Found U-Matic for $7, how to get it working?
 

Was at Goodwill recently when I got quite a shock:

Attachment 16355

Yup, that's a U-Matic, just sitting in the bin. It was completely naked with no shell, so I had no guarantee it would work, but I had to rescue it. It was also stupendously heavy and getting it home was quite a challenge. The cashier didn't want to weigh it when I lugged it to the counter and just said, "You can have that for $7." A $7 U-Matic -- woohoo!

Attachment 16361

That was yesterday; I gave it an inspection today. It's about as good as you could hope for. Wherever it was, it wasn't a place where it could gather dust. My guess as to why it doesn't have a shell would be it was originally part of a console unit for video production, and was hauled out when it became obsolete (observe the metal handles bolted to the front).

Attachment 16362

I've never seen the inside of a U-Matic before so I don't know what kind of trouble signs one should look for, but here is a photo of the guts. Everything seemed solid and in place, with one exception: the video carriage was very loose. But it seemed to snap back in, so I powered it on.

No issues there either. I couldn't really check the picture because it uses some weird video connector I've never seen before:

Attachment 16363

The only thing left was to try out a tape. I've had a U-Matic tape for some time that I found at Goodwill earlier. So I pushed it in and....darn. The carriage didn't do anything; it didn't put the tape in position, but the rest of the machine acted like it was in there. In fact it was now trying to fast-forward the tape it didn't have. None of the buttons stopped the fast-forward function; the drum just kept spinning. The only way it would stop was if I turned the whole thing off. But when I turned it back on it just started fast-forwarding again even though I'd taken the tape out of the carriage entirely. I guess it will just be stuck in fast-forward mode forever unless one of you knows what's wrong.

This is what the machine looks like stuck in fast-forward:

Attachment 16364

Attachment 16365

It is very likely related to the loose tape carriage, but I don't know how to fix that. Like I said I'm totally unfamiliar with U-Matics. It'd be nice to get this working, find out what video connector it takes, and assuming I can do all that, eventually find a shell covering for it.

In the meantime I have it wrapped it in a garbage bag to protect it from dust. What do you think?

I fixed your embeds.

Congrats on the find.

For $7, it may never work. But at very least, it will surely be fun to look at, learn from. :congrats:

If you decide to have a professional fix it, I can vouch for Obsolete Video Services. He restored a U-matic deck I found on ebay and shipped it double boxed to me. He has a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@obsoletevideo6048/featured), where you can see many videos on U-matic decks he's handled. He may not offer much for how to fix it yourself, but it will give you confidence that he's seen a lot of these and has the parts and knowledge to fix them. If you don't have or expect to have U-matic tapes, and just want it to stay out of the landfill, perhaps he would take a donation. He is a retired broadcast engineer who is very passionate about preserving video equipment and video recordings.

These are often the people you want to befriend. I did about 20/25 years ago, and some of my knowledge is thanks to their deep experience. I lost contact with both about 15 years ago, and I fear they are gone now.

I like his channel but he is very secretive on his work unlike other members such as 12voltvids and video99.co.uk, I've asked his numerous times to post the repair section of his equipement but never responded, His videos are more show than tell, He does do very weird formats though.

1.) The video connector is of BNC type. You need a BNC male to RCA female adapter.

2.) Video(s) from Obsolete Video Services mentions how fragile and prone to damage the carriage is. A common problem.

3.) A possible thing to try to see if you can get the Fast Forward to stop is to somehow cover the unit to keep the light off the sensors. See this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw2hz6Z7NwM

4.) If you do pursue U-matic futher. Know that the format is more prone to Sticky Shed Syndrome. I've only had a few, and have been fairly lucky thus far. However, when a tape is sticky, it will quickly clog your video head, and you will need to clean the heads on the video drum, similar to how you'd clean a VHS video head drum. Won't get into that here. But the solution is to bake the tape, which is another topic I also won't go into here. OVS helped me get something for baking, and have had to use it a couple times. Once I succeeded and got the tape to play, the other time I was not. He will likely tell you to bake all U-matic tapes before playing. I can understand that point of view, when you've seen it happen so often. I've been more conservative and verified it needed baking first. But even if you bake them all, it may still be sticky and need more baking. So you will need to have the skill sets necessary to clean the heads and bake tapes. Just something to consider if you are wondering whether to get into U-matic further. If you look in my post history, I've posted about my experience with tape baking.

If this is all too much, and you decide to abandon it, you can sell it on ebay. There are plenty of U-matics on there sold as-is and for parts, and for a lot more than $7.

Best of luck to you

One more thing you may want to try is watch this video on how to handle a tape jam for U-matic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnEy_jfjRGg This video shows how to detach the carriage and manually set it back to it's initial loading position, which is necessary before loading a tape. It also shows how to reset the loading gear to it's initial position for the same reason. Ensure both of these things are reset to their initial position before trying to load a tape. Also, as OVS points out in other videos, you don't need to force a tape. It should go in with very little force on your part. Do not shove/force the tape in. The mechanism should do most of the work to pull the tape in.

In fairness, there is a problem with newbies wanting to "save money" by half-cocked trying to DIY fix gear. That has led to a mass issue with some gear, such as the large volume of botched TBC-1000 recaps we've seen in the past year. I'd rather idiots not make those units worse, and let skilled folks refurb them. Umatic is surely the same. 12volt, video99 and others, often show how to fix worthless crap VCRs that nobody will miss. When goobers ruin Umatic, TBCs, etc, the community weeps.

At times, there's also zero ROI on making videos of this nature. Yes, yes, for posterity, blah blah blah, but some things, as you know (and often mention in your posts from time to time), cannot be shown online in a video. Some things truly require hands-on. So the video is somewhat pointless, a waste of time to make or watch.

And if this is his job, I fully understand not wanting to bankrupt himself from not having more work. Or not wanting to make his job harder, because unskilled hacks made the machine worse. Note that TGrant and Deter now refuse decks, and I now refuse refurb'ing for others (ie, I only now refurb decks that I sell in the marketplace). Too many people screw stuff up now, all the "instant experts" minted by Google and Youtube.

Again, in fairness. We don't yet live in Utopian Star Trek, where there is no money, and all info is freely shared. (Although most of that has since be retconned out, Trekverses have money and secrets!)

That's true, This is the only reason I don't fix VCR's for others, Previous failed attempts to repair, missing parts from the machine or damage during shipping, There is always cry babies who try to blame you for anything, I do repairs only for my own stuff.

There has always been some % of people that acted this way, but it started to get bad in the mid/late 2010s, and much worse since 2020. People now feel the right to whine, harass, chastise, etc. The world is full of trolls. Everybody is an instant expert, and they want everything instantly. I do get rather tired of people telling me how something "should" be, when they have zero knowledge of what's actually involved. This gripe obviously extends to the world at large, but there is some overlap with video.

In the last VCR I repaired for others (a JVC HR-S9600), the previous "technician", in attempt to repair it (a relative trivial problem of lubrication), added 3 more issue, the worst he partially torned off the video head flat cable...