I can't give a real answer without checking the machine out (no I'm not trying to drum up business since I no longer do repairs for other people).

Unless your vcr has been really badly treated I doubt that its the video heads.

Yes, there is always the possibility of oc caps, as I said they can cause many symptons depending on which circuit they are in. The vcr power supply drives the entire machine, bad caps in the supply can give the appearence of more than one defect.

For myself, the first thing I'd do is to check the entire tape play path (meaning any part that the tape contacts in normanl operation). If you feel comfortable doing it, get a can of video head cleaner, do NOT spray the cleanser on any part of the machine, put some into a small container, dip q-tips into it and clean by hand, any dirt on the q-tip dump it and use another, you'll need several.

You can clean the upper video drum in this way also, make sure to keep the q-tips flooded with cleanser. When wiping the video drum be very careful not to draw the q-tips across the actual video or hi-fi heads, very delicate.

The best way to clean the individual drum heads is to again soak q-tips, then just touch each head gently, the fluid will leech out any build-up of dirt or oxide from between the head gap. Never use a horizontal or vertical wiping motion when cleaning the heads.

I've seen a few which had tape-surface particles in the head gaps which caused intermittant streaking and bright spots, probably due to causing momentary short-circuiting of the gaps.

Another way to clean tape path and heads is to use a brand new tape. Load the tape, put the machine into the slowest record speed, probably about 4 hours?, let it record for the full length of the tape. If this works the recording towards the end of tape should be clean. Yes, a new tape will lift a lot of crap of contact surfaces including head surfaces and also draw it out from between the gaps. If this doesn't work, well you've wasted a new tape, but you haven't wasted the vcr!

As I say, only if you feel comfortable, if not, give it to someone for servicing.

GREAT advice, thank you. :)

No, not Q-Tips! :eek::eek::eek:

"Q-Tip", the brand name of a cotton swab, is not made for cleaning electronics as found in a VCR. The cotton can and usually WILL damage the delicate ferrite heads on a VCR head drum. The cotton snags, pulls, and can slough off inside the VCR, causing far worse damage than anything you started with.

You want a non-cotton cleaning swab, made of either a foam or chamois material -- preferably chamois. These are easily found in stores like Microcenter or Fry's, or online at any number of vendors that carry enough electronics to also carry electronics cleaning supplies. For example, this 15-pack of chamois electronics swabs from Amazon for $9.50 + free shipping: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B0047Y5W62

Use 70% or better isopropyl "rubbing" alcohol as the cleaner, as applied to the swab.

There also should be NO SNAGS when cleaning. If there are, then you're either being to rough, or the heads are already damaged.

I damaged a VCR in the 1990s because I didn't know any better. Learn from my mistakes, don't repeat them. :cool:

I also find the JVC heads to be a bit more durable than others, which most likely contributes to their long life and respected status within the professional and amateur/hobby video communities.

So whatever happened with your HR S7000U? Did you end up getting it repaired at all? I still have my 8000U, hoping to get it repaired one day.... the player works fine on VHS tapes but SVHS tapes have those white streaks going across the image. I gotta admit, it is a nice machine, with alot more features than JVC's later machines.

Actually, I used Q-Tips on the heads and broke it ALL to hell!!! :eek:

Kidding, of course! Since I first posted this, I've picked up both an HR-S7000U and an HR-S8000U off of eBay, and I'm thinking of selling my original HR-S7000U "as is", for parts or for someone willing to fix it or whatever ... In any event, the cost of the working unit on eBay was almost surely less than the cost of repairing the original unit would've been (not to mention the hassle factor therewith) ...

Plus, shortly after I first posted this, I tried to contact the only authorized JVC service center within 50 miles of me -- calling on multiple days at various times of day -- and never could get ahold of them, which didn't exactly engender much confidence in me ...

Kevin

i've had complete success in cleaning both my SONY SL-2300 BETA and JVC HR-D630U's heads, using Q-TIPs SATURATED in iso. alcohol and lightly holding them to the drum whilst rotating it a few times.

perhaps i was simply lucky or something, but the results were, regardless, COMPLETELY SUCCESSFUL, resulting in clean, fully functional heads on a pair of disparate VCRs that before, clearly had very dirty heads and would not play anything back properly at all...

That's great news.

Glad you were able to clean your VCR's. These links have some good information on cleaning and other repairs on VCR's. You seem interested in learning more on the subject and they make good reading. Quite a few opinions/different methods on cleaning etc are given. Hope it's of some interest to you and others on the list!


http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/vcrfaq.htm

http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_vcrfaq1.html

http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_vc...tml#VCRFAQ_017

Hey everyone, since I am still trying to figure out why my JVC HR S8000U has the white streak problem, I also noticed that it doesn't like to rewind out of play mode all the time. Usually, I have to press the rewind button a few times for this to work. Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon a website that has parts for this machine: http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/mbk-42.htm#chtp. The symptoms that I've been having seem to be the idler tire. Any 8000U owners had any problem like I have been having? The picture seems to be perfect on VHS tape but horrible on Super VHS tape with lots of streaks going through the image. I'd to get this 8000U working as she sure is a beauty and is also chuck full of many features that aren't seen on later Super VHS VCRs.

just picked two of these up, one to open, the other to keep sealed, exactly what i've been looking for!!

Attachment 1630

Attachment 1631

the seller, as of 7-16-11, has four copies left available;

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-JVC-ST-120-S...item4aacda13fe