Quasar VR-1000
 

So, I sat down Saturday morning with a cup of coffee, beginning some much needed time off by looking through ebay, and I spotted this Quasar VR1000, an RCA VBT200 VCR, and an RCA SFT100 CED player all from the same seller in Southern IL with only an hour or so left on each. The price stayed low because it was pick up only, so I got them and decided I would drive down there yesterday and pick them up.

They came from a small TV shop that now only sells appliances, but still had a lot of TV stuff in the back (an apparently some stored in a warehouse somewhere). The only old TV there was a kind of beat up 1980s RCA color portable that I decided to pass on. But I told him if he dug up any more old sets, or decided to sell some of the old test equipment in the back, to let me know.

The guy I met was the son of the original owner, but he worked there back when they were selling these units. He said that RCA made them buy a minimum of 12 CED players if they wanted to sell any, and that he didn't think they sold them all, that this one was likely never sold. But that the VCRs were likely trade-ins, that customers gave them back to the store and bought new units, rather than paying for repairs.

Of the two VX tapes I got, the tape in the blue case (the 100 minute one), is visibly moldy, but the red (120 minute) one might be ok. If anyone knows where I can get some more VX tapes, let me know. I also picked up a few CEDs. I haven't tested any of these units out yet, although I'm assuming they'll need new belts. The picture of the Quasar sitting next to the VBT200 really shows how much larger it is.

Sweet finds! I wonder if there is a good way to clean that moldy tape?

Of course you know, now that you have a (Quasar great) TimeMachine you gotta go back in time and bring back 3 dozen rebuilt/NOS 15GP22s from the early 60's. :D

I've always been into odd obsolete recording formats myself. Just this weekend I found a white wale of mine: a Playtape 2 track music cartridge player (the tapes are cassette sized 8-track like cartridges). I never thought to look on ebay for one (and often forgot the format existed), and happened to stumble on it locally...Haven't seen one in person since I was ~5-8 years old and that one was the only other one I ever saw in person...Now I just need tapes (and maybe belts)!

Nice finds!

Yes, neat finds! Ive never even heard of VX tapes or 2 tracks and Im older than many here.

Mat from TechMoan did a nice piece on this format. You might find some pointers for tapes there.

I still haven't seen a properly restored VR-1000. Every YouTube demonstration shows it spitting out bursts of static and distorted colors, like the drum isn't spinning as freely as it should. Very bothersome.

Adam,

I think you actually outbid me on the RCA VHS and Quasar Great Time Machine, believe it or not I was willing to drive from NC to Illinois to pick them up. Quasar VX'es are really that rare on Ebay that they are nearly impossible to find, and even worth the drive, I've only seen 2 on Ebay in the last year, which by those numbers makes them exactly as rare as Cartrivision machines believe it or not.

As for Quasar tapes, there are 2 or 3 sellers on Ebay that put up auctions for them, and they constantly get relisted because they never sell (probably because they want upwards of $15 a piece for them, its such a small niche format that I doubt many would pony up that price.

As an aside, the only other time I've head of people discussing the Quasar VX format was on a tape trading board 15 years ago, they actually found a master recording of the 1978 Oakland-San Diego NFL game (infamous Holy Roller game) and he bought the player for the sole reason of converting it to DVD format. He ended up throwing out the player because no one wanted it, no joke!

I had one of those decks back in the 80s. Loved the removable video head it had. Made cleaning a breeze.. May still have parts of it lying around here.. :)

SR

Interesting ... I always thought the Cartrivisions were way rarer.

I'm trying to fix the VBT200 first. I finally ordered that tape sensor lamp it needs yesterday, I'll make some progress with it once it gets here.

I was really just hoping I wouldn't win the RCA VBT200 VCR and SFT100 CED player and not the Quasar! I already have a working example of each, and while did want them if I was going to make the drive out there for the Quasar anyway, I really didn't want to have to make that long drive for just those.

Hello Adam! I'm Dan, the seller of those pieces. I joined this forum not long ago. Still digging through tons of stuff in my spare time. I list an item from time to time on Antique Radio Forum; don't think I've been on this site long enough to try.
Just wanted to reach out from Southern Illinois!

May be worth posting here too...I have an ARF account but almost never log on there and there are others that don't visit ARF either.

Hi Dan! I've been busy lately, haven't had too much time to work on stuff. I repaired all the mechanical issues with the RCA VBT200 I got from you, but there is still some problem with the color when playing a tape I haven't figured out yet. The CED player needs a stylus. And the Quasar I haven't even looked at yet.

Adam,

As for CED players, the stylus should be easy to replace by buying one on Ebay, also there is a guy that re-conditions old styluses, I forget the name of his website, but there should be a link to it on the main CED collectors page.

The RCA VBT200 color issue could be in relation to color sync if you are hooking the VCR up to a newer HDTV, I've seen similar issues on people demo-ing older VHS decks on HDTVs.

Let us know when you start working on the Quasar, I still have a lead on one on Ebay that I may buy, it would be interesting to get some insight on fixing them as it seems that all belt issues at this point.

Nice to see a thread about the VR-1000. My father bought one new in the 1970s, plus the timer. Guess he thought it would catch on, but VHS had other plans. He has about 35 tapes, unfortuantely many got moldy in a basement flood in the late 90s. We still have the tapes but no way of knowing how to get them unstuck (tape baking?). I think his most memorable tape is Superbowl XX (the classic '85 bears). Though the timer broke way before my time, I was able to find one new in box on ebay a few years ago and now use it as a clock on my shelf. its got that classic aluminum face finish.

He kept the machine all these years, even though at some point in the 90s it stopped playing tapes. I've on-and-off worked on it the past 7 years trying out my knowledge at figuring out what the issue is. I did find a crack in the PCB that was causing the drive motor to not function which was a major breakthrough for me. (I posted this on audiokarma in 2015, which was the last time i I had a chance to work on it)

Dont mean to hijack this thread however this is so close to the top of list i figure there's no point in having TWO Time Machine threads up. This week I took it out again, looking back at the schematic/SM to go point by point. Right now my issue is the SOLENOIDS are not activating. I dont know if its a transistor fault, or a 12V fault (one of the legs on the transistor does not read 12V when it should), or a leaky cap, or what. Only 1 main solenoid is working (there's about 6)

I picked one to start with - I believe the brake solenoid should be ON during playback (pulls away brake pad from roller when solenoid is activated)

So Looking at the moment at TR924. (S is standby, P is play mode, R is Rec mode * is RWD/FFD). in P, i get 0V from C leg. E and B read fine. I took the transistor out and tested it and it "seems" ok.
on the schematic, i am getting 23V from pin H10-3 to the Solenoid.
If the C leg is not getting the 12v how far back in the line do i need to go?

I'm amazed you had enough blank tapes to make recordings on that thing way into the mid 80s (Super Bowl XX being January 1986), from what I've heard the product was discontinued by 1979 or 1980, and I assume blank tapes and other accessories would have been gone from retail shelves by 1981.

Replacement parts will be hard to find I'd assume, I check regularly and there are usually only 1 or 2 Quasar VR-1000s up on Ebay at one time, if at all, and those are usually the same ones that were relisted 5-10x because the seller wants $400 for it.

As for tape mold, I've cleaned VHS tapes by some of the methods used on Youtube, aka running the tape in FF and take the top off the player and lightly press down on the reels with a Q tip dabbed in rubbing alcohol. It usually takes 2 or 3 passes and the tape is clean. However, some tapes are so mold laden that the reels won't move and will just snap off.

My dad has a tendency re-record over previous tapes, and I think the Superbowl tape was one he has bought years before and re-used. I'm willing to bet most tapes with 80s content were ones he bought originally in the 70s- alot of blue V100 and orange boxes V120 (strangely never a single V60 black box tape) And a fun fact, I came across his receipts for the machine that he kept in his records, I cant remember exactly but i think a blank tape then cost about $50..in 1970s dollars. pretty crazy.

Funny you mention that, there is a BRAND NEW Vr-1000 on ebay right now for over $700 bucks. Pretty neat however I would never pay that much to relive some of my dad's tape memories haha. As for the old tapes, if i need FFD to do it, this machine will not fast forward atm, (or rewind, or do anything other than play at normal speed). I have taken apart a tape once and done the tedious task of manually spooling the tape from one side to the other to loosen up a section of tape (gave up after 10 minutes, too much tape)

However some good news, my new caps and transistors arrived from digi-key last night, going to give it a shot, I think ultimately my issue that the solenoids are not engaging across any level, which is ever a 12v line issue or a component along the way is faulty. Time will tell.

Some GREAT updates. After poking around with the transistors and finding a few ones that were failed, I'm now happy to say the solenoids are working as normal and I was able to play a tape for the first time in almost 30 years! if my dad were still around i'm sure he'd be happy.
However I still cant rewind or ffd with a tape in, i think the motor cant get enough strengh to move the tape (or the belts are just too old)
There's some weird rainbow banding going on in color mode, not sure what's going on there, I don't have a scope yet but i've considered it as long as it doesnt break my bank. Any initial thoughts of where to start?

Is the capstan/head drum direct or belt drive, and is the pinch roller in good shape or slick and glazed/cracked? If the rubber is bad it might be moving to too slow for the color subcarrier to be on frequency....I've seen this in early CED players with bad platter drive belts.

There may be brakes on the tape drive pegs or in the tape preventing rewind.

One dirty trick for getting a bit more life out of your belts is to work them with CRC automotive belt dressing...It won't.work forever but if it helps you know to source new belts.

I've used it on idler wheels at times. :thmbsp:

Both motors are belt drive, the larger drive motor in the back for the video head and the 7V in front for the tape turning. Will get you some pics later after work. Here's an older one for now. Pinch roller is mostly okay, has some dirt on it that im not sure how to clean without ruining the rubber, its still pretty flat with some grip.

The issue I was having was the the individual solenoids (rewind brake, pinch brake, take up reel brake etc) were not activating but they all should be now. I'll have to examine the schematic and check the transistors and components on the rwd/ff area.

I'll look into that belt dressing. I know the tape counter belt is cracking (not a big deal just the TC) I just have to figure out the best way to measure these belts.

You should be able to cl an the capstan with rubbing alcohol, if that don't work goofoff will clean it...it can also dissolve the outer layer of the pinch roller and some plastics...I use goofoff when the outer layer of rubber is either extremely dirty or dried and glazed...it will remove the glazed layer and get back to good rubber (I usually follow up with belt dressing on glazed idlers and pinch rollers).

If a belt has dissolved into black gunk from age (a LOT of 8-track decks have this happen) before installing a replacement alcohol and if needed goofoff are good for cleaning the gunk off.

A little update. I've gotten the rest of my dad's tapes out of storage, about 20 in total. Unfortunately most of the never recovered from a basement flood in the early 2000s, mold has stayed on the box covers and gotten into the casing of the tapes. Some are still relatively intact.
All tapes play the AUDIO just fine, but the picture is all static. This is happening on 90% of his tapes. On a tape I bought off ebay, that picture plays better but still a bit fuzzy, so I'm wondering what happened to his tapes, did the video portion of the magnetic tape get nuked somehow?

-RWD and FF still do not work, but I have new belts coming in tomorrow to see if that makes any difference.

-When I switch to color mode, I get rainbow banding, which makes me think it's a board issue and not a tape issue. I'm not really sure where to start here, I tested a few transistors and they checked out okay.

https://www.mediafire.com/view/r8i7c...lorEV.png/file

Those horizontal bands of noise seem to indicate that the tape or head is running the wrong speed, so the heads are skipping across tracks - the color board may be fine. I think you should get it tracking properly first, and then see if you still have color issues.

+1

Also video heads clog with dirt substantially easier than linear audio so you really want to clean those moldy tapes before you run them over the video heads...

I had one given to me a few years ago, it was in great shape and even worked to a degree, the issue was the tape, I had a couple tapes and they would play for a short while then clog the head, coupled with the fact the machine would not rewind due to bad rubber parts and I got frustrated and gave up, donated it to a Thrift Store so it could find a new home.

I have video I was able to transfer from the tape that came with it of some 1970's TV shows and commercials, it looked pretty decent when it wasn't dropping out, VHS quality at least.

Eric, could you go into a little more detail about the rubber parts? Mine is also having an issue rewinding, just wondering how far into it you investigated before giving up

Not far at all, I just assumed it was dried up rubber keeping it from rewinding, probably had dried up grease as well, it looked like a project to take it apart, and with the tape issues, and the space it took up, I just didn't want to mess with it.

VHS can at least be rewound on a rewinder, the way these tapes are made it's impossible to rewind one without an operable machine.

Ah ok, thanks Eric. It got me thinking though. Made two very important discoveries last night
First, is that there's only ONE roller that pretty much works the RR/FF mechanism. I popped off the C-clip and took a look, sure enough it was pretty stiff and dry...not good. Also why does it have foam in the center?
so I popped off the ring, and flipped it inside out. the inside edge is a little softer and matte, so its better than nothing. Looks like I need a new idler tire...

Second...the way the spools sit in the VX cartridge are right on top of each other, they basically scrape along during play back = high friction.So I rubbed a bit of lubrication across the tops of the spools where they touch each other, and suddently, BOOM, FFD and RWD work much much better now. Leave it to Panasonic to design a cassette that if dried out, doesnt work well at all.

So now my next steps is to open every tape and rub some lubrication across it. and THEN...try to fix the color board. I bought a cheap NTSC signal generator on ebay. But I suppose it wont be much help without a scope..

The felt may be for a braking or to maintain tape tension.

You may be able to restore grip to the roller by cleaning the hard outer film off with goofoff and then following up with automotive belt treatment.

If you can find a belt or washer that meets it's dimensions that should work. Another option might be to make a mold of it and cast a new one out of silicone.

Contacted Electronic supply corp for some new belts. Somehow they found the original belt #s but no crossref, so I sent my belts (and idler tire) off to them so the unit will be sitting for a week or two in the meantime.

https://www.ued.net/ued/searchResult...el&listParts=Y

Also have an NTSC signal generator coming in so I can work on getting the colors and imputs corrected since right now the unit does not show any color during playback of videos, nor does it show any video display when switched into MONITOR mode.

Another update. the NTSC generator arrived this weekend. plugged it into the monitor input and oh boy, the colors are pretty bad. Looks like I have a lot of adjusting to do. Any advice?

Can your generator be set to a plain red field (or other single color?) Try that and see what you get.

Unfortunately no, I have a raster option but that just outputs a black screen.
The other settings are dots, crossgrid, and NTSC bars color and non-color.

Got a DVD player with composite and a DVD with an all red screen in it that you can pause on (a season appropriate horror flick might have an all red screen)?

Can you put in some regular video and see if you're getting rainbows from left to right? It's hard to tell on those bars, but the chroma frequency may be off. This seems very peculiar though, as I thought the monitor input on most VCR's just went directly to the RF modulator without being processed by the VCR color circuits. So, first you need to figure out exactly what is happening to the signal so you can figure out how to fix it.

On this VTR there is a switch for BW or Color. On playback mode you can switch between the two and if your tape was in color you'd get color picture, otherwise you can watch it in BW. When i switch to color mode on a tape i KNOW should be in color, I also get ranbow banding like this (see image)

This VTR has twin leads for UHF and VHF in, then RCA video.audio outs as well as coax VHF output. The generator is running thu twin lead VHF in, then I have the RCA video out going to the in on my tv.(right side of the previous image). In the schematic, most of the adjustment pots for a Scope are controlled though the VTR in monitor mode with a NTSC picture pattern.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1569336121

OK! Since the instructions say to use an NTSC input and set the VCR to monitor mode, it must actually be doing color processing in that mode.

So, it does appear that the color frwquency is off, and by multiples of horizontal rate. That is a long way to be off, but the circuit may need that range to sync properly to tape playback.

If you want to try a short-cut (no guarantees), I would say try C525, 3.58 MHz oscillator frequency. Try to keep track of how much you turn it so you can turn it back if it doesn't work.

If C525 has NO efffect in monitor mode, it may mean that going to monitor mode was only meant to make the oscillator free-run, and there actually is no color processing in monitor mode. In that case, you really do need a frequency counter.

Thanks I will take a look tonight after work. BTW on the schematic, it says "frequency counter with 1 second gate interval" do you know what this is/how i could use one for this? A quick search on ebay shows many cheap digital freq. counters, but i'm not sure how to use that here.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DIY-Digital...229348d37cccd5
I'm also attaching another sheet from the schematic, this time the Color RECORD scope measurements, again all through Monitor mode but these may effect something as well. I dont have a scope currently as I've been debating if spending $100+ on a one time use for this one project makes sense.

You need a counter that can measure down to 1 Hz resolution like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/0-1-1100MHz...-/121840965555