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Vintage Television and Video Vintage television and video equipment, programmes, VCRs etc.

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Old 7th May 2010, 4:53 pm   #1
AidanLunn
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Default VCR - Philips VR6293

Hi all.

Not a technical problem with this "charly" VHS deck, just a little annoyance.

Does anyone know how to stop it from automatically turning off after approx 10 mins of inactivity? I don't have the instruction manual and the remote seems completely incomprehensible.
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Old 7th May 2010, 4:59 pm   #2
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

I don't think you can!
Ask SideBand AKA Rich as he worked at Philips
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Last edited by Red to black; 7th May 2010 at 5:02 pm. Reason: typo
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Old 7th May 2010, 6:04 pm   #3
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Not sure if this applies to the newer models, but some Philips VCR's had a 'Tuner' button that would keep the unit permanently on (usually with the channel/ time displayed).
A quick start mechanism might also power down the machine, so maybe taking the tape out is the only option.
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Old 7th May 2010, 6:11 pm   #4
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Hi, ISTR on one of the "turbo decks" if you put it into AV mode it would stay on (used for a dvd player on a set without any AV/scart inputs),
but honestly cannot remember if the "plastic pigs" did this.
There was so many variations of that series of machines, thats why i said ask Sideband.
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Old 8th May 2010, 12:18 am   #5
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Hold in 'stop' for about 5 seconds - works on most the turbo deck ones anyway.
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Old 8th May 2010, 2:07 am   #6
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Hi
Alas I dont think you can do this. Many 'charlie' decks did this, the only possible exception I can think of is the matchline variety

Regards
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Old 8th May 2010, 5:38 pm   #7
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red to black View Post
Ask SideBand AKA Rich as he worked at Philips
It seem like aeons ago......!

I think if you want to use this as a tuner, all you do is switch it on from standby by just pressing the P+ or P- button on the front of the set. However as soon as you operate any of the deck functions including just putting a tape in, it reverts back to the 10 minute switch-off. Nothing you can do about it as it's in software.

So to recap, make sure VCR is in standby, press program+ or - on the front and it will power up in tuner mode. I think program 0 equates to AV in on the scart socket.....so long ago now!

This was one of the later Charley decks, much more reliable than the earlier types.

Give it a try anyway.


SB
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Old 10th May 2010, 3:37 am   #8
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sideband View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red to black View Post
Ask SideBand AKA Rich as he worked at Philips
It seem like aeons ago......!

I think if you want to use this as a tuner, all you do is switch it on from standby by just pressing the P+ or P- button on the front of the set. However as soon as you operate any of the deck functions including just putting a tape in, it reverts back to the 10 minute switch-off. Nothing you can do about it as it's in software.

So to recap, make sure VCR is in standby, press program+ or - on the front and it will power up in tuner mode. I think program 0 equates to AV in on the scart socket.....so long ago now!

This was one of the later Charley decks, much more reliable than the earlier types.

Give it a try anyway.


SB
I am curious as to why Philips wanted to makew their own VHS mechanism anyway, instead of using the JVC "M"-loading standard.
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Old 10th May 2010, 1:57 pm   #9
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

No idea why they made their own decks other than they could I suppose. There were some Philips machines that used Japanese decks. I can't remember the model numbers of them off-hand now but there were some that used Panasonic, some JVC and others Sharp. My favourite of the Jap decks was always the Panasonic 'G' deck and I still have a Philips VR6585 that uses this albeit with a couple of Philips variations.

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Old 10th May 2010, 5:30 pm   #10
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Philips made their own VHS mech. before the "Charly Deck" ie.the "Echo deck" this was an "M wrap" machine albeit with Philips' spin on things, (opto interupter for head switching(PG) amongst other things).
As Sideband said they bought in some panasonic " D Decks" but some of these used Philips electronics, I can't be sure if some of these used philips' own heads (it was a long time ago) , they also bought in some Sharp Decks (the one with the two main cams), again they may or may not have used Philips electronics (the front panel ISTR was Philips).
ISTR reading, or being told, they bought in Panasonic's "G mech" these did use Philips heads (at least the ones I repaired), While the development of the "turbo deck" was underway, (because the "charly deck" couldn't use the realtime counter without being "fully laced" and the competitions decks had a half-load position, which the charly deck didn't (later on most decks did away with the half load position anyway).
The charly deck was quite clever in that it only had 3 simple on/off switches on the deck (called COD switches in Philips manuals) or "code switches" and relied heavily on software to control the deck functions, via I2C, which Philips had developed.
These machines were unlike any other as they used Philips own "chipset" and everything was done in software/I2C.
Sideband may elaborate or correct me on this point.
There was not that many engineers in my area that would repair these machines, (they were known locally as "Plastic pigs").
I repaired more than my fair share of these, and didn't find them too bad, once you knew how to do them (PP3 battery ).
I could fit the maintainence/Rack kit in about 20-30 mins most of the time, but sometimes get the odd one which could take most of the day (ones where nothing went right!).
I suppose they were relatively cheap to produce (for the time).
ISTR they could be assembled by machine/automated, but whether this is an "urban myth" or not, I will leave for others (sideband)
This deck underwent loads of modifcations/variations, from memory, DMP, IDM, JDM and KDM variants. Where very few bits, other than the repair kits were interchangable.
Sorry for the length of this post.
Cheers,
Baz
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Old 10th May 2010, 7:00 pm   #11
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red to black View Post
Sorry for the length of this post.
Cheers,
Baz
No need to apologise, I find this all very interesting.

I do know that Grundig used their own version of the "Charly" mechanism as well, which I think may hve been even more reliable than the later Charly decks.

Why did they give them the name of "Charly" decks anyway?
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Old 10th May 2010, 7:40 pm   #12
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Why did they give them the name of "Charly" decks anyway?
I think it was Philips designation, ie. the earlier deck was known as "ECHO" or E deck (Phonetic alphabet eg. Foxtrot, Tango etc.)
This was "C" or Charlie, I don't know why the "echo" deck came before the "charlie" though, Philips and God only knows

We knew them also as C-Wrap ( the shape of the tape when loaded), with it's unfortunate connotations amongst other unkind names.
They earned a name as a "bit of a Bogie" in the trade (possibly unfairly), but as I said, I did not find them too bad,
There were reliability problems with the earlier versions, I believe there many modifications throughout it's production run, and they were no worse than anything else by the end.
Philips always did things their own way, different to everybody else.
There was a definite knack/method to repairing the mech. on this series.
I originally took home a scrap deck (U/S Heads) and a manual, and practised.
ISTR another engineer showed me a few "secrets" (ie. changing the pinch roller without stripping down the mech.)
Using a 9V battery to put the deck at 5 o'clock etc.
They were just different.
RE: The Grundig C-Wrap, this was not a charly deck, it just used a similar tape wrap, (similar as in the later Sony betamax, C9 onwards used this type of tape wrap).
As I said, this deck was rumoured to be assembled by a machine in the factory.
Sideband worked at philips and he will know more than me, or maybe Maarten, about the methodology of philips
I can only speak from experience (and most of that I forgot )
If I can answer anything else about about these, I will be glad to
I welcome comments or corrections/additions from other posters.
Cheers,
Baz
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Old 10th May 2010, 7:57 pm   #13
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Originally Posted by AidanLunn View Post
Why did they give them the name of "Charly" decks anyway?
It's a bit complicated..the use of names for mechanisms! I think 'Charley' came about because it was a 'C' wrap deck BUT at the time Philips were using names from the Phonetic alaphabet (Alph, Bravo, Charley, Delta etc...) so it could have been just convenient at the time. They didn't use all the names but did use Echo, Juliette, Michelle, Queen, Sierra, Victor from memory. There were others but I just cannot remember them now. Oddly enough they used 'Nina' for N and 'Kate' for K probably because they preferred female names (Victor being the exception).

They used 'Anubis' for a couple of TV chassis. That was the name of the Egyptian god of the afterlife! Does this mean the sets will come back to haunt us!!

SB
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Last edited by Dave Moll; 10th May 2010 at 9:10 pm. Reason: quote fixed
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Old 10th May 2010, 9:16 pm   #14
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Just to close off the discussion of the NATO phonetic alphabet, it goes as follows:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliette, Kilo, Lima, Mike,
November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whisk[e]y, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.
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Old 10th May 2010, 9:59 pm   #15
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

It seems Philips started out using the "phonetic alphabet" and then changed tack, and started to use female names.
I have a manual for a "Michelle deck" video recorder which uses the "Turbodeck mech.", I know also of a "Kate" and a "Lucy Deck" but Iam not sure which mech. they use. (could be later "charlie decks"?)
As sideband says it gets very confusing with the later machines, as we are not sure if the names match a particular mech. or a variation of a mech. or if indeed it is just the name/codeword for just that particular machine/range of machines.
Since when has Philips nomenclature made sense?
Gives one a headache just thinking about it!
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Old 10th May 2010, 10:13 pm   #16
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

In all the charleys I've seen, the pinch roller had gone hard.
I used to hate them until I learned the trick of tricking the mech into part loading, yanking out the plug, then poking a screwdriver through the correct hole to release the toothed rack the pinch is fixed to.... Bingo! job done.

They were an original VHS deck design. Tended to be rather basic in terms of features - never saw any with hi fi stereo audio, insert edit or real time counter as noted above, but I quite like them. Last ones I did were quite late ones - 21DV1 or 20DV1 I think.
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Old 10th May 2010, 10:27 pm   #17
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
never saw any with hi fi stereo audio,
Seen a couple of Hi-Fi versions, also a text recording version (subtitles etc.)

Quote:
Last ones I did were quite late ones - 21DV1 or 20DV1 I think
I think these were the JDM/KDM versions.

Ps. ISTR a version with a small LCD ? ( monitor ) screen on the front.
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Old 10th May 2010, 10:29 pm   #18
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Hi,

From memory 'Lucy' was a variant of the Turbo mech.

Regards
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Old 10th May 2010, 10:32 pm   #19
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Hi,

From memory 'Lucy' was a variant of the Turbo mech.

Regards
Stu
You are probably correct, as I cannot remember the various names of which deck is which.
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Last edited by Red to black; 10th May 2010 at 10:38 pm. Reason: addition
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Old 11th May 2010, 2:36 am   #20
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Default Re: VCR - Philips VR6293

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red to black View Post
never saw any with hi fi stereo audio

Think i can remember seeing a 6462 type machine with Hi Fi stereo and LED VU meters on...Long time ago and may well be thinking of another machine though.

Last edited by Dave Moll; 11th May 2010 at 2:36 pm. Reason: quote fixed
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