I hauled out our venerable Sony SL-3030 Beta machine after a long hiatus and discovered that it won't accept a cassette. It is powering up, both with the front switch and the little auto-switch that engages when you insert a cassette. At the point where you expect the machine to wake up and pull in the cassette, nothing happens. I don't see anything obviously broken or hanging up in the levers & gizmos that are visible from above (without pulling out the chassis). I don't see any fuses in easy reach except for one soldered onto a board near the rear, and that one tests OK.

Any chance of getting a service manual? A quick Internet search revealed nothing at the Sony site (ha-ha) and the usual evil manual hucksters.

Thanks for any help. We are housecleaning and I want to play (at least briefly) a multitude of old tapes before disposing of them, just in case we recorded something priceless over what's scribbled on the label.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

I don't have your model, Phil, but I do have the following service manuals:


AG-300 Cassette Changer for Betamax
SL-3000 (not close, I presume, as it is a portable model, mates with HVC-1000)
SL-5400
SL-7200
SL-8200
VO-1800
VP-1000

Gimme a chance to check, and I'll see what my buddies have here locally.

Cheers,

Thanks, it would be nice to get this unit working again. This is the sort of problem that makes you think it's a simple fix.

Phil Nelson