Chinon VC1700 Camcorder service Question "Can you Help"

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deltatango

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As an older retired service engineer who suffers from sight and shakes to some degree I take on "dumb" projects to keep me going until I get faulty items to fix for real.

I took on an old Chinon VC1700 camcorder of the VHS-C brigade thought it would be fun plus soldering practice, smd caps had failed so I have fixed the most bad and it now "talks" to me from being dead. Its drum will not spin up but will load and FF and REW till it shuts down soon after, now I know finding a Chinon manual is Very rare but figure these machines were a combination of various manufacturers at that time.

Could anyone help me by telling me whose deck this is (pictures enclosed), plus I have a few board numbers if they will identify it further.

VE0542A, VE0541A, M492, VV0266B, VV0267B and VM0041B

Many thanks from David
 

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Sorry my online manual library's didn't have anything for a "Chinon camcorder" but I have found that the old camcorders have big problems with all the rubber drive belts and rubber surfaces drying out over time, if it FF and rewinds, but does not play then the rubber may have gone hard on the drive spindle. (black rubber drive spindle in the top middle of the first photo)

This would cause the tape to just sit there and not be pulled through the heads.
 
If the drum isn't turning then you need to check the motor underneath, or the connections to it. If it is an expensive beast then you might wish to look at tilt mechanism failure.

But it's been a while since I dealt with VCRs so I would continue changing capacitors in the power supply first on a 'rare' model, even those that look OK.
 
I trust you have you tried it with the lights off (oooerrr!)
 
Thank you so far for your inputs, mechanism, head, capstan belt, pressure roller have very little signs of wear/usage which is why I took it on as a project. Light is not an issue as it was well shaded when I tried it, loaded out OK but no drum spin up.

I will continue with capacitor changes plus now concentrating on those others I missed, did use an ESR meter on them but they give a high reading due to their old style ratings compared to a later version component which has 100Khz figures of less than 1 ohm etc.
Went for those 10uF, 22uF and 47uF as I have found they seem mostly to fail possibly due to their smaller can size, over 100uF and 220uF seem less bothered unless they are right on a power generator, these older capacitors I find are real small types compared to more modern versions of similar value/voltage but Digikey had some left.

Will battle on with fingers crossed, still good practice though with tweezers, solder paste or 28gauge solder plus 6x glasses as a general work horse.

Thanks from David.....
 
Always replace the capacitors with a lower temperature rating first.
 
"lower temperature rating" - surely the opposite (= higher)?
 
Terryl said:
Sorry my online manual library's didn't have anything for a "Chinon camcorder" but I have found that the old camcorders have big problems with all the rubber drive belts and rubber surfaces drying out over time, if it FF and rewinds, but does not play then the rubber may have gone hard on the drive spindle. (black rubber drive spindle in the top middle of the first photo)

This would cause the tape to just sit there and not be pulled through the heads.
Click to expand...
ISTR there are ways of making hardened rubber belts soft again - IIRC it involves something like soaking them in hot/boiling water. Google the subject, and you may find some solutions.
 
The head won't be belt driven on this, it will use a brushless motor quite possibly with a hall effect sensor.
It's worth checking the driver IC and the sensors.
 
Yes I was thinking about that motors drive IC more so because I found it hard to locate one, even UT Source did not know of it and was not showing up at my usual spares places I visit, then I would tend to work on reverse logic in that it may be a bad one that fails so wiping out stockpiles of it.
Did that in the past when manufacturers were not talking about a problem would find out what their spares department did not have in stock!
Found one though in Greece €3.50 and got it, but will "play it" only if other checks fail to resolve the problem as its fiddly (for me).

Battle on Thanks from David
 
Channel Hopper said:
That makes no sense.
Click to expand...
TBH, your comment doesn't make any sense to me either - why would you want to replace an existing component with, say, an 85C temp rating by another with a lower rating (if you can find one nowadays)? "Received wisdom" that I have read over the years always seems to indicate that you would try to find one with a higher temp rating (say 105C), especially for an "electrolytic", or equivalent type, cap.

OTOH, maybe this is just a matter of symantics/interpretation of the "words" used!
 
Always replace the capacitors with a lower temperature rating first.

Always replace the capacitors, with a lower temperature rating first.
 
Always replace the capacitors with a lower temperature rating, first ?

Always, replace the capacitors with a lower temperature rating first.
 
OK, now I understand - probably misread/construed what you said - apologies.
 
Eats, "shoots" and leaves
 
I must admit that I read CH's comment the way that jeallan did. Punctuation, eh?
 
PaulR said:
I must admit that I read CH's comment the way that jeallan did. Punctuation, eh?
Click to expand...

and the sentence construction would be nonsensical ( first - before what ?))
 
Well I read it that you were advocating fitting lower temperature rated caps first - before trying higher rated ones I surmised.
 
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