Massive VCR Haul!
 

Shout out to Damen who introduced me to his friend in Atlanta. I visited his house today, and he very graciously showed me his incredible collection. He gave me 7 vintage VCR's, 2 vintage vacuums, and an early 70's Sylvania color TV. I can't thank you enough, Danny, and I can't wait to visit again soon. I would upload pictures, but I keep getting "413 Entity too large" error. So here is a list.

RCA VBT-200
RCA VDT-501
RCA VDT-600
RCA VFT-650
Panasonic PV-1200
Panasonic PV-1770
Newer top load Quasar
Early 70's Sylvania color TV

Nice haul indeed. If ya need any oddball stuff for the Sylvania, lemme know - I've got my dad's stash of old Sylvania parts and some flybacks.

OK, thanks! The first thing I have to do is fix the convergence. And I'm not too familiar with convergence on these.

The TV works awesome with no adjustments needed! I will be cleaning it and putting it in service next week. The VCR's are a different story, though. All the piano key VCR's need belts and idlers REALLY bad. I will be compiling a list of all the VCR belts I need and buying them from Studio Sound Electronics soon.

You are very welcome and good to see you made it over there. Danny is a really awesome guy and its awesome to see you got some very cool stuff you wanted.

When I got there, the first VCR I noticed was the RCA VDT-600 on the table, and I wondered why it was there since I didn't see it in the pictures. Turns out that somebody dropped it off on his porch that morning! Boy, I sure can't wait to get these gems working again! The VDT-501 is doing something weird, though. It will try to play a tape, but it can't since the belts are shot. But sometimes it will fast forward and rewind, and other times it won't do a thing when you press FF and REW. No motor sound, nothing. Any ideas?

I've got an RCA just like the left one just in front of the TV...The darn thing actually worked from time to time.

Is that Sylvania hybrid or SS?

It's a solid state. I'll get more pictures and info up as it comes. I have to go see family today so no work will get done. The RCA VDT-600 is pretty messed up. The buttons are all jammed up. Stop won't pop up, REW won't pop up, it's a mess. I'll get videos of them up soon.

The one in front looks like my VCT200 from 78. Picked it up from a landfill. Now missing a knob because of this. One pic is before they tossed and another after.

That's a sweet VCR. Same mechanically as the VBT200, but different trim. Another problem I'm having with the PV-1200 is that the brakes don't work. They've gotten a little better, but the tape will still spill out when I press stop. Anyone know how to fix VCR brakes?

Very nice!!!!

I do hope they all work and provide the beauty they all can :)

Thanks, but as of late they are not cooperating. I spent all morning cleaning and fixing the VBT200, but all I got was off speed playback and a rotten picture. I only replaced the loading belt, but it appears I'll have to spend $17.95 on a belt kit from Studio Sound Electronics.

I noticed that all of your VCRs are top-loading units from the late 1970s and early 1980s, funny that you mention "off-speed" playback because I'm having similar issues with my early 1980s Hitachi VT-8500A, its playing way too fast (its playing back almost like Alvin and the Chipmunks speed, where the voices sound kind of high-pitched and really fast almost like a 33 RPM record being played back at 45 RPM speed, and there are noise bars in the video almost like the noise bars you get when you do a forward visual search on a 4-head VCR that hasn't been cleaned in a while.)

Did you try cleaning the control head? My VBT200 is playing at the right tape speed, but the audio is fluttery.

Which one is the control head? And no I didn't try cleaning the heads on the unit yet. But the really fast playback seems to be with the reels as well because they seem to be moving faster than they should be, at least they look like they are anyways.