NEC DS8000U VCR where to find manuals? Belts? Codes?
 

Good afternoon all,

First post here. I've been on Audiokarma for years but really haven't branched out that much into A/V stuff other than your typical I have a 4K TV, an AVR in the living room, my disc spinners are Oppos, etc.

Anyway, I picked up this VCR at Goodwill on Saturday, it will not advance the tape which says to me it likely needs belts. With the top off I can see it load the tape, head starts spinning, but tape just feeds out into the unit and it shuts down, instead of spooling it on the takeup reel. I paid next to nothing for it and it appears to be a TOTL S-VHS monster so I'd like to get it working if I can.

Where can I find owner's and service manuals for this?

Is there anywhere I can get the remote codes so I can program my Xsight Color? (or get the model number of the original remote so I can haunt eBay - likely in the manuals?)

Where could I buy a belt kit for this?

The skills to fix seem to be similar to audio gear but I'm out of my depth looking for info and suppliers for old VCRs.

Thanks!

I would start by looking for a mode switch. They get oxidized and cause many problems. I doubt there is anywhere to buy a belt kit. You will have to measure them and get as close as possible. If they are still stretchy but out of shape, you can boil them in water for 10 minutes. This helps get them to relax and work again.

KP Components in Canada has lots of parts. Shipping is pretty reasonable too.

From the PRB belt catalog..


http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1679534047

Hopefully those ar the correct sizes!

you guys are all right! I'll look underneath this weekend and hopefully I'm right that the first step is belts.

Is there somewhere I can download this catalog for myself? this looks like a super useful resource.

Those NEC VCRs were plagued with entry and exit tape guides that failed and came loose, too. Threaded brass sleeve the roller screwed into would come loose in the aluminum base of the guide assembly allowing the roller and sleeve to slip up and down. Later versions of the guide assemblies had a small set-screw to prevent that.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1679581932

This is great stuff. What's the fix for that? is it threaded in (loctite?) or pressed in (drill and pin? Epoxy?)

keep the tips coming guys, I have no idea what I'm doing but I'd love to see this working again. I've been slowly collecting obsolete formats (I also have a HD-DVD player and I'm keeping an eye out for a Laserdisc - I have one, but it doesn't have an AC3 output) and hey, it's cheaper than many other habits I could have right?

Try checking the guide rollers first. Might not be a problem if it has the improved version. If you can turn or move the stationary part up and down with your fingers they need repair or replacement. Then you will need to do a tape path and tracking alignment.

Back in the day on customer VCRs, I would replace the guide bases all the time since I had to guarantee my repairs. Never really trusted a quick fix like gluing, but it might work OK.

Thank you all again. Where do you order belts by part number? I have been thrift storing again and now not only do I have this S-VHS deck but I also have a Sony ES cassette deck that also needs belts.

The place I was getting belts from closed. Just have to look online, I guess. It's getting hard to find parts!

I got some good links from Tapeheads, I'll post back when I order.

So I took the bottom cover off this unit today and sure enough the big belt is broken and in fact is hard as a rock. I also checked out the Sony cassette deck and all four belts are bad on that as well and that one's going to be a joy to clean up. I found one place that had all the belts I needed

https://www.electronicsupplycorp.com/

This is not an official recommendation as I haven't actually ordered yet, just sent an email telling them what I needed (5 minutes ago). However the prices are reasonable. Thank you to @redk9258 for the catalog, that was super helpful.

Now one question about this unit. Two of the belts look to be replaceable simply by cleaning the pulleys and gently installing the new ones. However there's one (that isn't broken on my unit) that looks like it requires some disassembly to replace, any advice? I have not been able to find a service manual for this unit.

For "Loading Belt 1" any ideas? Or am I just going to have to play with it?

Thanks again guys your help has been very valuable.

My unit has the set screws but thank you for mentioning it, I would have never known to even look had you not brought it up.

So. Now I'm hopeful that this will be working again in a week or two...

1) Anyone know where I could find what the model number is of the original remote control so I can set up a search for it?

2) Does anyone have a code list for the IR codes for this unit, or am I just going to have to trial and error this like so many other pieces of old gear that I've had?

You could try an old universal remote. That should do the very basic controls.
Be sure it has the code book ! A handy thing to have anyhows.
If the original hand unit is gone next step is a manual.
Since NEC was not a big seller & most were sold at big box & high end dealers
there were not many FSC's that would have had a manual subscription so
manuals would be rare. But with E-bay things do show up.

good luck
73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

Those are going to by my tries. I was able to snag an original owner's manual for relatively cheap (at least, cheap enough that I may still be under budget for what this is worth vs. cost invested... original purchase price was something like $13, plus three belts, plus manual...) maybe it will have the model number of the original remote (auction ended late last night). If not, I don't know how I would search for one. I do have a Harmony and a Sofabaton U1 so hopefully one or both has a program for this, then I can learn them to my Xsight Color and brute force try all the rest of the OBCs from there... BTDT. It can't be any worse than the learning curve of trying to learn to use the open source software at the same time as figuring out the remote codes for a Luxman TP-117.. which I've done, because I'm a glutton for punishment, apparently.

Is there somewhere like AKDB, HiFiEngine, etc. that archives manual scans for stuff like this? I'd be happy to contribute once I get the owner's manual. I checked all the usual suspects like manualslib, elektrotanya, etc. and didn't find scans for this anywhere hence buying the paper one.

You might try and search ebay for a used or NOS factory remote for your VCR, I know that ebay almost always has a selection of Facotry remotes for TVs, VCRs, DVD players etc. you just have to look up the VCR and it's model number and then the word remote. I've done that many times over the years for VCRs and TVs I've repaired and or owned over the years.

I've had better luck searching for the model number of the remote, but I don't know it. However, I should have the factory manual tomorrow, so I can check there.

Edit: it came a day early, I just didn't check the mail before I got online! It's TRB-S80.

Edit2: there's *5* of them on eBay, and not extortionate. I'll look after dinner and pick the best price/condition ratio. This never happens to me...

That's great! Looks like a bad assed remote in it's day!

yeah I knew without actual knowledge that this was TOTL or close to it just by hefting it and the number of buttons LOL. Having the actual factory remote a) settles down my OCD and b) will make documenting the remote codes MUCH easier (pretty much every piece of gear I have, I try to document the remote codes on the JP1 repository because it's helped me so much in the past, and also many/most mfgrs. don't publish this info. Denon and Oppo being two notable exceptions.)

Generally when it comes to finding a factory remote just enter the model number of the VCR in the ebay search engine and then the word remote and you should find the remote your VCR used, that's what I've done in the past to find a remote for a VCR I've had that was missing its remote, and was fairly successful.

Most Universal Remotes come with a list of codes to program into the remote in the instruction manual for the remote, usually the codes are arranged by brand, and its generally trial and error to find the correct code to get the universal remote to operate your particular unit and even then most of the time universal remotes don't generally operated every single function of the VCR, like for example if a VCR has On-Screen Programming (a menu function) then most universal remotes won't work those functions unless the remote is the same brand as the piece of equipment you intend to operate.

Most universal remotes I've seen are pretty good with supporting menu systems. It's more obscure functions like if your VCR has a separate remote eject button or a remote button to toggle record speed that tend to be overlooked.

Good afternoon party people. My belts showed up today so of course the first thing I did was see if this thing lived. I replaced the broken drive belt and also the one loading belt that was easy to do, which was still flexible but noticeably harder than the new one. However, one of the pulleys seems to have been damaged either by grease that was on the old belt or some chemicals leaching out of the belt itself as it sat in one spot. I cleaned it up the best I could with isopropanol. Do I worry about it? It appears to be part of the main drive mechanism so I figured this would be important, however, as you can see, it is in fact playing.

Questions:

1. Picture quality is... not great. Am I just spoiled by watching Blu-Rays and 4K streaming, and I've forgotten what VHS looks like? The only tape I have is the one that was stuck in this machine when I got it which is an old pre-enjoyed rental copy of Speed.

2. Tracking seems to be best most of the way to right. Is this a problem or worry about it some other time?

3. FF and REW leave the tape engaged with the heads even if pressed after STOP. Is this correct? The mechanism is working, it loads and ejects properly.

4. I cleaned the heads with isopropanol on a flour sack, but I realized I do not know. Can I use my tape head demagnetizer on a VCR, and should I? Or just stop here and keep playing?

5. Any idea how to replace the last belt? (see previous post with pics)

Thanks guys! So far I'm in (mods, please edit if price discussion is not allowed)

$12.50 for the unit
$10 for belts
$14 for the owner's manual (to get the remote part number, and also because this is kinda complicated)
$22.30 for the remote

so I'm almost $60 in at this point although it does appear to be functional. My rational head says I'm getting close to market value of the thing.

Thoughts?

If you're using a modern flat screen to watch it the picture will look worse than on a CRT TV. The only way to mitigate that on a flat screen is with a high end 3 figure S-VHS or D-VHS deck with a TBC/video noise reduction system that averages multiple fields and or frames, and even then resolution is lower so there's going to be half the detail of 1080.

Some decks like to track close to one side with some tapes. Each VCR OEM (including ones that made the industrial duplicators Hollywood used) calibrated their decks slightly different and tracking exists to compensate for that.

Yes, I was using a 23" Samsung 1080p monitor/TV to test as it's small enough to fit on my work space. I do not actually own a CRT... this unit actually does have noise reduction but when I tried it it appeared to make the picture worse and smeary.

I'm starting to think it just looked bad because I literally haven't watched TV in less than 1080p in I don't know how long. Shortly after the DTV conversion I bought the Samsung mentioned above, gave my old CRT to a friend, gave my big projector TV to another friend, and my converter boxes haven't been powered up since. It also was more watchable from a couple feet away as opposed to sitting on a bar stool watching it from computer monitor distance as I was at first.

I also got nostalgic because it SMELLS just like I remember a VCR smelling when it got hot. (why do they run so hot anyway?)

Is it normal for the mechanism to leave the tape pulled out when rewinding? I don't remember ever watching a VHS work with the top off before. If so, that seems to be a good argument for getting a separate rewinder. (I know it's a little thing, I also cringe when I see a reel to reel rewinding with the tape spooled, I'm just thinking of the wear on the heads)

Some decks both beta and VHS it's normal to keep the drum wrapped all the time the tape is in, others unwrap for Stop-fastwind/non-visual searching. It basically depends on the OEM who made it.
I don't like it when it stays wrapped in those cases either.

I you want a recommendation on a brand that doesn't do that look for a mid-90s Sharp with rapid rewind...I was given a lower tier one new for my 5th or 6th birthday and it STILL works great all these years later. A few years ago I was elated to find one of their S-VHS decks for cheap at a thrift....That thing may outlive me.

Hah, this is fine for what I "need" - if I find a tape I want to play, or absolutely have to record something on VHS, I have the ability to do so. I actually have another SVHS deck in my storage locker and now I'm thinking I should pull it out while I'm in the groove because I don't think it's been used for 4-5 years, might as well clean it and see how the belts look. Rewinder is probably the win, I know I've seen them in thrift stores before.

I played a whole tape through tonight. I only see one thing that appears to be an actual functional issue. The unit will go into stop mode when I rewind and it hits the beginning of the tape, but it doesn't go into stop mode when playing and it hits the end. Any ideas?

Edit: I'm kind of dumb, I should have stopped at the thrift store on my way home from work and seen if they had any passable looking VHS tapes, but I didn't. Mea culpa.

Did you run the tape to it's physical end or just the end of the recorded part?
How the deck knows to stop on rewind is that the black tape material has a clear plastic leader tape at the beginning and end. The deck will try to shine one or more light sources through the tape to detect the leader to know when to auto stop. Older decks the light is visible and incandescent, but most S-VHS era stuff uses IR light. If the light or phototransistor is bad auto stop won't work (though that often causes other issues).

The unrecorded portion of the tape is supposed to play back as noise until it hits the transparent leader tape at the end. Heck if you buy a brand new blank VHS recording tape and pop it in it'll play for a few hours (depends on length) as static until you hit the leader.

The counter was no longer advancing, but the display still had the forward arrow indicating play mode.

However you make me think. The counter on this has two modes, "real time" and "normal". Pretty sure it was in "real time". Is that based off of inches of tape fed through, or is it somehow embedded in the tape like the closed captions? If the latter, maybe I should try it again in "normal" as it's entirely possible that the tape was still moving but I couldn't hear it. Seems unlikely, but possible.

Edit: this could be why the tape is still held against the drum in FF and REW?

You're making some right and wrong assumptions...
Top loader era VCRS used a mechanical counter tied to the drum reel which advanced a certain number based on take up or feed reel rotation. The normal count is designed to mimick that. Later decks usually used the linear control track to perform Real Time Count and to perform tape counter indexing. VHS tape is typically divided into 3 sections...2 thin stripes along an edge for the linear audio and linear control track read by a fixed head like an audio cassette, and then there's a 3rd region that comprises most of the width of the tape which contains a series of diagonal stripes of video information from the spinning head drum.
If it's reading only the control track then unrecorded sections of tape won't advance the counter even while playing.
Better mechanisms have 3 states to threading: 1.) completely in the cassette, 2.) Capstan and linear head only (Stop-fastwind mode), and 3.) Video drum, capstan and linear heads (playback and visual search). If your mechanism doesn't have state 2 and reads counter off the control track then it has to keep everything threaded to maintain tape count.

The control track was initially a IIRC square wave tone signal designed to aid the head drum and capstan servo in duplicating the tape speed and phase and the head drum speed and phase such that the video head would be able to correctly trace the recorded video stripe (instead of say tracing between 2 stripes and getting noise) when LP and EP/SLP came out the frequency of the tone could be used to figure out which speed, and as digital electronics got affordable engineers started using those digital electronics to count those pulses which were directly tied to frame rate and there's 60 frames a second...So accurate time could be kept (as long as there wasn't long unrecorded static between recorded portions). Eventually they even added indexing to the control track and made provisions to dub index marks in and out.

Thanks for the explanation Tom. I really did try to Google this stuff but didn't find much, I now know a crapton more about these things than I did before. So, I popped the covers off this thing again and what did I find?

1) The tape only wraps around the drum in FF and REW when the counter is in "real time" mode not "normal" mode. Now that I know there's a drum and a linear head, I've ID'd the linear head, but on this unit there appears to be no intermediate stage to engage only that head and not the drum. So: lesson, don't leave the counter in "real time" mode when rewinding unless you have a reason to do so.

2) If I leave the counter in "normal" mode, and play or FF the tape to the end, it stops and begins rewinding. I have not seen what happens in "real time" mode with the cover off so I can 100% verify that it has reached the end of the tape. I'm checking that now. So, so far, no problem identified.

3) Unfortunately, while the unit appears to play and REW fine, in FF mode I think the big roller that engages the take up reel is slipping. I've tried to clean it a little but it's not doing the do. What to do here? Would that be the "Idler Assembly"? There is a PRB part for that and also just the tire.

4) the high pitched noise coming from the drum area is now not going away within a few seconds when I start it anymore, it's taking longer and longer each time I play it. What to do here?

I really wish I could find a scan of the service manual for this as I've become accustomed to with audio stuff, but such is life. On the flip side, this is mostly working, whereas the cassette deck I was hoping to revive as well seems to have more major problems.

So when I play the tape to the end

in "normal" mode, it stops and rewinds.

in "real time" mode, it stops (display shows square "stop" icon)

Owner's manual oddly doesn't state what should happen at end of a tape, but these actions seem reasonable to me and actually kind of thoughtful - if you were using the real time counter and meant to rewind the tape, you might want to go to "normal" mode before doing so to save head/tape wear.

Apparently before, I must have come back in the room after the tape had passed the end of the recorded program, but before it actually reached the end of the physical tape, and the counter was in "real time" mode and not advancing, and that's what prompted that whole line of questioning. I did notice that the real time counter did not advance after the end of the program, but before the tape actually hit the end. So, mystery solved.

So, other than the noisy drum and the slipping idler, I think I'm good.

I'm pretty sure, having looked up pictures online, that the "Idler Assembly" PRB VA80 and/or replacement tire PRB ST1.205 are what I need. Any advice on removing? It looks like it just pulls straight up with a little plastic friction thingy but not having the manual I don't know.

Any idea on the noise? After picking the unit up and dropping it from about 1" while running (a time honored percussive repair technique) it's quiet again, but for how long?

I just went back and cleaned the tape path better (took the metal cover over the tape area off) and the roller and idler... maybe this is the key, I stopped at Value Village today and picked up a couple better looking tapes. It appears to be working correctly now! I also got the remote the other day and have it about 75% figured out. It can't really be duplicated with a universal however because you set the program with the remote and then transmit it to the unit, pretty cool. Although likely I won't be programming this to record any TV programs... Anyway I have a feeling this project is coming close to the end. Got a few evenings of cheap entertainment out of it.

One question: I picked up a copy of "The Dirty Dozen" that says "Dolby Surround" does that mean that if I play it through my AVR it will somehow detect that it is multichannel and decode it? Or would I have to manually set that mode, and what would I use? Thanks! (I seriously haven't regularly used a VCR since I lived with my parents, which I haven't done since 1992, and we only had it hooked to a stereo system not any kind of multichannel deal. No Laserdisc, no AC3, nothing like that.)

Dolby Surround is basically a 2-channel to surround matrix decoder and would need to be set on your receiver manually unless it defaults to that.

Maybe I should take this over to QuadraphonicQuad as that sounds an awful like SQ or QS :)

Be my guest. I've been on QQ since 2009. They will tell you the same thing. I've had a quad setup of some sort or another since 1973.

Dolby 5.1 matrixed into stereo for storage/transport is conceptually similar to the QS SQ and EV/Stereo-4 systems...So much so you can use a Dolby 5.1 reciever to dematrix SQ records.

How to properly activate and configure it varies from reciever to reciever, but as long as the VHS HiFi on the deck works and you get the reciever configured right it should work.

I guess I'll have to do more research. Right now I'm stuck because I realize that neither my current receiver nor TV has an S-Video input! So I'm looking at S-Video to HDMI converters, but all I'm finding stretch the picture horizontally which I don't like, or do not specify, so I have questions out there.

One question, I just put the covers back on and moved this unit upstairs to the living room, even though I can't hook it up yet (unless I use a composite video connection) - I had it unplugged for maybe 10 minutes to straighten/neatly wrap the cord and put two covers on. Possibly unsurprisingly, the clock memory was not persistent even though it's been plugged in for several days. Does anyone know, so I don't have to purchase the repair manual for just this one item, where the clock/program battery or capacitor is located? Thanks!

Another thing I've noticed is that the factory remote won't play nice with NiMHs (it works, but the display is too dim to be readable) so I had to use my last two Energizer Lithiums for it. I won't use alkalines in anything anymore, too many failures.