Salora SV 9500 hifi VCR

[Tuomas VCR]

Hi guys,
have this vintage hifi vcr (1985 made by Mitsubishi) and been fixing it with a friend to make it live again.
New belts, pinch roller and idler wheel rubber. It works now but we have a problem with a sound/picture. Picture is good but sounds breaks when pic is good and when we adjust tracking so that sounds is good picture is not anymore. So how can we get both good simultaniously?

We tried to adjust the ”sound head” to better position but with no success.
Could there be some other reason but mechanical and what it could be?

[Graham G3ZVT]

Have you cleaned the rotating heads on the upper drum?
Hi-Fi sound is recorded along with the video, the legacy "sound-head" is only used when no HiFi sound is not detected.

Do recordings that you make yourself on that machine play back OK?

Something I learned from reading this forum, that I did not know when I used to repair VHS machines, is there is a slight incompatibility between different manufactures due to the relative placement of the heads on the drum.

[John123]

This Mitsubishi HS-410 looks quite similar to yours. Check for circuit glue that may have gone conductive on the boards. Yes, clean the video head drum and also check PSU caps, if not already.

[paulsherwin]

HiFi VHS recordings don't seem to age well. If the VCR can't decode the HiFi stream it'll switch to using the (definitely non-HiFi) mono linear track. Make sure you're not being confused by this behaviour.

[Tuomas VCR]

Thanks for these advices. Have to check these next.

[gallowfields]

a very common problem with mitsubishi vcr,s [and clones] are loose tape guides . what you needed to do first was playback a prerecorded tape and set up the guides and secure them [firstly putting the tracking control at centre point ] then reset the ace head back to where it was . then do a recording and playback and if possible check it on another vcr for compatability . after that try a prerecorded with hifi sound and keep your fingers crossed .
brian

[Tuomas VCR]

Thanks brian for this good tip.

[Tuomas VCR]

Ace head adjustment is not working 100% as one screw thread is kaputt.
Anybody has whole ace head with stand to sell?

[Tuomas VCR]

Managed to find spare device with better ace head & stand and now hifi sound is working.
One strange flaw remains as sometimes vcr does not produce signal to tv even the tape is running. Taking cassette out and back may fix the problem but what might be the root cause of this?
Moving scart connector doesnt help so propably the reason is more serious. I haven’t replaced any power capacitors to this device. Maybe should do that and see if it helps.

[Tuomas VCR]

Any ideas what could cause this?

[Nickthedentist]

This intermittency could simply be that the TV is blanking its screen and muting its sound, because the signal from the video is marginal.

Does it have a test pattern (activated by moving a slide switch on the back panel? If so, connect the VCR to the TV via an RF (aerial) lead, then see if the dead screen symptoms are still present when the test pattern is activated.

[Tuomas VCR]

Yes and test pattern works. I have now noticed that this problem exists mostly if vcr has been of the power (from the wall socket). But it connected all time it usually works fine.
So maybe some capacitors cause this?
All capacitors of power unit have been replaced.

[gallowfields]

Originally Posted by Tuomas VCR

Yes and test pattern works. I have now noticed that this problem exists mostly if vcr has been of the power (from the wall socket). But it connected all time it usually works fine.
So maybe some capacitors cause this?
All capacitors of power unit have been replaced.

yes but remember , all vcr,s were left plugged in all the time
1 so aerial signal was fed to tv
2 for timer recordings [clock set correctly ]

3for condensation issues
of course that was back in the day when you could use them properly , not nowadays
brian