the tensioning pin on the left should swing to the left, the guide pin on the right will move upward slightly, and the tape will snug against the drum. The tape should move smoothly with no stuttering of either reel in the cartridge and no slack anywhere in the path. Note - Don't get too close to the video head because condensation from your breath will cause the tape to stick to the drum and give you a massive VHS spaghetti lunch.

That was why I was asking about the monaural audio. If you can hear that, the audio and control heads are good and so is the main drive motor and the associated belt and idler wheels. If you are getting nothing but blue-screen, try turning off the blue-screen option in the menu (if you can find the remote) and see if you are getting pure snow or ghosts of a picture inside the snow. The video head is very sensitive and if you touched it or brushed it with your hand while you were working, you may have a simple clogged head. If it was sitting unused for two years, and was not kept in a dry and dust-free environment, it may need a good head-cleaning.

What I wrote above was intended to help you follow the path of the video signal from tape to output jacks. It has to pass through the heads (the most frequent cause for lost picture), through the copper contacts and slip ring inside the drum to the little mylar connector strip running to the video board. Then it is converted from the VHS recorded content into a standard NTSC ("Never Twice the Same Color" or "Not Tested Since Christ" - whichever acronym you prefer) video signal sent out over the composite output jack.

The video board is hard to screw up, outside of bending/cracking, dropping a blob of hot solder on it, zapping it with a lot of static electricity, or getting the connections wrong during removal and reinstallation. You will find the board by following the wires from the headwheel and also backward from the back of the machine at the video-out jacks. On some cheaper all-in-ones, the video circuit is on The Big Board - one circuit board the size of half a sheet of looseleaf paper, typically mounted on top of the tape drive and held in place by at least 915 tiny red screws identified by little white arrows silkscreened on the board. The white arrow means "If you touch this, I will never work again." (That is noted in every service manual) :)

The best advice is to celebrate your present victory, and then when you decide it's time to tinker again, follow the video signal path from tape to yellow phono plug and look for anything that stops the signal.

For the remote, you can always get a universal remote for a few bucks and see if you can get some basic functionality (stop, play, wash, pause, rinse, panic, spin, trunk release, etc). Some newer televisions have universal remotes and you might get lucky and find that a remote you already have can operate your combo-deck even as it celebrates its Terrible Twos.

Good luck and let me know if I can help in any way.

I got bored and decided to see what prices were like for a new remote. Well I found a guy on ebay selling 9 of the same model with the same problem. Too bad I can't afford them. Buy them for $20 a piece, spend $3 on parts, then sell them for $100, and get myself a remote in the process.