Panasonic AG-1980P VCRs won't power on
 

Both of our main Panasonic VCRs were hit by a surge today that (apparently) killed the battery backup in the process (battery now at 0%), and it all shut off and then turned right back on. The Panasonic AG 1980 VCRs, however, did not come up. Both went down. Everything else appears to be fine (JVC VCR, external TBC, BVP4+ unit).

I should have never put them on the same UPS. :depressed:

I knew better. But I did that one day ago because we were swapping out a dead UPS next week, and so other gear was re-routed to the closest one. Only the second Panasonic was moved here. Apparently that one was almost dead too. We've had BS luck this year, especially with the UPS units. :unsure:

I need to pull it apart and I'll check the PSU first. I may have an extra whole unit I can swap out, but I hope it just the fuse.

It's the tracing leads on a board where I get lost. I've never liked fiddling with VCRs this in-depth.

Never had two die at the same time. :wall1:

Suggestions? :question:

the power supply on an AG-1980 is super simple to change - takes 5 minutes.
just remove the top cover and a couple phillips screws.
the PSU can be angled out without removing any boards or other parts.

This was an odd issue, but I solved it. :cool:

So here's what happened...

The units were unplugged, and one of them had the fuse inspected. The fuse was fine. There were no obvious faults or burn/scorch marks. To me, it was odd is that TWO units had the exact issue, which is why I though it was MAYBE just fuses, not the boards. The odds of two VCR mainboards dying simultaneously has odds on par with winning the lottery.

I plugged one back in another room, directly into the wall outlet, just to see what would happen ... and it worked.

Perfectly, like nothing had happened. :question:

So we put the fuse back into the power supply on the other deck, the power supply assembly back into the VCR, and close it up. Plugged it in. It worked!?

As it turned out, the 9-month-old APC 1500 $150 backup developed an uncorrectable fault. The power output was only about 90W, and apparently these VCRs won't power up with low voltage. This was the second APC unit that died in the past year, and we're going to stop using them. Several more APC were tossed for capacitor issues, and battery leakage issues (UPS ruined). Even though APC is supposedly the best UPS, I don't see it. We'll be using Cyberpower moving forward.

That was scary. Losing both newly repaired AG-1980P decks would have been hard to deal with again.