Leaving VCR TBC gear on UPS?
 

TGrant told me that he leaves his Pannasonic 1980s on junction boxes and turns them off when they are not in use. Should I just leave all my gear plugged into my UPS and plugged in and turned on?

AG-1980P is a PITA machine with power.
- Caps can easily blow when plugged/unplugged.
- But then caps can easily blow if left on, and power fails while on the UPS.

The best advice is to only turn off
- when not planned to be used for 2 weeks more
- when power outage has sapped UPS battery less than 50%, or when you won't be around during a bad weather forecast

It's really about mitigating problems, and realizing it'll never be 100% safe.

The is why owning a Panasonic AG-1980P is a money pit. So touchy, can break at any time, seemingly for no reason.

AG1980's leave a fair amount of their electronics "on" even when in standby mode. The front timer board is particularly known for having a couple caps run quite hot, even in standby - like we're talking 65 degrees C continuously on caps that are rated for 85C temp max. I always replace those with 105C caps whether they are bad or not, but I wouldn't want to chance having early cap failures needlessly there or elsewhere. Pretty much is a given that the SMT caps on the TBC board, so if those haven't been replaced, you can expect those to fail the rest of the way. After that and the deck being appropriately lubed and making sure the pinch roller is in good shape, they have been pretty reliable for me.