Philips VR969 automatic head cleaning, now no picture?
 

Hey dear friends,
I am new to repairing but i ran into a problem recently with the machine Philips VR969.

I bought it on ebay and it worked fine. But then I made a huge error by clicking on Automatic Head cleaning option.

After that I have this, see the link with the video.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GN1...ew?usp=sharing

The sound is fine but no picture.

I really hope that the heads are dirty. BUT another challenge is to access them. I have no clue how to open this freaking cover. The screws are buried really deep.

If we have any specialist here who ran into the both issues, could you please guide me how to open and hopefully troubleshoot the video part.

I appreciate your help in advance.

Your automatic head cleaner turn into goo and screwed the heads, this needs more than paper clean for the average user, If you don't feel confortable using other methods of head cleaning such as special foam pads don't procede, These methodes are for proffesionals and hobbyists. For how to open a VCR lid just check youtube or google.

You can find a service manual here which shows how to open them. Philips used these rubbery thingies for head cleaners in many of their decks rather than the foam thing found in most other VCRs, though I don't know what happens with them with age.

Thank you a bunch for your reply and the link to the Service manual.This is what I was looking for.

Hello, got mine since 1996, had a mechanical problem with cassette ejection, now fixed. But I have now exactly the same problem as you, without any picture, only sound when call menu. Then when trying picture phase the menu freeze totally, only stand by switch returns to previous function.
Initially I could have a picture but had to phase manually.
Looks like it is either a software problem ( I don’t think so ) or most probably the power supply that fails to deliver correct voltage to the mother/control board.
Keep you posted if any changes

Ok so I was tinkering with my philips turbo drive decks today. All 3 were showing the same symptom of the video signal missing. (They're all the last variant of the mech, a VR900 and two mono hitachi branded ones). After a bunch of troubleshooting, seems latreche34 is indeed right. It seems it's the rubber head cleaning thingy that ends up contaminating the heads very easily, maybe the rubber degrades and smears off or something. It contacts the head whenever a tape is inserted/ejected (visible in that video), not just when using the head cleaning option so it's best to remove it. It's secured with a little plastic hook.

Also question, is there any way to glue or repair the gear thingy/pin that tends to split on these and give a loading issue, or is the only solution to swap the part?

Is this the 'Charlie' transport? A troublesome unit if there ever was one!

I personally move any headcleaning mechanisms from any deck (professional and domestic) as with age they can get troublesome. The Panasonic ones have a habit of shedding the cleaning 'sponge' then smashing a hard plastic stub in to the heads. Not good on an AG series!

Interesting the 'VR' marque carried through, this goes all the way back to N1500 machines, through N1700 and V2000, I didn't realise it carried on in to VHS.

I've had success repairing split plastic gears by carefully winding many winds of cotton evenly around the circumference and finally holding the cotton into place with Super Glue. Cotton sewing thread is quite strong.

Interesting, may be an option but not sure.

The biggest issue with the turbo drive mech is the gear that connects the loading motor pulley to the rest of the mechanism, it sits on a long metal rod with the pulley on the other end. When it splits or cracks it will start slipping on the rod and thus be unable to turn the loading gears once it hits a little bit of resistance so the cassette just get a few cm in before it stops. (Video in german about it here.) Would need to mend the gear in such a way that it will clamp to the metal rod and not slip, not sure if its doable or not.

No it's what they moved to afterwards I think. It's found most (but not all) philips and grundig branded decks in europe from the early/mid 90s and up until around 2000 or 2001. (Not sure if grundig made their own or if they are all made by Philips). A few like the later SVHS Philips (VR1xxx) models share internals with JVC decks. After that it seems most philips decks sold in Europe were Funais like their counterparts in the US, while stuff with Grundig branding seems to be various stuff like sanyo, sharp and daewoo.

It's not as crazy as the charlie transport, but it's still a bit unique. E.g it does not use a mode switch but instead counts wings on one of the loading gears to determine where in the loading cycle it is.

I have removed head cleaner from all my Turbodrive decks many years ago...
Especially those made by rubber have incredibly reverted their function! :smack:

In my experience with good glue you can fix loading shaft gear, I slightly "enlarge" the hole in the cracked plastic gear to ensure, when re-inserted to the rod, that gear teeth in the cracked area are not to much outdistance one to each other, to avoid excessive mechanical noise during gear rotation.