I remember seeing one or two of those come in the shop. Heavy beasts due to the power transformer for the audio amplifier section. Just add speakers and you had stereo!

I bought and still have a Mitsubishi HS-430U that 's hi-fi and linear stereo for all those old stereo tapes I made on the two linear stereo Panasonics I went through before hi-fi came out. Years ago I de-glued all the boards in the Mitsubishi. It even had glue around the drum stator board. They sure didn't want any parts falling out!


http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...t-hs430u-2.jpg

Probably not enough sold to show up on the survey. I'd almost bet there were more Mitsubishis rebadged with "Video Concepts" name on front sold than Akai was in the US.

I find Funai's oldest VHS machine (MBK-94) made in the mid-1980s to be the most-reliable. The older the Funai, the better it is. Funai's original and first chassis, or MBK-94 that studiosoundelectronics.com called, was the best there. Funai switched to a flat-loading belt chassis (MBK-66), which is still mostly the same-design, but required more belt-changing.

List of all the Funai VHS chassis produced in history:

MBK-94 (1984-1986): http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/mbk-94.htm

MBK-66 (1986-1988): http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/mbk-66.htm

MBK-83 (1988-1992): http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/mbk-83.htm

MBK-67 (1992-2000): http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/mbk-67.htm

(2000-present): Available at Wal-Mart right now

Funai had always used a geared idler-wheel system, and having one in 1984-1986 was unheard of at that time. It was a huge improvement in reliability versus the ones with rubber-tire.
.

Did you buy it new in 1985, and was the HS-430UR considered as a reliable model? Other techs have told me to to stay away from it.

Yep bought it brand-new at the old Videoland on Preston Rd in Dallas, for $899 + tax. Very unreliable. I would only own one if I could fix it. Did not know that at the time though. I flat wore out the service manual fixing those for customers. I kept the service manual for it. Many things can and did go wrong: Tape path alignment, regulator IC , glue on the boards, idler arm ass'y, mode encoder switch, flip-down control panel ground wires, lamps that illuminated the tape well that could be left on all the time which made it run hot, just off the top of my head!

Thanks for the write-up. As far as I know, the early-1980s Mitsubishi had been extremely troublesome. I used own a 1982 HS-304UR, Mitsubishi's first front-loader, and it had a horizontal streak line in playback, and the right-reel motor didn't work. I also owned a HS-430UR, like you have right now, and the transport mechanism would get stuck trying to wrap it to video head. Put in some greese, and it worked okay now. Fortunately, I had a lucky buyer wanted to buy the HS-430UR from me for $700 shipped.

Do you still have your Panasonic AG-1830, and did you try to repair it? Is it still running today?
.

hmmm.. :scratch2:

Yes, still have, and no it is not working. Looked into it. Very modular construction and packed tight, boards loaded with miniature electrolytics not SMD and boards, tops of capacitors adj pots etc all covered with hot glue looks like. Too much trouble since I have other units that work fine. Was very disappointed with that AG-1830 that it had a variation of the G chassis and a SMPS. For some reason when I ordered it new from an outfit in NY I thought it would have a linear PS and the older mechanism similar to AG-1800. Had a beautiful rec-pb picture when it was new. I had just gotten a C-band satellite receiver and had excellent picture and audio quality, and needed S-VHS after seeing that.

Worked on many of those and the linear stereo 4 head HS-330UR model too.

Yes, assuming your Mitsubishi HS-430UR is in mint, rarely-used, like-new condition, PLUS original box, remote, manual, and packaging, it does sell for $700 shipped on eBay easily. That's what I had. I originally paid only $65 shipped for it.

What went wrong with the Panasonic AG-1830? Describe the problem, and maybe I can help you troubleshoot it faster.

I also currently own a 1987 Canon VR-HF800, a clone-model of Panasonic AG-1820, and previous-year model of AG-1830, and it has served me well so far. While it does have the G-chassis mechanism and switching power supply (already rebuilt), and it's not S-VHS, it does NOT use any surface-mount caps or miniature electrolytics on the video/audio board, so electronics still work good today for the most part. Only the S-VHS units have them. In my opinion, the S-VHS feature by Panasonic, which was a lousy-design by them in the first place, decreased the reliability of the VCR by more than 60%, versus the one without S-VHS.

Surprise, huh. Panasonic was well-known to cut corners in production easily, because making their VCRs smaller and lighter was their top priority. There was a Panasonic PV-4863 with 4-head Hi-Fi that looked just as small as the $30 Magnavox DVD player selling at Wal-Mart right now. It only had power, stop/eject, and channel buttons at the front. The REW, FF, and REC buttons were omitted. It does run really hot, unfortunately.

The AG-1800 and AG-1810 were probably the best VCRs ever made by Panasonic. Is your AG-1800 still running fine today?

And it didn't come back to haunt you? YOU are Lucky!


Dark distorted picture, either E-E or tape playback, distorted hi-fi audio, as I recall. Been over 10 years since I had it hooked up. Have several other decks that work fine, JVC HR-S5900, Mitsubishi HS-U795 both S-VHS serve my purposes. I had accumulated 3 more AG-1830s ("no fixes" from customers) but the numbskulls at the shop threw them away rather than calling be to come get them as I had asked them to do. Oh well. Also had stashed an AG-1960, and couple of Mit HS-430s for parts, all tossed in a dumpster. And a pair of mint HR-S7000s JVCs first S-VHS VCRs. A customer brought them in but didn't want to spend more than a head cleaning charge, so they got abandoned. All gone to the landfill.


Never had one of those myself. Did work on a few and the Canon version too. I kept the service manual for the AG-1800 for some reason. Maybe in anticipation of acquiring one some day. Last thing I need is more VCRs!

You guys should start a new topic on the Mitsubishi and Panasonic VCR... I've had a bunch of them recently that were a mess that I picked up at the thrifts.

I've got several Sony VHS machines that all had the same problem: There's an arm that physically pulls the tape out of the cassette and moves it in place at the capstan and pinch roller. The pivot bearing gums up. Once it's freed up, the machine works fine. Most of the time, I have to remove the pivot from its shaft to get oil in it.

One of these models is a SLV-900HF with a flying erase head that I paid $2 for at the thrift. I've got 9 machines like this... Each one cost a fortune when new. I have less than $30 in all of them. Remotes included with most of them!!!

Did many of those. Easy fix! After you put it back together you need to run a tape, look down at the A/C head guides with a flashlight, run the tape forward and rev search and fine-adjust that arm height with the nut to make sure there's no tape wrinkling at the top or bottom edges.

Another common failure on those decks is the plastic take-up arm gear on the bottom of the deck will crack, split in two, and then the tape won't load around the drum. I think the last one of those I did was on a SLV-R1000. Definitely a worthwhile investment for that customer.

Right. I should have mentioned the re-adjustment.

Thanks for the heads-up on the cracked gear. I never noticed that.

I just aquired yet another machine like the ones I mentioned earlier. This one looks brand new, and has the remote. What cha want to bet that the pivot arm is stuck?

Have a good day. I'm off to work, now!

A dark, distorted picture and distorted Hi-Fi audio are ALWAYS the surface-mount caps located at the bottom of the hybrid IC board, like I mentioned earlier. If you look at the video board with all the sticky glue on top, there's a green-color, small hybrid IC board soldered on top of the S-VHS video process board. If you look underneath the hybrid IC green board, you will see maybe 10-15 surface-mount caps. All need to be replaced.

Same thing as for the Hi-Fi audio board. There are about 15-30 surface-mount caps to check and replace on the green hybrid IC boards, two of them, all soldered onto the audio board.

This is a very time-consuming repair job, no easy work, but fixable. Yep, this problem is one of Panasonic's electronic aging issue, mostly found in S-VHS units. Without the S-VHS feature, like the AG-1820, you could have saved 50 surface-mount caps from going bad.

One thing to note, the hybrid IC boards were already discontinued, and repairing is now the only option.