Philips VR6940/75 VCR (VHS)

[Dalejustin]

Brains trust!

Recently acquired this awesome vhs vcr
(1985) Philips VR6940/75
(the one with a little remote dock on the unit!)

It has been working perfectly but recently put in a tape and it failed to load the tape onto the head once the cassette was inserted. And thus would not respond to the play button... but ejected the tape just fine.

Upon inserting a bunch of different tapes, I found that this was the only tape it didn't want to load up some reason?

This is my first Philips vcr and the threading mechanism is way different to what I am used to... is anybody familiar with this machine and had this problem before, or know what could be causing this?

This is the only machine I have which unloads the tape from the head before fwding and rewinding.. is this what is referred to as a charly deck?

Thanks in advance ☺️
Dale

[Welsh Anorak]

Not familiar with the model number, but if it loads in a C shape around the head followed by the pinchroller clattering up a railway then it's a Charlie deck. Nothing else sounds like it - fortunately!
If so, the plastic mouldings on the deck are getting a bit old now, and probably your tape doesn't quite fit. It's a complex mechanism and changing from loading the cassette to threading the tape is clever but a bit fragile.

[dazzlevision]

It uses the Panasonic G tape deck mechanism - Philips refer to it as the DM4/0 tape deck.

Looking at the Philips service manual for the VR6940, it looks like the electronics is also from Panasonic, so probably a Panasonic made VCR to a Philips specification...?

The Philips service manuals for the VR6490 and the DM4/0 deck are free to download from http://freeservicemanuals.info/en/?search=VR6490
(I hope it's OK to mention this, as these are not available from Paul Stenning's www.service-data.com site)

[Maarten]

The link above is for the VR6490, not the VR6940. The VR6490 was made by Marantz, which was part of Philips at that time, using a Panasonic deck mechanism.

From what I can find so far, the VR6943 is likely made by Sharp.

Edit: the service manual for the western europe version of the VR6943 is available at archive.org, definitely Sharp: https://ia804501.us.archive.org/15/i...PHILIPS_EN.pdf

[dazzlevision]

Originally Posted by Maarten

The link above is for the VR6490, not the VR6940. The VR6490 was made by Marantz, which was part of Philips at that time, using a Panasonic deck mechanism.

From what I can find so far, the VR6943 is likely made by Sharp.

Edit: the service manual for the western europe version of the VR6943 is available at archive.org, definitely Sharp: https://ia804501.us.archive.org/15/i...PHILIPS_EN.pdf

Oops, a senior moment!

[Welsh Anorak]

Oops too!
Maybe you could post a picture of the deck itself. If it's a Panasonic one it should be fairly conventional.

[dazzlevision]

After further research (using the correct model number this time!) I agree that the VR6940 was made by Sharp (at least the tape deck was).

There's a review of the VR6940 here (page 34 on): https://worldradiohistory.com/AUSTRA...-07%20July.pdf

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by Dalejustin

Brains trust!

Recently acquired this awesome vhs vcr
(1985) Philips VR6940/75
(the one with a little remote dock on the unit!)

You might be better searching Australian forums for this one. Philips didn't always market the same VCR's all over the world and some were just country specific. Having said that, a picture of the machine and the mechanics might help to identify the deck at least.