If I remember correctly Ag 1980 does not share the same TBC. Ag 1980 has its unique TBC configuration. Video cards are not interchangeable.
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I'm just starting the process of recapping, and it definitely is a daunting process. This is probably a stupid question, but I'm hoping someone who has done this has some advice. My board is similar to this picture that someone has posted. There are a few surface mount caps on the Y/C board that are very close to the white plastic ribbon connectors. I don't think I can fit my soldering tip in there without melting the white plastic. Is it possible to solder it quickly enough to not damage the connectors? Or is it possible to desolder the connectors to get them out of the way? Thanks in advance.
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"Many professionsal will not provide answers for free - getting paid for answers after all their living.
And many do not want to continue work after the end of the work day." As you noticed this "professionsal" provided us with an answer. I guess he is not going to give you his "proffesionsal" opinion unless you pay. I think you are smarter than this character. Use common sense and practice before you start soldering. From my experience this boards are of very good quality and they do not strip easy, unless you are pulling to hard and/or not heating enough. Overheating is also not welcomed. Do not direct the heat towards the plastic. I never had any problems, ever. Be gentle with the board and be safe. Good luck. |
The connector plastic will melt if in contact with an iron tip, it is not high temp resistant.
Removing the connectors would likely be a pain and involve a lot of extra effort. You should be able to find a soldering tool with tips thin enough to fit in the space between the SMD cap and the connctor if you exercise some care. I have one or two irons I have accumulated over the years that fit. Some of the hot air rework stations include both hot air and conventional soldering irons with a variety of tips that might work, but I have not tried any of them, and I have yet to work on that specific board (time is scarce). The SMD electrolytic caps seem to be a common problem for all electronics from the 1990s. I have a Shure LX4 wireless receiver from 1997 that had several SMDs in the compander and audio output section that had high ESR and leakage resulting in op amp bias shifts, distortion, and eventually output failure. Since there was room on the circuit board I replaced them with radial lead caps. |
Nobody said to touch any plastic with a hot iron, so do not attempt to twist my words.
It was very easy for me to do it. Like I said this are very good quality boards and can take a lot of abuse. How do you think those caps were mounted there..... You need a soldering station first and once you get it, I will walk you free of charge..... or you can choose a "professionsal" and pay. You have to be able to set up the temperature at a certain value. It can be done just with a soldering gun with fine tip without destroying the board. You can get one that has hot air and some will have also special adapter for soldering SMD caps. It is detailed work and needs concentration, patience and skills. Let me know if you want to proceed. If you have no experience in soldering than you will have to pay. I remember on fleebay was something for sale. Nobody will tell you and some will cut corners in refurbishing, but get one board that has ALL electrolytic caps replaced, if you can find one. From my memory usually the 1uf, 10 uf, 22uf and 4.7uf are toasted, but too often I noticed some 47uf smd caps and regular aluminium electrolytic caps are out of range too. Leave the tantalum caps alone. Be safe and be wise in making your decisions. |
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It provided further reason to not touch the plastic with a soldering iron. The earlier post with respect to participation by professionals was a response to videonut's statement about "...not get straight answer at any of my questions. Wonder why..." I now see it was rhetorical and deeply regret taking the time to reply. |
To dpalomaki this is a place where people are supposed to exchange knowledge and I did not see that coming from you, unless you are on a mission.
Cheers. |
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Video, photo and web dev/hosting topics are both hobbies AND the profession of those that run digitalFAQ.com. We believe firmly in demystifying these topics, and in providing consumer awareness of good/bad methods to achieve it. Yes, in some cases, that does mean to not attempt it yourself, or that you'd get better results by paying others. Whether you choose to solder is up to you. Some can do it well, others may start a fire. :smack: If you've never soldered anything, be careful, you may break something beyond repair. In that case, it's probably best to pay others. If you can wield it like a third appendage, then go for it, you'll probably be fine. I'm horrible when it comes to soldering, and leave that to others. When the gear was really important (or rare), I insist it just be outsourced to a reputable repair shop. Even professionals use others professionals. :wink2: Some of us do share our knowledge. And I know what you mean about the a-hole "professionals". Many of "those type of people" are actually not really that skilled at what they're doing. They don't share knowledge because it's shaky at best, and they're afraid to get caught with their pants down. They have no confidence in themselves, no self esteem. Therefore, they hide what they're doing. I've run into an ungodly amount of BS in my years, across several fields. You can spot "those people" rather easily if you yourself are skilled in the subject. The worst is probably the hosting field, because it has a very low entry barrier. Lots of "admins" don't know their @ss from their elbow, and are not really admins at all (zero real-world experience in Linux or Windows servers, beyond a cPanel GUI). Real professionals have no issues admitting where their knowledge stops. They don't just fudge it like the posers. Anyway, be good to each other. :) Let's try to get back on-topic here... |
So look for a Y/C board for AG 1980 that was recaped. Do not throw away your Panasonic AG 1980. Can be fixed and from my humble experience if it is fixed correctly beats easily a JVC in performance and durability. I read a lot of stories about JVC, but I did compare it with 7600. 9500 and 9800 and the Panasonic performed much better. It is possible that some home made videos will play better on a JVC, but I did not experience that. The flip side is that JVC does not need to be overhauled, so expect to perform still very good even used.
Just my 2 cents and good luck. |
Does anyone know if rumburaski is still active here and/or doing the Panasonic 5710/1980 repairs? He sort of offered to do repairs in this thread some time ago. I want to talk to him about possibly repairing my unit. I sent him a PM several days ago and have not heard anything. Has anyone here used him for their repairs? If so, can you speak for his work?
Thanks, |
I am still active. I got smarter now. I charge $275 for the recap of power supply, mother board, video card and display pcb. Anything else is extra. All payments to be made via money order. Also, as far as I can see I may be the only few ones that can dismantle your unit like a yellow banana, then return it unit to factory specs. Turnaround 3 days. You don't have to make a decision today. Think about it.
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AG-5710/1980 Repair Service
Hi rumburaski, and thanks for responding! Glad to see you are still active and offering the service. I always thought $65 or $95 was way too cheap for the amount of effort required to do this type of thing, but hey, if you were willing to do it for that, I was willing to take advantage of it. :wink2: That said however, I am actually glad you "got smarter" because if it is not profitable for you, you won't be motivated to continue doing it.
I am considering sending one or both of my 5710's to you (or someone) for repair. Since you didn't respond to my PM, I feel compelled to ask my questions here publicly:
Gary |
rumburaski: Did I say something to offend you? If I did, I sure didn't mean to. It's been almost 2 weeks now. I thought I would have heard from you by now. Whats up anyway?
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No I am cool. I have been working on my regular job lately. Electronics is my serious hobby. For the price I gave I use general purpose caps, which works well in my bench tests. I can do nippon or nichicon caps but it will be a little more. I also tried dry aluminum caps from ebay, but they failed miserably. Cheap alluminum caps test fine on bench. But once the power runs through them they became high ESR. Useless. Counterfeit caps? God knows! I think these units will only take Panasonic aluminum caps, if you decide to go that route. Also, I am limited on the space allowed by video card. Sometimes I have to use very small caps, which may not be nippon. Ag 1980 and AG 5710 do not share an identical card. So I cannot comment on AG 5710 TBC performace. I know the AG 1980 gives results in terms of TBC. Some here argue that both decks are the same. Anyhow, what do you expect your deck will be doing after repairs that is not doing now. What do you think the problem is? Are you getting any kind a video, rainbow, B/W, blue screen of death? Error codes? Dim display? What repairs have been attempted? Review wise, looks like the AG 1980 is the best selling deck at the moment. Where did you get the AG 5710 from? No paypal. No ebay. I had enough of both. MO only. No extras. No extra holes in the unit. Buyer pays shipping both ways. No referals at the moment but you can became my first one.
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Both positions are correct. :) |
Wow.... for only 275 to change almost ALL the capacitors ( if that means recaping the unit) is very very cheap.
There are many hundreds of them. I can tell you just to by the smd's are going to cost you much more than that if they are quality made. The bipolar caps are also expensive and not easy to find, not talking about the tantalum ones if he includes those in the recap ( I doubt). Now if you can change just the few ones that already failed and SOME of the borderline caps, you can get it work again. It will probably be enough to change between 20-40 caps and most of them are on the Y/C board. So not much on the main board, power supply or display board. I wonder how the cheap refurbished units that sell on fleebay look like. I like the guy claiming to change the future bad ones.... I would ask him if he uses a magic ball for that too.... People are funny this days. Most caps made you know where will fail you miserably in time, and expect those to be used on most repairs. Why? Because everybody wants cheap stuff, and cheap it is. On the fleebay there is a good chance to find very good caps but old stock that are not dry, and are made in Japan. Watch the counterfeit ones. In my opinion it is a gamble. There is a website you can check which caps and what series are good. Even among those mentioned by you there are some series that are as bad as the the penny caps. To sum it up if you want to do it the right way you will need to: 1.take time and get some knowledge in regards to which caps and serial numbers are proven to be good 2.it will cost quite a pretty penny once you locate them (check also on fleebay, you never know) 3.you will have to acquire the skills to take the unit apart and do some soldering with a soldering gun that can be set at a certain temperature. 4.this unit does not go out of alignment unless you have some mechanical problems and you can find the posted k-mechanism manual and read. If you do not know how to align it, do not take it apart, but try to use high quality grease for electronics. Clean the old grease and apply the new one (see maintenance manual). Ideal would be to take it all apart, inspect, clean and lubricate. That takes a lot of work. 5.Change the pinch roller would be a great idea too. Clean all the heads and do not use a cleaning tape. 6.when you do not use the unit, unplug it. Just my 2 cents. Good luck to you, make the decision that is right for you and be safe. |
I believe the price quote reads
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That would cover something appraching half of the electrolytics in the machine but hopefully the most problematic. I would expect mainstream sources such as Mouser or DigiKey to be less likely to sell counterfits. BADCAPS.NET provides some interesting insight into the plague of bad caps starting back in the late 1990s. It infected some Hi8 camcorders I had as well. Given the level of effort and time needed to get at the Y/C and other boards in the AG-1980, if the $275 cleans up the machine, it is a reasonable price. Doubly so if you do not already have the tools, expereince, and DIY desire to dig into the machine. Or could be making money with the time you spend recapping. As a point of reference, about 20% of the caps I have removed had excessive ESR, but most were still within capacitance tollerance. Thus they would be problematic mainly in circuit applications where ESR is an important parameter. With the exception of a few specialized values, most of the electrolytics run in the range of 20 to 40 cents each, and there are around 230 of them counting all boards. That nets to about $65 at Mouser prices for Panasonic brand this past spring. And watch quantity price breaks - if you need 6, it may be cheaper to buy 10! Are higher quality branded capacitors worth it? Shoud you buy higher rated (voltage and temperature) capacitors? Consider the remaining useful life of the machine as a whole - e.g., is a 15 year life extension sufficient or do you need 30 years? Also, higher rated (voltage, ESR, temperature) caps may be physically larger and not readily fit the available space. Factors to consider before you make a buy. I am halfway through recapping - and in retrospect, considering what else I could be doing with my time, probably should have sent it out for the $275. As a point of reference, about 20% of the caps I have removed had excessive ESR, but most were still within capacitance tollerance. Thus they would be problematic mainly in circuit applications where ESR is important. |
rumburaski:
First of all, nothing you have said would stop me from using you as long as I can get all of my questions and concerns addressed. Quote:
I will answer all of your questions first, and then I have a few of my own: Quote:
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Now my questions:
That's all for now, Thanks, Gary |
A1: Let's say general purpose caps are about $55. Nippon caps can be at least double the price, if not more. If you want to go extreme, I can get Panasonic caps, perhaps for triple the price.
A2: I do test caps before soldering. However, the capacitance and ESR are somewhat subjective. Cold test is a good quantitative indicator. Quality can not be determined with a 100% certainty, just from hooking up an ESR meter. For example, a cap can test perfectly fine when cold, yet in the circuit can have excessive noise. As a rule of thumb I stay away from the cheapest caps, because of this reason. A3: I believe most of the TBC problems are related to bad caps on the video card. If that doesn't correct the problem. I am looking for a bad integrated circuit. A4: Dark display is not a good sign. It may be an indicator that it has reached its end life. On the other hand, a dim display can be improved by replacing the caps. The worst case scenario you will need a donor display. A5: I don't modify units period. This will void my warranty. Therefore, no extra wire(s) hanging out from the unit. A6: This is not a total electrolytic capacitor replacement, unless is one of those rare units that was hit by plague. Replacing all electrolytics is fine by me. You are looking at a $1400 parts and mostly labor. |
You are absolutely correct and very low in price.
$1400 plus the cost of a used unit plus shipping both ways is like $1600. Does it include ALL the electrolityc caps, not just main board, display pcb, Y/C card? If includes ALL of them and you use only high quality made in Japan caps, I might send you few units also. I did this in the past for myself and took me months to gather all the parts and another 2-3 weeks to replace them, if I remember correctly. I overhauled the mechanics also, but that is a different story. It was a lot of work and I really appreciate someone taking its time to do that. Just thinking of replacing those extra hundreds of caps in the audio cards and in the tuner... You are a treasure and I do not know if anybody would do that for so little. We are talking replacing 400 or maybe more capacitors.....I know is a lot of money but this is titanic work, and in my humble opinion is well worth it. Thank you. |
"If display = timer board, video card = digital + analog Y/C sections, and motherboard = main + Audio (main) + Video (main) sections in FSM speak. That is about 105 electrolyics with the power supply"
To dpalomaki, please count again. There are many types of electrolytic caps, as I am sure you already know. You should change the smd caps (also electrolityc) because they are vulnerable to heat. The 47uF ( well most of them) usually are still good, but the other ones are dry after so many years and so much use. Onmouser you do not find all the parts and is not cheap either. Good luck finding caps made in Japan with the right size, voltage and temperature. Cheers. |
videonut: care to share what you believe is the count of electrolytic caps (radial and SMD) in the named sections of the AG-1980?
FWIW: as I recall from earlier this year, Mouser carried just about all of the electrolytic caps listed in the FSM (or the Panasonic listed replacement for discontinued products) or an equivalent. In a few cases the specified voltage was out of stock but the next higher voltage was in stock). The exception being one special cap in the power supply listed for an arm and a leg by by some parts outlets that cater to the electronics repair trade. What sources do you recommend that have appreciably better prices and in-stock availability? |
I did it!!!
I plugged in my AG-1080, and it works with a nice looking picture. I did it! This middle aged housewife turned small biz owner with nervous hands and in need of bifocals did it!! I'm so excited! My husband and kids were more interested in the weird cartoon tape I found to test it than in my accomplishment, so I thought I'd share here. :D
Of course, I probably made a bunch of mistakes and other things on it will die soon enough, but for now it's working nicely. And I will begin to work on another of my AG-1080s with the same symptoms. These two both had a dark picture. One started off being intermittently dark, and only when TBC was on. Then it was always dark with TBCs, and a couple days later the picture was black with or without TBCs on. The second one went to a black picture pretty much all at once. I have a third 1080 with some interference (herringbone or barberpoling) in the picture, but it's not dark yet. I don't have an oscilloscope, power supply, ESR meter, etc. I didn't diagnose, I just took an educated guess that Y/C pack CBA was the problem after reading lots on the internet. I bought a learn to solder kit, electronics repair book, hemostats, flux pen, solder wick, and a magnifying head lamp. I replaced all the surface mount caps (and only the surface mount caps) on that board by rotating gently with the hemostats until the leads broke. I could tell about 25% had leaked. I posted earlier about a tight space where my solder iron would melt a nearby plastic connector. I was thinking I would have to use caps with leads in those spots. But apparently, the new caps I bought were 1mm smaller in diameter, so I managed to get my solder tip in there. Thanks for letting me celebrate!! And I just want to say while it's apparently do-able for a novice, I had little money to spend on it, nothing to lose, time to spare, and luck that nothing else was wrong with it. Were that not the case, $275 to have someone experienced fix it all up to last seems like a good deal to me. :2cents: |
BRAVO! Congratulations!
If it works to your satisfaction any mistakes didn't matter! |
Congrats. On the next one try go few steps further and replace also the other ones not just the SMD's. Also look for ones on the power source and the few on the display board (they go together). You only need a solder gun where you can set up the temperature, good solder, and good parts. Even if you replace only some of the bad ones, it is a good chance it will start working. I have a brand new panni that works but has quite few of the caps dried and non functional, but the picture is very good; can not tell the difference on the TV screen, unless you look into it closer with some other tools. I keep that one for proof plus it needs a lot of work to replace them all to make it perfect, and I thought at some point that someone was eager to do it for $1400, but nah...., I guess to much work and I know it is. Like I said this units were made to last and the PCB boards can take a lot of abuse. I am really happy for you.
Be safe and good luck. |
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Contact Tom Grant at TGrant Photo in Lodi Ohio. He has a website.
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Thank but no thanks.
I can don it 201 % better..., I just do not have the time. If I would trust someone to do it right is NJRoadfan, but I thinks he knows that what I am asking for takes a lot of work and time to select the right parts and is not worth for him. Just to make sure you understand I never had one vcr I could not fix, so I do not need anybody to tell me how and what to do. I am far away from being perfect, but if I start something it has to be done right. At the 300 rate , which actually is 199 if you look around, you get lipstick on a pig service (25-45 caps changed plus some lip service). That alone will revive your old vcr. But from that to get it rebuilt and change most of the caps takes a very long time and I bet pushing carts at wally will make you much more money. Just my 2 cents. |
@rumburaski Can you replace caps on an AG-DS850? How much would you charge?
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I will thanks for reminding me.
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@rumburaski and anyone else. Had a quick question about the Y/C board. Do you replace the caps in between the main Y/C board and the smaller board connected to it? If so is there a function for that wire connecting the boards other than to hold them securely together? It does not look like it is attached to any leads so I am not entirely sure if it has any other purpose.
Thanks D |
In trying to answer my question I posted above I have come across another couple of questions. I was going through the capacitor list for the Y/C board. According to the service manual the capacitors on that smaller 3400 series board are all ceramic. What I see does not look like ceramic but more SMD electrolytic.
After this i decided to look at some of the other boards and discovered 2 electrolytic capacitors on the power supply not listed anywhere. I have a 10V 1200uf at C1016 and a 16V 1800u at C1022. Are these not in the service manual because I have a service manual from an earlier AG-1980? Thanks D |
C1016 & C1022 are shown on the schematic diagram and the PC board layout in my AG-1980P service manual. However, they do not appear on the parts list. Probably an editing omission/error on the part of Panasonic.
The daughter board 34000 series is memory, and the caps in the C34001-C34008 are 68 pFD 50v surface mounted ceramic. C34009-C34012 part number comes up as a 0.1 mFD 16v SMD ceramic which strikes me as appropriate for its location in the schematic. Does the wire provide a ground connection between the foils on each board? |
DThomas, the general rule is that anything I remove goes back.
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Thanks @dpalomaki I missed those on my schematics. Quick question - can you get 'can' ceramic caps or do I have something different here. Attaching a couple of pictures.
Good advice @rumburaski - is my general procedure as well - wondered more about the function of the wire for level of preciseness while working. Guess with these boards just best to treat everything as careful as possible. I am not sure if they are grounding the boards. Attaching pics of them as well. Thanks for any and all help. |
I can't tell from the photos. Today ceramic caps tend to be SMD and look like tiny bricks, or are leaded for through hole mounting. I don't recall seeing any in cans like the small, low voltage electrolytics that come in AL cans.
FYIW, sometimes during a long production run a mfgr. may discover some small issue that is addressed by adding a component, possibly a capacitor, wire, or resistor, that is not normally mounted on the board but added as an afterthought/fix. This sort of mod might not make it to the formal maintenance manuals. It is possible that the wire you see is that but no way of telling from the photo. You could check its resistance to ground. |
I know this thread is old but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted in here. Using the information in this thread I was able to replace all the smd and radial caps on my AG-1980's Y/C board and completely restore the picture, which I had thought was gone forever.
It was a brutal and time consuming process for me as an amateur, but the picture being restored now, it was completely worth it. So thank you all again. |
Can you provide a list of capacitors to buy?
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However, attached to this post is a spreadsheet that was based on the parts list in the back of an AG-1980 service manual. It lists the board, value, and Panasonic part number (from the 1990s). WARNING: :warning: it could well contain some transcription errors and/or omissions. It can provide a starting point for your quest. Some parts numbers have changed since then, especially the problematic SMDs, so you will need to select a substitute part that will electrically and mechanically fit the board.. |
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