margot (03/01/83)
Does anyone have any info, advice, or opinions about do-it-yourself maintenance and repair of home VCRs ?? I would be particularly interested in "how-to" manuals. I already know how to clean the heads. For repairs, my local place charges $45/hour minimum. This is an annoying fee if it is just for things such as replacing sensor lamps -- in a desperate moment recently I was able to fix a bad solder (curtesy of my local service place) on the sensor lamp myself in 20 minutes. I want to know what else I can do, i.e. replace belts, make adjustments, ... ???? One particular problem I have is that forward search always goes out of synch a few weeks after the machine is repaired, cleaned, and adjusted. (Occasionally it will go back into synch for a short time after rewinding a full cassette, often when the machine has taken a few seconds to sense that the cassette is fully rewound, which makes me think it might be a belt.) Has anyone experienced this also or have some advice? Could the problem be with my repair place, or is it the particular machine I am stuck with? (a 2 year-old Matshusita in an RCA cloak, which is also sold as Panasonic, Quasar, and other brands). Does anyone know about this specific problem or how I might deal with it myself?