Lots of thanks demonstrating the intricate inside of these "Cute handy machines" Long way from Vacuum tubes to SMDs & micro cables!❤ Love to listen to you!
I had the same model with the same fault a long time ago. Replaced it with a trv620 which I still use for transferring 8/hi8 tapes I film on. Digital 8 is a great format, I edited all my digital 8 masters to digital 8 and just transferred them via FireWire ! Still transfer all my master stuff to digital 8! Great vid thanks for uploading
Wow. You have an immense amount of patience and tenacity. I've done stuff like this before, I relate and it's quite a super power! Thanks for sharing, mistakes and all! Take care.
I have a Hi8 and MiniDV with this exact issue! I love using these cameras, and have had tapes stuck in them for months now. I have not found many videos online as concise as yours, so I will be using this video to (hopefully) fix them back up again. Many thanks!
Was such a stupid design by Sony but guess they didn’t think people this long later might still need it to work. I had the 120 and left door up in fear of that so just put duster over camera when not using. I now use the trv410, 110 and 330 for my tapes or customers when jobs come in.
Actually, you can repair those thin-film cables if you sand off the conformal coating and bridge the broken conductors with wire-wrap wire. The first flexi-cable I remember fixing was when I worked in a service centre on AVO meters. I love old tech., parts that look identical are likely to be interchangeable. Back then, manufacturers didn't go out of their way to block 3rd party repair (looking at you Apple, Tesla, John Deere etc.). I see you have a proper tape-guide adjustment tool - I always used a screwdriver with a notch hack-sawed into it.. I've seen guides that don't adjust a couple of time - was stripped thread.. Nice therapeutic video. As Big Clive says, you do it so I don't have to..
TR7000 The plastic fine thread with a shallow depth in the pillar is guaranteed to be over, since the holes in the housing look more like commercial use. Someone who sent me test videos about the different behavior of 2 TBCs (DVD recorders) in the event of color disturbances due to partial shared use of the neighboring track admitted to me that the disturbance only occurred after dropping the camcorder during a recording. So, misaligned doesn't have to have anything to do with the factory or wear and tear. TRV120 My first SONY Walkman WM-DDII had two oxidized headphone jacks even though it was brand new. The second one, which has been in stock much longer (can be heard from the flat pad on the rubber of the flywheel) had good jack sockets, but SONY didn't have to replace the flywheel under warranty, even though the rubber never recovered. Maybe you'll find the lost springs again when it gets lighter in spring.
I discounted leaving the tape door up like that was a until my DCR-TRV520 starting misunderstanding what tape transport buttons I was pressing. Now I just leave it open all the time like you do. Not a big deal, since all it does is transfer tapes and sit in the same place. As far as that non functioning tape guide adjustment is concerned, I’d definitely lean toward it being done one too many times, possibly too much, stripping it out. I suppose you could always swap it with the good guide your were demonstrating under the microscope, but that’s next to impossible to do without having to totally disassemble the tape mechanism to a point where it likely will never go back together again. Ask me how I know.
I have the exact same "speaker" problem on my TRV-340. Though when I connect to the A/V plug there is sound. Fortunately I only use the fire wire to transfer tapes...learned to live with the "no sound" on the internal speaker.
I remember trying to get a stuck tape out the hard way.. i lost my patience and couldnt beleive how long it took to get that tape out..Respect to Japanese designers of the 120e.. i have another now...great handycam. Do you havena video on how to clean the heads and rollers on the 120e as my new one ls starting to chew older tapes? Cheers 99
Hey Colin! My Sony TRV 820e cassette compartment won´t open. When the button is pushed, the compartment with tape come up but then just went back inside, because it won´t pop out to the side. Is there a way to fix it? Or do I have to take the camcorder apart every now and then for changing the tape in the future? Thanks for sharing your knowledge and helping others people to keep their cameras working!
Nearly impossible but, if your soldering skills are up to it, you can cut the flex cable and dremmel the surface away from opposite sides of the join, solder them together, insulate/strengthen with thin layer of araldite, and then the flexing part is new cable. Then, you will usually have to change the impedance values of the control switches to avoid spurious signals.
i brought an old sanyo S1 with no charger battery dead any way to power it on to get tape out that was left inside i have brought a charger off ebay not come yet
Great videos Colin. I have a DCR-TRV120. I put a tape in and the screen immediately started flashing the eject symbol. The eject button did nothing. I took the case off and tried applying 3v to the little motor on the bottom right. This caused three arms to move a little but did not fully eject. The buttons are all illuminated and if I leave it in VCR mode and plug in the power I have a little time to try some things before the eject logo comes on and nothing works. In these few seconds I have discovered that the chime works when I press the eject button and the play, FF, REW buttons symbols show on screen when I press them, so I suspect that the flex cable is not the problem. Any ideas?
Thanks for the video. I’m having problems with an 8mm, Sony Handycam CCD-TRV37. I bought this on a trip to the States in 1999. It was in storage for a while but I brought it back out when some friends and relatives passed away. It worked for a while but now it won’t eject. And the buttons are mixed up, e.g. stop rewinds. Pause forwards. The others do nothing but I can play the tape that is stuck inside by pressing down on an area with no buttons. Any advice? Could digitalis/hi 8s play 8mm? Many thanks.
Probably broken contacts in the flexi cable to the buttons. Keep pressing EJECT while slowly opening and closing the control panel, if you're lucky you will get it to work for just long enough to get the tape out. Don't put another tape in. If not, someone like me will have to dismantle it to get the tape out. Most Digital8 camcorders (but not quite all) will play analogue Video8, there is a list at the bottom of this page: www.video99.co.uk/Video8_Hi8_to_dvd_transfers.html Hi8 camcorders will play Video8, but most PAL ones will not play NTSC, whereas most Digital8 will.
That's enough to make your blood run cold, a customers tape stuck in a camcorder..... If I tried to take one of those to pieces I know for sure I would have half a dozen screws left over and it would never work again. Not to be taken lightly that's for sure. A sigh of relief to see the tape come out undamaged...
Probably mode switch trouble. As a work around, try: Remove battery. Put tape in. Apply and remove power several times. The reset shuffle from this can cause it to move the mode switch off a dead spot and get it going again, at least for a while.
![[How To] Best Way To Clean Tape Heads On Any Camcorder](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wfKcMoWL0pU/mqdefault.jpg)
Lots of thanks demonstrating the intricate inside of these "Cute handy machines" Long way from Vacuum tubes to SMDs & micro cables!❤ Love to listen to you!
I had the same model with the same fault a long time ago. Replaced it with a trv620 which I still use for transferring 8/hi8 tapes I film on. Digital 8 is a great format, I edited all my digital 8 masters to digital 8 and just transferred them via FireWire ! Still transfer all my master stuff to digital 8! Great vid thanks for uploading
Wow. You have an immense amount of patience and tenacity. I've done stuff like this before, I relate and it's quite a super power! Thanks for sharing, mistakes and all! Take care.
I have a Hi8 and MiniDV with this exact issue! I love using these cameras, and have had tapes stuck in them for months now. I have not found many videos online as concise as yours, so I will be using this video to (hopefully) fix them back up again. Many thanks!
Thank you I have enjoyed your channel immensely over the past year. Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year, cheers to you and your family.
Great vid.
Spring has sprung. :)
I also like those cameras, I bought one for 7 dollars and after some care, it still plays nicely!
Where do you get that split-slotted tool for the roller (e.g. at 27:00), or what is it called?
As always another awesome video keep up the great work 👍👍 and watch out for those springs 😁😁
Was such a stupid design by Sony but guess they didn’t think people this long later might still need it to work. I had the 120 and left door up in fear of that so just put duster over camera when not using. I now use the trv410, 110 and 330 for my tapes or customers when jobs come in.
120 model is the Best for diitazing analog video! It's like Canopus TwinPackt 100. No hoise, but sharpness is hi!
Actually, you can repair those thin-film cables if you sand off the conformal coating and bridge the broken conductors with wire-wrap wire. The first flexi-cable I remember fixing was when I worked in a service centre on AVO meters. I love old tech., parts that look identical are likely to be interchangeable. Back then, manufacturers didn't go out of their way to block 3rd party repair (looking at you Apple, Tesla, John Deere etc.). I see you have a proper tape-guide adjustment tool - I always used a screwdriver with a notch hack-sawed into it.. I've seen guides that don't adjust a couple of time - was stripped thread.. Nice therapeutic video. As Big Clive says, you do it so I don't have to..
TR7000 The plastic fine thread with a shallow depth in the pillar is guaranteed to be over, since the holes in the housing look more like commercial use. Someone who sent me test videos about the different behavior of 2 TBCs (DVD recorders) in the event of color disturbances due to partial shared use of the neighboring track admitted to me that the disturbance only occurred after dropping the camcorder during a recording. So, misaligned doesn't have to have anything to do with the factory or wear and tear.
TRV120 My first SONY Walkman WM-DDII had two oxidized headphone jacks even though it was brand new. The second one, which has been in stock much longer (can be heard from the flat pad on the rubber of the flywheel) had good jack sockets, but SONY didn't have to replace the flywheel under warranty, even though the rubber never recovered.
Maybe you'll find the lost springs again when it gets lighter in spring.
I found one of the springs yesterday!
I discounted leaving the tape door up like that was a until my DCR-TRV520 starting misunderstanding what tape transport buttons I was pressing. Now I just leave it open all the time like you do. Not a big deal, since all it does is transfer tapes and sit in the same place.
As far as that non functioning tape guide adjustment is concerned, I’d definitely lean toward it being done one too many times, possibly too much, stripping it out. I suppose you could always swap it with the good guide your were demonstrating under the microscope, but that’s next to impossible to do without having to totally disassemble the tape mechanism to a point where it likely will never go back together again. Ask me how I know.
Very thorough! 👏👏 Bravo!
I have the exact same "speaker" problem on my TRV-340. Though when I connect to the A/V plug there is sound. Fortunately I only use the fire wire to transfer tapes...learned to live with the "no sound" on the internal speaker.
I remember trying to get a stuck tape out the hard way.. i lost my patience and couldnt beleive how long it took to get that tape out..Respect to Japanese designers of the 120e.. i have another now...great handycam.
Do you havena video on how to clean the heads and rollers on the 120e as my new one ls starting to chew older tapes?
Cheers 99
Cleaning probably isn't the problem, the pinch roller may need replacing. I have done a video about that.
ua-cam.com/video/KKsH67AVSrE/v-deo.html
Nice looking listing at 0:49.
Hey Colin!
My Sony TRV 820e cassette compartment won´t open. When the button is pushed, the compartment with tape come up but then just went back inside, because it won´t pop out to the side.
Is there a way to fix it? Or do I have to take the camcorder apart every now and then for changing the tape in the future?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and helping others people to keep their cameras working!
Even if you could solder an ultra fine wire to the main p.c.b , it would still be a nightmre.
Nearly impossible but, if your soldering skills are up to it, you can cut the flex cable and dremmel the surface away from opposite sides of the join, solder them together, insulate/strengthen with thin layer of araldite, and then the flexing part is new cable. Then, you will usually have to change the impedance values of the control switches to avoid spurious signals.
i brought an old sanyo S1 with no charger battery dead any way to power it on to get tape out that was left inside i have brought a charger off ebay not come yet
u must be a master at puzzles Col lol😆
Great videos Colin. I have a DCR-TRV120. I put a tape in and the screen immediately started flashing the eject symbol. The eject button did nothing. I took the case off and tried applying 3v to the little motor on the bottom right. This caused three arms to move a little but did not fully eject. The buttons are all illuminated and if I leave it in VCR mode and plug in the power I have a little time to try some things before the eject logo comes on and nothing works. In these few seconds I have discovered that the chime works when I press the eject button and the play, FF, REW buttons symbols show on screen when I press them, so I suspect that the flex cable is not the problem. Any ideas?
It may require a little more than 3V on that eject motor.
Hi Colin. I tried all the way up to 6v at 2.5A. The arms move more strongly but still doesn't pop out. Should I try a higher voltage?@@video99couk
Thanks for the video. I’m having problems with an 8mm, Sony Handycam CCD-TRV37. I bought this on a trip to the States in 1999. It was in storage for a while but I brought it back out when some friends and relatives passed away. It worked for a while but now it won’t eject. And the buttons are mixed up, e.g. stop rewinds. Pause forwards. The others do nothing but I can play the tape that is stuck inside by pressing down on an area with no buttons. Any advice? Could digitalis/hi 8s play 8mm? Many thanks.
Probably broken contacts in the flexi cable to the buttons. Keep pressing EJECT while slowly opening and closing the control panel, if you're lucky you will get it to work for just long enough to get the tape out. Don't put another tape in. If not, someone like me will have to dismantle it to get the tape out. Most Digital8 camcorders (but not quite all) will play analogue Video8, there is a list at the bottom of this page: www.video99.co.uk/Video8_Hi8_to_dvd_transfers.html
Hi8 camcorders will play Video8, but most PAL ones will not play NTSC, whereas most Digital8 will.
@@video99couk Thanks so much for your reply. I think I might need to call on your services. But I’ll give your advice a try first 🤞. Thanks again.
I'm pretty sure that thread has given up.
That's enough to make your blood run cold, a customers tape stuck in a camcorder.....
If I tried to take one of those to pieces I know for sure I would have half a dozen screws left over and it would never work again.
Not to be taken lightly that's for sure. A sigh of relief to see the tape come out undamaged...
I knew I would get it out OK. But in general, customer tapes stuck in equipment is stressful, yes.
I have a Sony HVR-HD1000E for mini dv tapes. When i close the tray, the tape is not going down. I have no idea why.
Probably mode switch trouble. As a work around, try: Remove battery. Put tape in. Apply and remove power several times. The reset shuffle from this can cause it to move the mode switch off a dead spot and get it going again, at least for a while.
hello! sony ccd-tr640e C:31:22 how to fix it?