VHS VCR 15-year average reliability data (1978-1993)...

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by liammc00

Before I put the VCR back into use I did give the mechanism some basic maintenance like replaceing the old grease and cleaning the transport. The two belts are still good so I left them. The idler tire still works but it looks all cracked. I had a sears from 86 made by sanyo. No surprise it broke as it had plastic rails for the p guides and it was cracked so I part it out for the stk module and other useful parts.

JVC original belts lasted the longest in industry. If well-maintained and not overused, the original belts can last for up to 50 years or for life, actually. This is due to superior, finest rubber-material quality from manufacturing that was exclusive only for JVC and Zenith. Never, ever replace the original JVC belts with new, Chinese-made ones. Inferior rubber material quality. Easily turn to goo or melt into black, sticky liquid.

The second-best original belts came from Matsushita-made VCRs, under Panasonic, Quasar, Magnavox, General Electric, Curtis Mathes, JCPenney, Philco, and Sylvania brands. Matsushita belts used a yellow-powder coating into rubber material that will turn the gears and sliders from white to yellow color after a few years of use. If heavy-use or high-usage, the gears will turn from yellow to dark-brown color. The yellow-powder coating into rubber material helps prevent the belts to melt or turn to goo.

Average belts came from Toshiba, Sanyo, Sharp, NEC, mid-90s Symphonic, Emerson, and others. They have some yellow or black-powder coating material, but only at minimal amount. Expect about 20-year max lifespan.

The worst original belts came from Hitachi/RCA MBK-60, Mitsubishi MBK-29 & MBK-37, and Funai/Shintom MBK-66 & MBK-83 models. They turned to goo or melted easily into black liquid after few years of use from this one belt supplier, regardless of the humidity rating in your room. Always a terrible mess to clean up that can easily take you the whole day of cleaning for nothing. The bad belts from this one supplier did not have any coating material in rubber manufacturing that can protect from humidity and heat. They melted into black sticky liquid easily, while all of the gears are still in pure white color like brand-new.

[n8nagel]

Originally Posted by waltchan

Never, ever replace the original JVC belts with new, Chinese-made ones. Inferior rubber material quality. Easily turn to goo or melt into black, sticky liquid.

I was just servicing one of the tape transports on a circa 1991 Sony ES cassette deck on Friday and my goodness the capstan belt was the absolute worst mess I have ever had to clean up. What an absolute horrorshow. Worse even than the circa 1984 Yamaha CD player that I attempted to revive a few years ago (I got it working, but I think the laser is weak as it will not track all the way through a disc.) I haven't started on the other one yet as I know I'll need to set aside several hours for goo clean up.

In contrast, the main drive belt on a similar age (circa 1988) NEC VCR simply got hard and snapped, took only a few seconds to clean up. However, it appears that either something leached out of the belt itself or there was grease on it when it was taken out of service, as the portion of the plastic pulley on which the belt was sitting before it broke was actually slightly etched. Plays fine with a new belt however. The two loading belts were still OK although the one that was easy to replace I did as it was noticeably harder/stiffer than the new one.

Anyone have any experience with new production belts from e.g. PRB? Should they be pre-emptively replaced if you have to pop the top for any reason on a machine serviced with such belts to prevent gooification, or do they age gracefully?