The official "I still use VHS" thread

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by Barry777

Hi Ed,

An ESR meter is one of very pew pieces of gear I haven't acquired yet...

Here's a schematic of the flying preamp board:

You NEED an ESR meter. Has saved me countless hours of time and trouble. Where a cap might test good on a Sencor capacitance meter, would be bad with the ESR meter. I rarely if ever measure capacitance now, I just check ESR. I can go through a board checking ESR of all the electrolytics and mark any that don't test good with a felt-tip marker, then go back and replace those.

I see now what you are dealing with. This is where I need the rest of the manual to follow the schematic. The pinout of the cylinder assy to the boards it connects to might help. Not the motor but the signal part. I would look at the +5V, the PB head-switching signal, the amp mode signal, the slip ring condition, and if there's any PB FM signal coming out while it trys to play a tape.