AG-1P80 struggling to load/unload tapes? (F04)
 

Hey folks,

I have an AG-1080 which I picked up on eBay ~8 years ago in order to digitize some old home video tapes that didn't play very well (or at all) in any of the VCRs I could get my hands on - I was lucky and the unit worked great - I likely ran 30 or so tapes through it then boxed it up and put it on a shelf.

A friend stopped by last week asking me to digitize some of his tapes so I pulled it down off the shelf, powered it up, popped his tape in and it loaded... then made some odd noises and produced an F04 code. Pressing eject, the deck would sound like it was starting the eject process but then error out with F04 again.

I took the top and bottom covers off, placed the deck in service mode (7) so that I could manually engage the eject/load process, and found I could eventually eject the tape if I held down 'Stop' to run the motor through the eject process but it REALLY struggled through the first part. In fact the first time I was successful I had to tap the stop button several times (engaging/disengaging the motor) to move it completely through the eject process. When loading a tape, the mechanism appears to struggle at about the same point which is where it also errors out with an F04. Watching the worm gear from below I don't notice anything 'slipping'.. the motor itself slows to a crawl and stops (see video clips).

Curious if anyone here can tell from the videos if maybe something is just out of alignment or needs greasing? Seems like it COULD be something rather simple. But maybe not!

Honestly if this is beyond a fairly simple fix I'd be more inclined to sell the deck to someone who could put some maintenance into it and give it a good home - it has served its purpose for me, and it seems to be a very clean and unmolested deck (I don't see evidence that this has ever been opened up before). It really worked great until...it didn't :)

Looks like a pretty classic cracked loading motor coupler. If you can feel the loading motor spinning/vibrating with your finger but the actual worm/spiral gear isn't moving like shown from your bottom view, that is the problem. Granted, they usually need more maintenance than that and other parts that are not well lubricated could be adding a lot of extra drag.

I always replace the loading motor couplers in my refurbs because even if the original hasn't cracked yet, it's just a matter of time as the original plastic and grease used causes them all to crack eventually. The replacements I believe are made of a more durable plastic as well.

I do have refurbishing services available to do a full or limited restoration of the rest of it (if TBC hasn't been recapped, it'll need that for peak performance at a minimum). PM me if interested.

Thanks! i was wondering if it could be the coupler but seemed like the motor itself was slowing down - but I could be wrong, I will take a closer look tonight!