JVC HR-S9900U bad video signal?

[crissrudd4554]

Tonight I was trying to play a tape on my JVC HR-S9900U but the video signal was very fuzzy static-y and incoherent. Audio wasn’t too bad but had some problems too. I thought maybe it was the tape since it was one I’d never played before but then tried one I had played before and same problem. Don’t know what happened. Just used this a few days ago and it was working fine and I don’t use this unit too frequently. Any thoughts?? This is what I see.

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[lordsmurf]

Not off-hand. Would have to see/hear motion clip.

[crissrudd4554]

This is what I get.

trim.01ACB7B2-9905-4001-BB59-D0F631862B0D.MOV

[latreche34]

Not sure what exactly causes that but It could be dirty tape path including the heads, Bad pinch roller, not fully engaged transport, cassette compartment not fully seated .... etc. If not sure how to go by checking those things find a repair shop near you if you can. When you buy this 30+ years old machines don't expect them to work out of the box even if it was brand new never used, they all need full restoration to bring them up to normal working condition.

[lordsmurf]

Did you open the deck (remove the lid), see what you can see?
Perhaps an oxide shedder happened?

[crissrudd4554]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Did you open the deck (remove the lid), see what you can see?
Perhaps an oxide shedder happened?

I wouldn’t know what to look at even if I did open it. I’m not mechanically inclined when it comes to these things.

[lordsmurf]

Open it, take a photo, let us look for you.

[crissrudd4554]

I will tonight when I get home.

[latreche34]

It's more of take a video and zoom in to different components while the tape is playing, Still not the way to troubleshoot a VCR problem but something obvious may stand out if you're lucky.

[crissrudd4554]

I’ll try to do another sample video tonight as well as send pics.

-- merged --

Here’s some pics of the inside without a tape in it.

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Next I have a clip popping a tape in and letting it run for about 30 seconds.

[latreche34]

Nothing unusual to notice, except that this has the DD system, so it could be stuck out of adjustment, When you pause and play the tape, do you hear a whirling noise around the drum? or do you see the black small gears spinning when you do that, They are underneath the drum assembly sticking out a little bit on the right side of the drum.

[crissrudd4554]

Nothing unusual sounding when it’s paused. This is what I hear.

I did a closer look with a flashlight and no the black gears you spoke about were not spinning.

[Xhumeka]

Have you cleaned the heads yet? Now that you have opened it up and nothing catastrophic appears to have happened, that would be my next step.

[crissrudd4554]

Never cleaned heads manually before and I don’t have a tape cleaner which most of the time never work anyways.

Just so everyone knows I’ve NEVER worked on the inside of any VCR.

[latreche34]

That's not head clog as far as I know but I would give the tape transport a clean anyway just to eliminate that from the troubleshooting tree, The black gears are not supposed to spin during playback, only when you hit pause and only for a brief moment, the same goes for fast search and forward search.

[crissrudd4554]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

That's not head clog as far as I know but I would give the tape transport a clean anyway just to eliminate that from the troubleshooting tree, The black gears are not supposed to spin during playback, only when you hit pause and only for a brief moment, the same goes for fast search and forward search.

Would you mind pointing out where those ares and the methods I should use to clean them?? I know it’s said never run a Q tip in a VCR.

[lordsmurf]

I've not had time to write my cleaning guide, just given tips in posts.

TGrant's head cleaning info is decent: https://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/in...ken-video-head
However:
- 10-20 is nuts, 1-5 is almost always all it takes
- GENTLE, GENTLE! Not enough emphasis here, don't be hamfisted goober.
- Standard copy paper, 20 lb, not some fancy vellum or cotton rag or whatever. Wrong paper worse than Q-tips!

[crissrudd4554]

Someone’s presently looking at it. When I get a diagnosis from that I’ll report back.

[crissrudd4554]

Just got it back last week. For the most part it’s working again. Cost of repairs was fair. But watching a tape today out of nowhere the slow speed feature started occurring automatically and at one point it started rewinding itself. Is this a faulty tape or is there something in the VCR that needs tweaking????

[crissrudd4554]

Just tried about 45 minutes of another tape. Didn’t spot it this time so hopefully the issue lied more with the tape I had been using. To be fair it was a tape that until today I had not tried before but still wanted to be cautious.