VHS player fixable?

[dave]

My DVD/VHS recorder (TOSHiba) has decided not to eject the tape. I carefully managed to get it out by teasing various levers etc but then when I put the tape back in the thing won't play even though there is much whizzing and things moving about in there :-) The cassette loads and the tape gets wrapped about the rorating video heads ok.

Is there something I chould check before I bin it? (Tried other tapes

- same thing). I can't see any eg belts off, connectors out , or indeed any obvious clue. The thing is out of warrantee and I doubt worth repair costs. I see that the actual tape playing bit seems to be a sub-assembly screwed to a main board and I thought mabye I could get it out to see if there's something fixable underneath. Worth doing? Thanks

[George]

Dry soldered joints on the power supply? these can be seen quite easily through a strong magnifier glass on the printed circuit board. Or possibly failure of the cassette sensor? in the middle of the deck where the tape comes to a rest

[John Rumm]

Give the tyre on the idler wheel a clean, check the eject mechanism to make sure it is not jammed. I had one that had a word drive for tape eject that used to get itself stuck sometimes.

[dave]

Ah well - looks like it's had it. Anyone reccommend a DVD/VHS box (not too much £) that I can use to get my tapes onto DVD :-) Sooo many site, sooo many machines...

[Stuart Noble]

Divx might be the way to go if you have a big collection to transfer

[Richard]

On some VCRs (most?) there is a light source (either IR or visible) on a post that fits into a hole on the underside of the cassette when it is loaded. There are corresponding detectors which are used to sense the end of tape (by means of the transparent leader). If the bulb fails it causes odd problems IME.

HTH

Richard