Panasonic AG-1980 AG-5710 capacitor mystery?
 

Ramping up to recap my AG5710... I discovered that I missed 4 caps in my big spreadsheet... and one of them is quite mysterious. I'm hoping we can solve the mystery without too much trouble.

The capacitor:
* VR board (right on the front of the box, so easy to get to)
* C6876 a very small radial 'lytic near the middle-bottom of the board (4mm diam, 7mm high) (there are two small ones, two larger ones. This is the obviously small one near the bottom ;) )
* Specs are: 50v, 3.3uF


What's mysterious?
* P/N is listed as: VCEA1HAC3R3
- There's no VCEA...AC series. AFAIK, never has been but I easily could be wrong
* This is the ONLY red-shell 'lytic capacitor anywhere in the box! (All others are black, blue, green, etc...

I'd love to imagine that the strange P/N is just a typo, but with such a unique physical capacitor, I am wondering.

YOU CAN HELP answer a few simple (hah) questions:
* If you either can look, or have photos of when you did some work... is YOUR C6876 also red?
* Do you have any OTHER red-case Panasonic/Matsushita 'lytic caps? If so, any marking info would be most welcome.
* If you have any OTHER info that could help identify this, that too is most welcome!


Thanks heaps,
Pete

All AG1980's and AG5710's have that red cap - They are Elna branded so they are almost always are bad - that's why aren't seeing a Panasonic part number or series - luckily, I think that is the only Elna branded cap in the entire VCR.

I just use regular 3.3uf 50V Panasonic caps of the same physical size.

Since we're on this topic, what's unique about the two Panasonic "metallic blue" caps on the head amp? One I think is a 220uf 6.3V and the other is a 47uf 6.3V if I recall correctly. I typically just replace them with the standard black-jacketed Panasonics of the same dimensions that are used in the rest of the VCR.

If you have those two part numbers, I'd be interested to see what the original difference was. The old excel document that I found somewhere a while back with part numbers had a mouser link to a bipolar capacitor for one, but's not true because the capacitors and the PCB are both marked as polar, not that using a biopolar one would cause harm, that just isn't why it is metallic blue to indicate a different capacitor series.

One of my bags of AG1980 removed caps just for fun haha:
Attachment 18007

@aramkolt

I need to replace capacitors on my NV-FS200 (PAL euro model) I have a doubt on replace only needed/suspected capacitors or replace all of them?
How do you precede?

@aramkolt, that's ELNA?!!! I'm surprised. I don't see Elna marking on it, and the Service Manual doesn't say that... then again it IS a strange P/N :)

My more comprehensive corrected list (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr...anuals-ag.html) kinda-sorta answers your blue cap question. (I need to upload my updated list. Embarrassed that I forgot to include the caps in the front panel PCB...)

Those caps are series PK, instead of K, KA, KS, etc (or any of a few others)...

Original P/N Substitute P/N Available P/N
ECEA0JPK221 ECE-A0JKA221B ECA-0JM221
ECEA0JPK470 ECE-A0JKS470I ECE-A0JKS470

I reached out to Panasonic on this. There's a whole thread here (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr...10-ag1980.html )

The final conclusion: since nobody has ANY idea about this, just use a high quality equivalent cap that fits in the space :)

ELNA all the way, this represents a few of the AG1980's I've recapped, not all - they were easy to find in the bag since they are red haha:

Attachment 18009

I have heard good things about the NV-FS200, but have never had one in person to look at. If they are similar to the AG1980's, I would replace all the caps on the front (LCD display) board and switch board, the TBC board (which is the one with a metal shielding over both sides and has a mix of surface mount and through hole caps), the head amp (board that is just behind the video head), and I always do the power supply as well. The power supplies usually "work" and output appropriate voltages, but they can be buzzy and I feel like that the buzzing could translate to some signal noise that might make it to the picture. I will say recapping the power supply and the front boards will completely get rid of the buzz whereas I've had AG1980's pre-recap that I could hear over 30 feet away. I also replace the front LCD caps that are obviously bad (there will be a minimum of 2 or 3 around a small transformer) with 105 degree C caps since they do get quite warm even when the unit is in standby - like 65C with the VCR just plugged in doing nothing. I also replace the caps on the Head Amp. I'll often replace the caps below the video head as well, though they usually don't test particularly bad and that's a more fragile area and they require a very specific physically sized cap to fit - so I'd say those are more optional.

I haven't actually counted what that all adds up to in terms of a number that I always replaced, but it's probably at least 60 caps.

If you want to identify further problematic areas - I'd use a thermal camera after the VCR has been running for a while and that will identify the high heat areas that will shorten the life of any capacitor and those will often have a bit lower capacitance than they did when new. A thermal camera would have also identified the other areas that I recap as well, so you can let that be your guide as far as caps that are likely to be bad or out of spec.

It's a bit controversial if it's worth doing anything with the audio section, but on the AG1980, there is a daughter board and the AudioII card that has a bunch of SMT caps on it that are mounted upside down and require desoldering the daughter board to get to that will always be bad, but I don't know for playback if that board is actually in use as I haven't noticed any difference in audio after that, but I'll probably do some more testing eventually with units I have versus haven't. It could be that it's only used for mixing audio with recording which we aren't doing for archival purposes anyway.

I did do a full-full recap once and I probably wouldn't do it again. Could be that unit was just a lower hours unit, but virtually all of the caps outside of those areas mentioned tested fine once out of circuit. You'll get some falsely bad ESR readings in-cirucit on a fair number of caps that could make you think they're bad when they are not.

@aramkolt

For sure I need replace TBC capacitors because video start rolling with TBC on.

Attachment 18015

Even front panel: VFD is dark.

Good advice use a thermal camera to find hottest area on pcb.

Thanks for your reply.

P.S.The picture with bag full of capacitors reminded me of when, in the '90, I was repairing camcorders and filling bags with all the capacitors (most of them SMD) to show to customers...

Sorry to bump an old thread, but thought I'd add the answer. The red Elna capacitor is an audio-grade capacitor. I think it's on the headphone output on the AG-1980, but don't quote me on that. These red Elna caps were very common in 90s car stereos, and almost always dead by now. I replaced it with a Nichicon USW series, but those are now discontinued too. I have a few left in my stash, but can't get any more.