Lovely machine. I'm only 34 but I miss all the old quality Sony products they used to make. They used to make the LBT series of all in one full sized hifis ( UK ) with the best sounding SAW super woofer speakers. No wonder they still fetch a pretty penny online
Abbey Road Studios situated at 3 Abbey Road London. I came across to this studio's recordings in late 80. I purchased some cassettes recorded in this studio at that time, which are still with me. Recordings of this studios are remarkable, I have never heared better recordings than Abbey Road Studios. They are still in business. Further, I would like to appreciate your work on this little machine. These machine require gentle handling with proper tools. Better upgrade your toolkit. Regards
I have one - recorded live orchestral music in Manaus, Brazil well over thirty years ago when I was a member of the orchestra there. Discovered and turned on the machine still with a recorded DAT tape in it and it worked perfectly for over an hour, than tragically stopped. Mechanism is fine, loads fine but no sound. Want to work with these many tapes to edit in Pro Tools but no machine.
Hi, i have a tcdd8 dat play but the sound is like a broken speaker, think it is the tencion to the drum , also imposible to vind or revind, start to vind and the display stop at 17 second and the display get blank fore a litle second. Any idea?
around 20 yrs ago i took a casio dat portable to arc electonics at fraser and marine -kept calling for months and he finally bought it off me for parts as he couldn't fix it - fantastic job dave
That must be what digital Distortion sounds like? I never knew there was such a thing. With digital, it's either on or off, working or not working. But that definitely sounded like digital distortion! DAT repair looked insane! Great jod!👍
Seems like something caused by the tape not being aligned with the heads? Cos it only seemed to be happening with one of the tape rollers was loose, and when he tightened it as it was playing the audio sounded perfect afterwards.
Oh man, I have had the exact same problem with two TCD D7 units, it seems the mechanism is as bad in the D8.I guess the same. A total nightmare to repair but we got it done mor than once over the years. Well done, that was a shrill reminder to avoid repairing Sony gear. Thanks for upload.
I had a tcd-7 which is the model just before that one. They look identical. Spent all my savings on it back in the day. This was pure, portable, unadulterated audio nirvana in the 90’s... up until it started becoming unreliable and no amount of adjusting or repair ever got it back to good for any amount of time... They are very fancy pretty little things with amazing sound but they are very fragile and after a few years of serious use they are good for the trash. (And that was back in the days when parts were still available!) I would not buy any of these used on eBay for any amount. Their time has passed. Let it go. That thing will work for a month or so and then crap out. Again. (Yes I have been there, many times) I applaud you spending untold hours getting this going again however.
I have a TCD-D7 in near mint condition, unfortunately it appears to suffer teh same fault as this unit, at 24:00 - the guide is loose. Thanks for this video, I may remove the lid and see if I can repair it as easily.
WOW Dave, I thought that this repair was going to be an exercise in futility, but you pulled it off. Thanks for your patience and tenacity. I didn't hear hardly any "Purple Expletives" as your workmanship was being put to the test. BRAVO ! J K
I was cursing like a sailor, but those shots were left on the cutting room floor as the saying used to go. Even though the video is long had I not cut more than 50% it would have been much longer. I didn't like these when i was in the business because i had a boss that was hovering over my shoulder demanding i work faster and quite frankly you can't when you are dealing with these tiny helical scan recorders which are one of the most complex pieces of equipment ever designed. When you think about it. You have the mechanical parts and you are recording digital bits of data on a tape that must be recovered perfectly. Otherwise you get distortion like when I first got it to play. Slight alignment error. If it wasn't so small I would have put the scope on it, but I think the alignment is pretty close. It plays all the tapes I put in it recorded on my sony FTC 75es and my tascam da40 so it is pretty close. These units do have ATF for tracking so they can compansate for minor tracking errors.
Thank you. I fixed my D8 it had the same issue. After I put it back together rewind button is not working properly. If you mess with hold button it will rewind after you switch the hold but while playing it won't work. Very weird. Thanks I have learned alot repairing stuff following your guides.
There should be medals for Engineers who have worked on these! I had a TCD-D7 once and the only saving grace was that they have a similar design to VCR.s! Re: Postage; if you post a parcel using one of the Big delivery companies in the UK and don't get insurance, they claim Zero responsibility for any mishaps! Even though the item is in Their care, they are immune! I found this out when Hermes smashed a CDJ of mine and pretty much stated (When I Finally found a number for their offices) Not our problem! Is it like that over there? Something needs to be done about the legislation. These DAT machines are great pieces of kit and worth keeping working (Said through gritted teeth) Good work mate!
I love dat units in general but I do wish that the industry would have used 8mm tapes instead. A little larger for parts but a little easier to work on too I believe.
They did use 8mm for DAT as well. The multi track studio recorder uses a hi8 tape much like an adat used a vhs tape. 4mm dat which is what this is was the consumer version but the pro version also used the same tapes and it was adopted in the recording industry as the standard for 2 channel mix down. Many musicians used 4mm dat at home to record on and then the tapes were bumped to the 8mm version in the studio when sessions were added and mixed back to 4mm dat. Some studios just used multiple 4mm dat all synced together so they would operate as a big multi track machine. They all have time code. Due to the serial copy bullshit on consumer machines the format never had much success for consumers. The professional version on the other hand had no such copy protection. Well it did but it could be turned off in the menu for studio work. Very popular. Also for computer backup. Phone companies used DAT to back up their files and configuration call data ect in various pieces of switching equipment. There is still some in some old equipment at work. I know some was swapped to CF cards but there are still dat tapes lying around for the old nortel switches and probably the gdt5 as well. That isn't my department so I don't generally go into that part of the central office at work. I'm outside plant and premise equipment. Occassionally I have to go to the copper frame for those still on copper services.
4 года назад+1
@1:06:00 - clean original first Canada pressing of Abbey Road on vinyl also sounds incredible (PLAYED WITH LINEAR CONTACT OR SHIBATA STYLUS) High dynamic range and great mix. . (Of course hard to beat a safety master running at 15ips.. that's top notch)- Excellent job getting that teensy thing running.
The guy I got several dat masters from worked in a plant as a cutting engineer in the late 60 through onto the 80s then retired and moved to my neck of the woods. I met him at the shop I worked at. Would buy expensive stuff I took my dat to his house to demo it. (Much like i took my Sony ccd vx3 with steadicam jr onto the set of the movie another stakeout. I was demoing it for Richard Dryfus's personal assistant and I did some behind the scenes shooting. I have about 100 dat tapes that were taken directly from safety copies that this guy smuggled out if the facility. He was storing them off site, and when he retired he simply "forgot" to return them. Not that it matters now because the man has been dead for probably 20 years now. I wonder what ever happened to those tapes. In someone's collection I am sure. He had some fancy gear at his house. A studer and revox were the machines I remember working on. They were old and had tubes in them and sounded simply amazing. Until you have heard a studio tape you just haven't experienced what sound can sound like in the analog domain. The dat digital copy I have is sampled at 48khz and nothing was lost from the original.
Nice i still have a Panasonic RQ-L309 mini tape recorder and gues what i still works fine afther 21 years the rubber it still in good shape afther all that time nice.
I wouldn't mind some faint music, myself. You got good taste in music going by what you play. Easier on headphone ears than unlike some og the fellers who grunt like female tennis players...
58:20 thank you for speaking these wise words! i have a weakness for miniaturised mechanical machines but you saved me from the 180€ purchase of a tcd-d3 cheers to you 🎉
Mechanism looks a lot like a baby VCR mech. Nice fix. Cool little walkman. I never went DAT, once I outgrew cassette, I went onto mini disc, I could carry a pile on me and have plenty of choice and hours to play in the palm of my hand.
I have several DAT decks. 2 home decks, 3 studio decks, and 2 portable recorders. I always enjoyed the sound from DAT more than minidisk as the early monidisk had crappy ARTAC encoding that sounded worse than early MP3.
SMH. There's actually an option to declare an item REPAIR/RETURN on customs forms. And yes, just declare $20 if the item is broken and just going in for service. Great to see you're in Canada, incase my TC-D8 ever needs repair -cheers!
Thanks a lot for this video. I've a TCD-D7 which apparently has a machanical problem. It does open and everything seems fine but when I hit play it tries to grab the tape and immediately stops. Unfortunately in my country it seems like nobody wants to fix it, unless I send it to the official Sony service, which they charge a lot of money only to provide a diagnosis. Since I have nothing to lose, I think I will take all the necessary patience together with your video and the service manual and try to repear it myself. Will see. Chears.
I used to love getting customer units in like this example and the minidiscs where the store did the customer a "favor" by removing the disc or tape.....apparently using tools a fireman might possess on his rig...
@@12voltvids We had a Sony come in completely corroded and unrepairable. When we advised the customer of this, they ran around in circles waving their arms claiming there was "NO POSSIBLE WAY" any water could have ever gotten into the unit. We pulled the tape that showed a beautiful scene...by the ocean....where a GIANT wave hit the rocks and PLASTERED the camera. Case closed.
@@georgemartin1436 Sand inside wss another one. One guy came in and was honest. Said he had made a "home movie" and asked me to remove the tape and put it on dvd for him because he wanted to post his experience on porn hub! This dude was a lucky bastard. Needless to say, someone could have walked in the shop and walked out with a big screen and nobody would have noticed. They were all hoovering around the tv in the back like they had never seen anything this before. The commentary was hilarious from the sales guys.
I never owned a DAT machine. I went from regular analog tapes to digital. I use digital recorder for audio recording and MP3 / WAV for music. These DAT machines have way too many moving parts in my opinion. For the price of the shipping he could have gotten a new one.
I don't think many people, outside of professional users, did own DAT machines. Consumer take up of DAT was really quite low. Think main problem was the high cost of them.
@@michaelturner4457 The copy protection scheme on consumer machines helped kill the format too. That goes double for the DVD recorders with built-in tuners.
This video is the gospel of Sony DAT D7 fixing! Can I ask one queastion? I have a D7 that cannot enter to standby after 3 minutes. what would be wrong? Have you ever fixed this error?
I just got out my old Walkman F1 to play with now. Last time I tried it the belt seemed to be slipping. I'll see if the FM radio still works. Having to take it apart more than once, you have patience of biblical proportions. You could have been a brain surgeon.
Beautiful video. I own the TCD-8 too. After a period of inactivity unfortunately the fast forward and reverse no longer works and in the device I saw a small piece of black plastic... what could have happened? A gear?
I managed to fix mine also. The problem was that although the tape was running correctly, there was not sound and the screen showed 'BLANK' and rewind the tape. The fix was to change the rf amplifier module that connects the head to the system board. I found the rf amplifier from an another DAT bought cheaply on ebay with a problem in the mechanism and it acted as a donor. So the heads generally do not break unless you touch them or try to clean them improperly.
May we see a video of TCD-D7 or D8 being serviced? You sir, have the clearest video presentations that I've seen and I love to see you do one of those mechanisms for re-greasing and re-oiling from dried out/stuck state (which one of my own IS) Cheers!!!
Fair enough I can see where a bit of Molykote needs to go but where do you machine oil them? Also, where do you tighten the tape guides? What Alan key size was that?? Keep up the good work, greetings from Australia mate!!!
People....put the unit in a box...then put that box into another box wrapped or with packing material....way cheaper than insuring the thing and it will be FINE....
Wow, crazy glue, here in the UK we have to take the top off punch down with lid and applicator/tube , reatach applicator tube/top. Neat idea. Must get some dental tools, always fancied dentistry..;) You mention your camera setup has a better view than you do. Why not hook up a monitor to it, or cast it to a tv. Maybe not always useful. Another great video, happy new year sir.
I do have a monitor, a 32" Benq HD right above my work bench, and I do look up at it. You can hear it humming away in the background, as the backlights are so hot that it has a bunch of fans on it to cool it. It is a 2003 model and it still works perfect. Had it given to me about 6 years ago.
Hi, my Sony TCD-D8 doesn’t work properly anymore. No sound comes from the headphone output anymore. Could you help me there? What can be defective? Greetings Robert
56:05 My thoughts exactly. It would be best to look at the RF, but can you even find or get to the test points, and how awkward would it be to do that when it's all in bits.
The rf on these looks different than on a regular dat. These use the small drum and a 180' wrap so the rf looks exactly like a VCR, no breaks between the packets. Cable extenders are needed because the test point is on the under side of the board. When Sony did these they hooked the chassis up to a jig.
@@12voltvids You may have seen my video where I was working on a Tascam DA-45HR the other day, first time I've looked at a DAT RF, so I was a bit confused by the big gaps in the RF, compounded by a lack of clarity in the service manual. It's absurd that on the portable, that the test points are under the board. I suppose the only solution would be to add a few short wires when the PCBs are out and then cut them as best you can when finished. Really is seems like Sony wasn't expecting anyone to repair them.
I have this machine and I cannot get the sound to track no matter where I position the guide adjustments. It will sound good for a couple seconds sometimes then go to shit on its own.
I have a sirius radio I'd like you to look at for me. Its a Stiletto 100. It has a lifetime subscription so its worth spending some money on to fix. Radio works on battery. But the power/ charging circut was fried when I reversed the 12v power leads.
DAT never did well as a consumer format but as a professional format it was the defacto standard for digital mastering and it was used extensively in radio and TV production work.
I suppose he insured it because it means a lot to him? And what would have happened if he didn't insure it, and something happened to it? Would other carriers reimburse him for it? I am just wondering. Great job on the unit! The pill bottle is great. Once it's locked, what's inside isn't going anywhere.
I don't know. I insured a package once on something I sold and it was damaged in transit, and nobody paid. I was in a long battle with the buyer because he wanted his money back, insurance wouldn't pay because they "delivered" it. Problem was it looked like they had been using it as a football. It was a professional CRT monitor, and it cost over 100 to ship, but when it got there the crate was damaged and the tube smashed. The kicker was the auction was won for 50.00. The freight was over 100.00 because it weighed something like 55 lbs. So I think insurance is a total rip off, because it only covers loss, not damage. The damage is impossible to prove so they just deny everything. This monitor was shipped Fed Ex, so the buyer in addition to getting a non working item, was hit with broker charges as well.
I didn't like the new mic either. It was too focused on your voice and didn't pick up the sound of your speakers and what you were working on as well as the regular setup you use.
@@PilotCyrus how can this DAT sound better? Given that it's only 16bit 48khz audio, and many modern devices are capable of much better digital audio quality these days, including phones.
I was able to clean my tcd-d7. It was eating tapes and now it works flawlessly. However a different problem is now showing up. When I record using line in the input recording levels right and left are low and the right side does not even reach -24. Keep in mind my source output levels are near 0db. I tried microphone input and it is the same thing. Any idea what it could be? Thank you
@12voltvids I just ran into this video trying to find some info on my TCD-D8, the machine plays and records fine, however, periodically there is some of what I'd call, "digital distortion" like the tape is damaged, this just appears in the background of the music every few minutes, at this point I am not sure is it the tape (it was a sealed tape, new old stock tho) or the mechanism needs a slight adjustment. Any advice what usually might cause behavior like this?
@@12voltvidsSoo, I decided to poke around a bit without opening it to see things, turns out that the same-ish issue plagues mine, I just touched the tape guide pin and it fell off the same way off of that small pin like that one in the video, luckily I was able to persuade it with tweezers to come back in place, however, I noticed that the grease was dry/non existent, so I lubed the thing up and it plays and records perfectly, even the tapes that had issues playing before are now playing fine...thanks for the tip and for the video, helped me to find where to look at :D
Nice video - thanks! I just refurbished a TCD D7, completely cleaning and re-lubricating the mechanism. It works perfectly with external power supply, but is dead with the battery pack (it worked fine before I started my project). Any hints as to what could have gone wrong? Thanks again for your great job here!
Nice repair. Too bad he didn't want the battery that holds the time/date changed. I have one of these units and the battery on mine is dead, doesn't hold the time long enough to change the batteries. I hear you on expensive, a working unit on ebay still going to run you $500.
Anyone that would pay 500 for a "working unit on ebay needs their head examined. I have found several working units for well under 100.00 on craigslist. People get caught up in the bidding frenzy on ebay. Not to mention that "shill" bidders that pump up the auction. Ebay says they have clamped down on this. Bullshit. I have bought one thing on fleabay in the past 5 years, and a couple of parts.
Impossible to say for certain. Possible dirty laser lens. DVD requires better focus than CD. Try a cleaning disc. If that doesn't do it you might consider a new player. Repairs to an old player would likely come to more than buying a new one. Time to go BluRay anyway. Welcome to the era of disposable technology.
CD uses a different laser on most dvd players. They use an infrared for cd and cdr and a red laser for dvd. So if the red laser is fubar it won't play dvd but still could play cd. Also since dvd spin faster, if the motor is wearing out it might still spin fast enough for cd but not dvd.
Mollykote. Don't have the type handy. It came with pinch roller assemblies for mitsubishi vcrs in the 90s. Have never actually bought any but any lithium grease will do the job. All the stuff I gave is very old. I left the repair business in 2003 and do very little work on electronics these days. A few pieces a month so my supplies last forever. It might seem to some I am still in the business but reality is I don't do this to make money except from the video views. Most if the junk I work on is stuff people give me and they don't want it back.
On my D3 I used silicon grease for reel guides instead molybdenum because don't dry. Plastic with Plastic I used lithium grease or PG 75 molykote (very small amount!) @12voltsvids the reel guides should be secured with little Allen screws into slant block base?
@@12voltvids Shops do not sell Maxell tapes now , none . No tapedecks for Hi Fi . They are stopping all music video storage altogether. SD cards are not sold ether . They will force everyone to use the internet to store everything that is personal will be out of our hands . the LOT .
@@12voltvids I will not argue about Analog tape . Nothing is as good as it was . The agenda is that everything must be Digitized . I do not like disposable SD at all . They will no longer be sold shortly .
@@shaun9107 sd and micro sd will be around for the foreseeable future. They are the standard in storage for digital cameras and video cameras and will be for the foreseeable future.
Obviously no taxes when shipped within Canada. When shipped from the us, their postage is very high to begin with. If something is sent with no extra insurance then there is no taxes added at the border. Things can be sent as signature required without extra insurance. Anything with a declares value over 25.00 gets hit with tax. You think this is bad, I have a friend that is a jeweler. One of his clients shipped him his Rolex to be repaired and insured it for 30,000. 3600.00 in tax assessed. It was returned to the owner and he ended up getting on a plane and flying to a border airport, renting a car and driving across the border to hand deliver it. If sent by fed ex, they assess 37.50 minimum of everything, and of course any taxes on declared value on top of that. DHL and ups also charge a broker fee on everything plus taxes. Shipping charges from usa to canada are much higher then the other way around. I bet this package will go back for less than 40.00. When a big Sony slvr1000 was shipped up it cost the sender about 90us to ship up and only 70cdn to ship back.
@@VeritasKonig Anti static measures is over rated. Only some components are very sensitive. Laser diodes are one. Bare components are another. Don't wear synthetic clothes and touch something grounded to discharge any static that builds up in your body before touching components and you generally wont have any issues. I have never popped a component with esd.
That's an amazing device, so compact, but a nightmare. Sounds like ' it's been a long day's night ' and you should have been sleeping like a dog :-D. Not my era but dam good music.
@@12voltvids the one i have playing but distorded sound, vith rewind it rewind 17 second and so the player turn off and blank screen for a short second, thinking its tencion problem.
Have also an Dtc77ES that have some problem,after maybe 8-9 monts no use i turn it on and the door dident open, left it on fore 60 minutts and tried again and it open, but the sound vas distorded much like the Tcdd8 but i started and stopped it a fev times and it play as it should, nexst day the door works but the sound is distorded like before, i stopped and started it a fev times and its ok again. Dont know if this info tell you anything but that is how it is fore now.
No. The problem is someone puts a value of 1000 hoping that it will be trashed or get lost. Then they can collect 1000 as that was the insured value. The problem is that Canada revenue doesn't know it is going on for service to be returned to the US. They see it as having a value of 1000 so just like if you buy something in a store you pay tax on it. It's all on the shipper as if they don't pay it goes back to them unrepaired. Broken devices have zero value. There is no guarantee that they can even be repaired.
@@12voltvids sony wm-7 has one flex-cable that has to be unsoldered. To unsolder it is easy but if the glue which was used to make the cable has gone bad then these tiny traces and contacts will broke off easily. Now i have to use extremely thin copper wire to get the unit going again.
@@12voltvids I looked at multiple tabs of your min page including “about” section but didn’t see it. I’d really appreciate if you could please write your e mail here. Thanks a lot Dave !
The US would charge almost the same customs duty but still people are dying because many can't afford health care in one of the richest countries in the world...
I attempt to repair most things, but that was way out of my league, your a very skilled and patient guy.
These little units are not easy to work on. Too bloody small. I do like them though as they are like a tiny vcr.
Lovely machine.
I'm only 34 but I miss all the old quality Sony products they used to make.
They used to make the LBT series of all in one full sized hifis ( UK ) with the best sounding SAW super woofer speakers.
No wonder they still fetch a pretty penny online
Abbey Road Studios situated at 3 Abbey Road London. I came across to this studio's recordings in late 80. I purchased some cassettes recorded in this studio at that time, which are still with me. Recordings of this studios are remarkable, I have never heared better recordings than Abbey Road Studios. They are still in business. Further, I would like to appreciate your work on this little machine. These machine require gentle handling with proper tools. Better upgrade your toolkit. Regards
A nice machine, I have 2x D8, 3x D7 and 3x D3, I used buy from ebay (broken unit) and fix them just for fun now they are working fine.
I have one - recorded live orchestral music in Manaus, Brazil well over thirty years ago when I was a member of the orchestra there. Discovered and turned on the machine still with a recorded DAT tape in it and it worked perfectly for over an hour, than tragically stopped. Mechanism is fine, loads fine but no sound. Want to work with these many tapes to edit in Pro Tools but no machine.
Hi, i have a tcdd8 dat play but the sound is like a broken speaker, think it is the tencion to the drum , also imposible to vind or revind, start to vind and the display stop at 17 second and the display get blank fore a litle second. Any idea?
Well done on the repair
I just fixed another Sony GV9 video 8 Walkman
Recapping was fun
Thank for another very informative documentary, there still life in D.A.T
around 20 yrs ago i took a casio dat portable to arc electonics at fraser and marine -kept calling for months and he finally bought it off me for parts as he couldn't fix it - fantastic job dave
The guts of that thing make a Swiss watch look like a sundial.
Nice work!
These days there would be 1 chip in there.
No way I'd even attempt those, too small for me. Nicely done Dave.
That must be what digital Distortion sounds like? I never knew there was such a thing. With digital, it's either on or off, working or not working. But that definitely sounded like digital distortion!
DAT repair looked insane!
Great jod!👍
Digital analogue 😉
Seems like something caused by the tape not being aligned with the heads? Cos it only seemed to be happening with one of the tape rollers was loose, and when he tightened it as it was playing the audio sounded perfect afterwards.
Oh man, I have had the exact same problem with two TCD D7 units, it seems the mechanism is as bad in the D8.I guess the same. A total nightmare to repair but we got it done mor than once over the years. Well done, that was a shrill reminder to avoid repairing Sony gear. Thanks for upload.
This was a common problem on 8mm camcorders as well. The p2 and p3 guides would come apart just like this. Done hundreds of those.
I had a tcd-7 which is the model just before that one. They look identical. Spent all my savings on it back in the day. This was pure, portable, unadulterated audio nirvana in the 90’s... up until it started becoming unreliable and no amount of adjusting or repair ever got it back to good for any amount of time... They are very fancy pretty little things with amazing sound but they are very fragile and after a few years of serious use they are good for the trash. (And that was back in the days when parts were still available!) I would not buy any of these used on eBay for any amount. Their time has passed. Let it go. That thing will work for a month or so and then crap out. Again. (Yes I have been there, many times) I applaud you spending untold hours getting this going again however.
I have a TCD-D7 in near mint condition, unfortunately it appears to suffer teh same fault as this unit, at 24:00 - the guide is loose. Thanks for this video, I may remove the lid and see if I can repair it as easily.
WOW Dave, I thought that this repair was going to be an exercise in futility, but you pulled it off. Thanks for your patience and tenacity. I didn't hear hardly any "Purple Expletives" as your workmanship was being put to the test. BRAVO ! J K
I was cursing like a sailor, but those shots were left on the cutting room floor as the saying used to go. Even though the video is long had I not cut more than 50% it would have been much longer. I didn't like these when i was in the business because i had a boss that was hovering over my shoulder demanding i work faster and quite frankly you can't when you are dealing with these tiny helical scan recorders which are one of the most complex pieces of equipment ever designed. When you think about it. You have the mechanical parts and you are recording digital bits of data on a tape that must be recovered perfectly. Otherwise you get distortion like when I first got it to play. Slight alignment error. If it wasn't so small I would have put the scope on it, but I think the alignment is pretty close. It plays all the tapes I put in it recorded on my sony FTC 75es and my tascam da40 so it is pretty close. These units do have ATF for tracking so they can compansate for minor tracking errors.
It's a pity we didn't get to see that tiny "lock screw" location that you tightened to get the tracking right, finally....
Thank you. I fixed my D8 it had the same issue. After I put it back together rewind button is not working properly. If you mess with hold button it will rewind after you switch the hold but while playing it won't work. Very weird. Thanks I have learned alot repairing stuff following your guides.
the man truly knows his stuff even a plug in there for steely dan ....love it !!!!
There should be medals for Engineers who have worked on these! I had a TCD-D7 once and the only saving grace was that they have a similar design to VCR.s! Re: Postage; if you post a parcel using one of the Big delivery companies in the UK and don't get insurance, they claim Zero responsibility for any mishaps! Even though the item is in Their care, they are immune! I found this out when Hermes smashed a CDJ of mine and pretty much stated (When I Finally found a number for their offices) Not our problem! Is it like that over there? Something needs to be done about the legislation. These DAT machines are great pieces of kit and worth keeping working (Said through gritted teeth) Good work mate!
I love dat units in general but I do wish that the industry would have used 8mm tapes instead. A little larger for parts but a little easier to work on too I believe.
They did use 8mm for DAT as well. The multi track studio recorder uses a hi8 tape much like an adat used a vhs tape. 4mm dat which is what this is was the consumer version but the pro version also used the same tapes and it was adopted in the recording industry as the standard for 2 channel mix down. Many musicians used 4mm dat at home to record on and then the tapes were bumped to the 8mm version in the studio when sessions were added and mixed back to 4mm dat. Some studios just used multiple 4mm dat all synced together so they would operate as a big multi track machine. They all have time code. Due to the serial copy bullshit on consumer machines the format never had much success for consumers. The professional version on the other hand had no such copy protection. Well it did but it could be turned off in the menu for studio work. Very popular. Also for computer backup. Phone companies used DAT to back up their files and configuration call data ect in various pieces of switching equipment. There is still some in some old equipment at work. I know some was swapped to CF cards but there are still dat tapes lying around for the old nortel switches and probably the gdt5 as well. That isn't my department so I don't generally go into that part of the central office at work. I'm outside plant and premise equipment. Occassionally I have to go to the copper frame for those still on copper services.
@1:06:00 - clean original first Canada pressing of Abbey Road on vinyl also sounds incredible (PLAYED WITH LINEAR CONTACT OR SHIBATA STYLUS) High dynamic range and great mix. . (Of course hard to beat a safety master running at 15ips.. that's top notch)- Excellent job getting that teensy thing running.
The guy I got several dat masters from worked in a plant as a cutting engineer in the late 60 through onto the 80s then retired and moved to my neck of the woods. I met him at the shop I worked at. Would buy expensive stuff I took my dat to his house to demo it. (Much like i took my Sony ccd vx3 with steadicam jr onto the set of the movie another stakeout. I was demoing it for Richard Dryfus's personal assistant and I did some behind the scenes shooting.
I have about 100 dat tapes that were taken directly from safety copies that this guy smuggled out if the facility. He was storing them off site, and when he retired he simply "forgot" to return them. Not that it matters now because the man has been dead for probably 20 years now. I wonder what ever happened to those tapes. In someone's collection I am sure. He had some fancy gear at his house. A studer and revox were the machines I remember working on. They were old and had tubes in them and sounded simply amazing. Until you have heard a studio tape you just haven't experienced what sound can sound like in the analog domain. The dat digital copy I have is sampled at 48khz and nothing was lost from the original.
Nice i still have a Panasonic RQ-L309 mini tape recorder and gues what i still works fine afther 21 years the rubber it still in good shape afther all that time nice.
It's nice with the background music, you should use it more often, adds a little atmosphere whilst watching your vids, great video 👍
You would think so but when i do I get dozens of cry babies whining about music playing in background.
I wouldn't mind some faint music, myself. You got good taste in music going by what you play.
Easier on headphone ears than unlike some og the fellers who grunt like female tennis players...
58:20 thank you for speaking these wise words!
i have a weakness for miniaturised mechanical machines but you saved me from the 180€ purchase of a tcd-d3
cheers to you 🎉
Mechanism looks a lot like a baby VCR mech. Nice fix. Cool little walkman. I never went DAT, once I outgrew cassette, I went onto mini disc, I could carry a pile on me and have plenty of choice and hours to play in the palm of my hand.
I have several DAT decks. 2 home decks, 3 studio decks, and 2 portable recorders. I always enjoyed the sound from DAT more than minidisk as the early monidisk had crappy ARTAC encoding that sounded worse than early MP3.
Great fix - trouble you went through on the neighbor bleeds... Take care - learning alot from your videos
Nice song in the background, the best way to foucus!
SMH. There's actually an option to declare an item REPAIR/RETURN on customs forms. And yes, just declare $20 if the item is broken and just going in for service. Great to see you're in Canada, incase my TC-D8 ever needs repair -cheers!
Just declare 0 as its not being sold, but for repair
Thanks a lot for this video. I've a TCD-D7 which apparently has a machanical problem. It does open and everything seems fine but when I hit play it tries to grab the tape and immediately stops. Unfortunately in my country it seems like nobody wants to fix it, unless I send it to the official Sony service, which they charge a lot of money only to provide a diagnosis. Since I have nothing to lose, I think I will take all the necessary patience together with your video and the service manual and try to repear it myself. Will see.
Chears.
That was excruciating !! Hats of to you for your patience and attention to detail !! ;) ;)
I used to love getting customer units in like this example and the minidiscs where the store did the customer a "favor" by removing the disc or tape.....apparently using tools a fireman might possess on his rig...
Used to love the camcorder that had a jammed tape. The note on the invoice said "don't watch the tape" just what do you think we did.
@@12voltvids We had a Sony come in completely corroded and unrepairable. When we advised the customer of this, they ran around in circles waving their arms claiming there was "NO POSSIBLE WAY" any water could have ever gotten into the unit. We pulled the tape that showed a beautiful scene...by the ocean....where a GIANT wave hit the rocks and PLASTERED the camera. Case closed.
@@georgemartin1436
Sand inside wss another one. One guy came in and was honest. Said he had made a "home movie" and asked me to remove the tape and put it on dvd for him because he wanted to post his experience on porn hub!
This dude was a lucky bastard. Needless to say, someone could have walked in the shop and walked out with a big screen and nobody would have noticed. They were all hoovering around the tv in the back like they had never seen anything this before. The commentary was hilarious from the sales guys.
I never owned a DAT machine. I went from regular analog tapes to digital. I use digital recorder for audio recording and MP3 / WAV for music.
These DAT machines have way too many moving parts in my opinion. For the price of the shipping he could have gotten a new one.
I don't think many people, outside of professional users, did own DAT machines. Consumer take up of DAT was really quite low. Think main problem was the high cost of them.
@@michaelturner4457 The copy protection scheme on consumer machines helped kill the format too. That goes double for the DVD recorders with built-in tuners.
This video is the gospel of Sony DAT D7 fixing! Can I ask one queastion? I have a D7 that cannot enter to standby after 3 minutes. what would be wrong? Have you ever fixed this error?
I just got out my old Walkman F1 to play with now. Last time I tried it the belt seemed to be slipping. I'll see if the FM radio still works. Having to take it apart more than once, you have patience of biblical proportions. You could have been a brain surgeon.
Beautiful video. I own the TCD-8 too. After a period of inactivity unfortunately the fast forward and reverse no longer works and in the device I saw a small piece of black plastic... what could have happened? A gear?
I managed to fix mine also. The problem was that although the tape was running correctly, there was not sound and the screen showed 'BLANK' and rewind the tape. The fix was to change the rf amplifier module that connects the head to the system board. I found the rf amplifier from an another DAT bought cheaply on ebay with a problem in the mechanism and it acted as a donor. So the heads generally do not break unless you touch them or try to clean them improperly.
Caps in the RF preamp are usually the culprit. The heads will eventually wear out.
12voltvids Yes i agree. The caps in these modules are not the cylindrical ones but those like bricks. I do not know if they fail too.
@@alexandrossotiropoulos5621surface mounted caps do fail, they contain electrolytics
@@tacofortgens3471 Yes, but not so quick as the electrolytic ones
May we see a video of TCD-D7 or D8 being serviced? You sir, have the clearest video presentations that I've seen and I love to see you do one of those mechanisms for re-greasing and re-oiling from dried out/stuck state (which one of my own IS)
Cheers!!!
Not likely as I don't have any of these to service and I am not looking to do any as there is no money in it.
Fair enough I can see where a bit of Molykote needs to go but where do you machine oil them? Also, where do you tighten the tape guides? What Alan key size was that??
Keep up the good work, greetings from Australia mate!!!
People....put the unit in a box...then put that box into another box wrapped or with packing material....way cheaper than insuring the thing and it will be FINE....
Must belong to some very nostalgic dude, and money is no object to him.
Wow, crazy glue, here in the UK we have to take the top off punch down with lid and applicator/tube , reatach applicator tube/top. Neat idea. Must get some dental tools, always fancied dentistry..;) You mention your camera setup has a better view than you do. Why not hook up a monitor to it, or cast it to a tv. Maybe not always useful. Another great video, happy new year sir.
I do have a monitor, a 32" Benq HD right above my work bench, and I do look up at it. You can hear it humming away in the background, as the backlights are so hot that it has a bunch of fans on it to cool it. It is a 2003 model and it still works perfect. Had it given to me about 6 years ago.
@@12voltvids hope all is well, will drop you an email, about some automotive kit my wife wants for her birthday.
@@12voltvids 2003 monitor, with a tech for an owner, it's living in luxury!
@@johnh10000
Once it pops it is off to recyclers. I have a replacement ready to put in its place.
@@12voltvids huh? confused
need the dexterity and fingers of a surgeon almost to work on those small parts
Yes they are are pretty small alright.
$1000 isn’t actually so ridiculous compared to evilBay prices. They’re going for like $700.
Right but declaring a broken piece that high cost the owner 160 in taxes.
Hi, my Sony TCD-D8 doesn’t work properly anymore. No sound comes from the headphone output anymore. Could you help me there? What can be defective? Greetings Robert
No idea
56:05 My thoughts exactly. It would be best to look at the RF, but can you even find or get to the test points, and how awkward would it be to do that when it's all in bits.
The rf on these looks different than on a regular dat. These use the small drum and a 180' wrap so the rf looks exactly like a VCR, no breaks between the packets. Cable extenders are needed because the test point is on the under side of the board. When Sony did these they hooked the chassis up to a jig.
@@12voltvids You may have seen my video where I was working on a Tascam DA-45HR the other day, first time I've looked at a DAT RF, so I was a bit confused by the big gaps in the RF, compounded by a lack of clarity in the service manual. It's absurd that on the portable, that the test points are under the board. I suppose the only solution would be to add a few short wires when the PCBs are out and then cut them as best you can when finished. Really is seems like Sony wasn't expecting anyone to repair them.
@@video99couk The big gaps on a full size drum model is because the tape only wraps 90" On these sub compact drum it wraps 18" like a VCR
Great stuff! I am totally clueless on repairing this unit. I have two and just sent you an email inquiry.
I have this machine and I cannot get the sound to track no matter where I position the guide adjustments. It will sound good for a couple seconds sometimes then go to shit on its own.
I have a sirius radio I'd like you to look at for me. Its a Stiletto 100. It has a lifetime subscription so its worth spending some money on to fix. Radio works on battery. But the power/ charging circut was fried when I reversed the 12v power leads.
It might be repairable depending on what is damaged.
Such a shame it became a short lived tech.. I wish there is still update for this walkman type..
DAT never did well as a consumer format but as a professional format it was the defacto standard for digital mastering and it was used extensively in radio and TV production work.
"[Sony] is turning the [audio] world upside down!'"
Hey friend my walkman tcd7 the battery contacts part is clean but it is not connected with batteries only with charger what would be the problem?
I suppose he insured it because it means a lot to him? And what would have happened if he didn't insure it, and something happened to it? Would other carriers reimburse him for it? I am just wondering. Great job on the unit!
The pill bottle is great. Once it's locked, what's inside isn't going anywhere.
I don't know. I insured a package once on something I sold and it was damaged in transit, and nobody paid. I was in a long battle with the buyer because he wanted his money back, insurance wouldn't pay because they "delivered" it. Problem was it looked like they had been using it as a football. It was a professional CRT monitor, and it cost over 100 to ship, but when it got there the crate was damaged and the tube smashed. The kicker was the auction was won for 50.00. The freight was over 100.00 because it weighed something like 55 lbs. So I think insurance is a total rip off, because it only covers loss, not damage. The damage is impossible to prove so they just deny everything. This monitor was shipped Fed Ex, so the buyer in addition to getting a non working item, was hit with broker charges as well.
I didn't like the new mic either. It was too focused on your voice and didn't pick up the sound of your speakers and what you were working on as well as the regular setup you use.
Great job =D Fiddly to work on for sure!
i was very surprised with the amount of circuitry inside..
This is why I use my phone for music on the go.
But this device is 20 years old and sounds way better than your phone which will be electronic trash in 3 years time ;-)
No issues, just works. And it is good enough.
@@PilotCyrus how can this DAT sound better? Given that it's only 16bit 48khz audio, and many modern devices are capable of much better digital audio quality these days, including phones.
I'm 16 I use my CD player more than my phone on the go because my phone dies fast
And the phone fits in my pocket. No disks or tapes to deal with.
at 53.58 you were trimming some parts of the machine - what were you trimming? Nice work! :)
Exit guide for the drum. Same as the p3 adjustment on a VHS
I wonder if the tape guide little screw is tightened when the unit is playing like video 8 players ?
Hello, I have a TCD-D7 with a valuable tape locked in. There is no way that I can think of to open the lid without force. Any hint´s please? / Klas.
Amazing job! I have a TCD-D8 that will not load tapes, just flashes "LOAD" then screen goes blank and resets. Any ideas what the problem might be?
Good work
Hello please what glue did you use?
I was able to clean my tcd-d7. It was eating tapes and now it works flawlessly. However a different problem is now showing up. When I record using line in the input recording levels right and left are low and the right side does not even reach -24. Keep in mind my source output levels are near 0db. I tried microphone input and it is the same thing. Any idea what it could be? Thank you
Great sounding units
@12voltvids I just ran into this video trying to find some info on my TCD-D8, the machine plays and records fine, however, periodically there is some of what I'd call, "digital distortion" like the tape is damaged, this just appears in the background of the music every few minutes, at this point I am not sure is it the tape (it was a sealed tape, new old stock tho) or the mechanism needs a slight adjustment. Any advice what usually might cause behavior like this?
Possibly pinch roller is worn which will pull tape at an angle which can damage tape.
@@12voltvidsSoo, I decided to poke around a bit without opening it to see things, turns out that the same-ish issue plagues mine, I just touched the tape guide pin and it fell off the same way off of that small pin like that one in the video, luckily I was able to persuade it with tweezers to come back in place, however, I noticed that the grease was dry/non existent, so I lubed the thing up and it plays and records perfectly, even the tapes that had issues playing before are now playing fine...thanks for the tip and for the video, helped me to find where to look at :D
Have something similar, did you find the problem?
No.
1000$ for that?
I think he was hoping they would drive a truck over it or lose it then he could cash in.
Still need to prove value to cash in . You can insure for $10K doesn’t mean you’ll get it , unless you have a bill of sale as proof.
Another nice video. Thanks. I have a quick question. My tcd d8 the backlight not on. Could you advise where can get the led to replace it?
I believe these use an EL backlight not LED
Good Job :)
Nice video - thanks! I just refurbished a TCD D7, completely cleaning and re-lubricating the mechanism. It works perfectly with external power supply, but is dead with the battery pack (it worked fine before I started my project). Any hints as to what could have gone wrong? Thanks again for your great job here!
Did you solder the two wires back? Check the soldering.
also check for corrosion on the ends of the contact springs.
Nice repair. Too bad he didn't want the battery that holds the time/date changed. I have one of these units and the battery on mine is dead, doesn't hold the time long enough to change the batteries. I hear you on expensive, a working unit on ebay still going to run you $500.
Anyone that would pay 500 for a "working unit on ebay needs their head examined. I have found several working units for well under 100.00 on craigslist. People get caught up in the bidding frenzy on ebay. Not to mention that "shill" bidders that pump up the auction. Ebay says they have clamped down on this. Bullshit. I have bought one thing on fleabay in the past 5 years, and a couple of parts.
They ask 500, but no one with their head on straight are going to pay that amount for an obsolete piece of equipment
The connectors always make me nervous.
It's alive.
It has the same AA battery holder as my Sony DC6 Pro tape Walkman
man this is incredible
What does it mean when a cd works fine in a cd/dvd player. But a dvd displays stains on disc unplayable.
Impossible to say for certain. Possible dirty laser lens. DVD requires better focus than CD. Try a cleaning disc. If that doesn't do it you might consider a new player. Repairs to an old player would likely come to more than buying a new one. Time to go BluRay anyway.
Welcome to the era of disposable technology.
CD uses a different laser on most dvd players. They use an infrared for cd and cdr and a red laser for dvd. So if the red laser is fubar it won't play dvd but still could play cd. Also since dvd spin faster, if the motor is wearing out it might still spin fast enough for cd but not dvd.
12voltvids thank you. This is a Panasonic VHS/CD DVD combo unit. Everything works fine but the DVD. Can you repair it?
@@michaelturner2831 probably not
12voltvids ok thank you
Great video. What type and make of grease do you use for the plastic parts or the miniatur gears?
Mollykote. Don't have the type handy. It came with pinch roller assemblies for mitsubishi vcrs in the 90s. Have never actually bought any but any lithium grease will do the job. All the stuff I gave is very old. I left the repair business in 2003 and do very little work on electronics these days. A few pieces a month so my supplies last forever. It might seem to some I am still in the business but reality is I don't do this to make money except from the video views. Most if the junk I work on is stuff people give me and they don't want it back.
On my D3 I used silicon grease for reel guides instead molybdenum because don't dry. Plastic with Plastic I used lithium grease or PG 75 molykote (very small amount!)
@12voltsvids the reel guides should be secured with little Allen screws into slant block base?
@@vittoriobacchiega4170
Yes they are secured with tiny hex keys.
@@12voltvids Thanks, I remember right.
Glad to see Tape in DEMAND
Well little demand.
@@12voltvids Shops do not sell Maxell tapes now , none .
No tapedecks for Hi Fi .
They are stopping all music video storage altogether.
SD cards are not sold ether .
They will force everyone to use the internet to store everything that is personal will be out of our hands . the LOT .
@@shaun9107
Sd cards are plentiful. What do you think cameras use for storage. Tape us dead true because there are much better options now.
@@12voltvids I will not argue about Analog tape .
Nothing is as good as it was .
The agenda is that everything must be
Digitized .
I do not like disposable SD at all .
They will no longer be sold shortly .
@@shaun9107 sd and micro sd will be around for the foreseeable future. They are the standard in storage for digital cameras and video cameras and will be for the foreseeable future.
Holy crap! Is this because it's being sent across the border? What about shipments within Canada? What are the insurance prices on packages there?
Obviously no taxes when shipped within Canada. When shipped from the us, their postage is very high to begin with. If something is sent with no extra insurance then there is no taxes added at the border. Things can be sent as signature required without extra insurance. Anything with a declares value over 25.00 gets hit with tax. You think this is bad, I have a friend that is a jeweler. One of his clients shipped him his Rolex to be repaired and insured it for 30,000. 3600.00 in tax assessed. It was returned to the owner and he ended up getting on a plane and flying to a border airport, renting a car and driving across the border to hand deliver it. If sent by fed ex, they assess 37.50 minimum of everything, and of course any taxes on declared value on top of that. DHL and ups also charge a broker fee on everything plus taxes.
Shipping charges from usa to canada are much higher then the other way around. I bet this package will go back for less than 40.00. When a big Sony slvr1000 was shipped up it cost the sender about 90us to ship up and only 70cdn to ship back.
Hey mate great video!
What precision toil kit di you use there?
just jewelers screw drivers.
@@12voltvids great. I also wanted to ask if you use any antistatic measures at all? I have 2 units of the same and wNt to opwn them up..
@@VeritasKonig
Anti static measures is over rated.
Only some components are very sensitive. Laser diodes are one. Bare components are another.
Don't wear synthetic clothes and touch something grounded to discharge any static that builds up in your body before touching components and you generally wont have any issues. I have never popped a component with esd.
Good job 👍🌹
DAT Shit Good....
This loading mechanism looks almost the same as the one used on the Digital 8 Sony camcorders.
Standard m loading used by 8mm, dat, vhs.
12voltvids thank you sir,great videos.
Do you still repair sony datmans? I have one I'd like to send you.
That's one dense PCB right there.
That's an amazing device, so compact, but a nightmare.
Sounds like ' it's been a long day's night ' and you should have been sleeping like a dog :-D.
Not my era but dam good music.
Not your era?
How old are you mate
Born in 1966
Dats all folks
Do you still work on these units?
I avoid working on them.
I have a dt tcd d7 the fault I put the cassette and gave play and did not want to take me out error 11 appears that failure will have
even in mint shape maybe worth 200
Maybe you’ll have to work on the neighbors stereo.
Some people are clueless.
Some people are idiots but they never know because dumb people dont know they are dumb.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Do you fix dat players for people? Have one vith a problem.
Yes all the time
@@12voltvids the one i have playing but distorded sound, vith rewind it rewind 17 second and so the player turn off and blank screen for a short second, thinking its tencion problem.
Where are you located? I am from Norway.
Have also an Dtc77ES that have some problem,after maybe 8-9 monts no use i turn it on and the door dident open, left it on fore 60 minutts and tried again and it open, but the sound vas distorded much like the Tcdd8 but i started and stopped it a fev times and it play as it should, nexst day the door works but the sound is distorded like before, i stopped and started it a fev times and its ok again. Dont know if this info tell you anything but that is how it is fore now.
So we're going to talk tax n duties or repair ?
No. The problem is someone puts a value of 1000 hoping that it will be trashed or get lost. Then they can collect 1000 as that was the insured value. The problem is that Canada revenue doesn't know it is going on for service to be returned to the US. They see it as having a value of 1000 so just like if you buy something in a store you pay tax on it. It's all on the shipper as if they don't pay it goes back to them unrepaired.
Broken devices have zero value. There is no guarantee that they can even be repaired.
@@12voltvids Got it.
beautifullthing,but,pain in the butt
woah this is even worse than the wm-7 cassette player!
Cassette players are nothing compared to this. Only thing worse than this was the micro mv camcorder.
@@12voltvids sony wm-7 has one flex-cable that has to be unsoldered. To unsolder it is easy but if the glue which was used to make the cable has gone bad then these tiny traces and contacts will broke off easily. Now i have to use extremely thin copper wire to get the unit going again.
Binder dundhat
@@12voltvids i didn't quite get that
@@alcoholisfreedrink Say it out loud and you will get it.
Hi Dave, I have a DAT player I’d love to send you for repair if possible. If so, what’s your email address? Thanks
It's on my RUclips main page.
@@12voltvids I looked at multiple tabs of your min page including “about” section but didn’t see it. I’d really appreciate if you could please write your e mail here. Thanks a lot Dave !
Volt@telus.net
@@12voltvids great thank you. I sent you a note via email.
How I can get your address if I like to send you something for repair?
I have an email address on my main page
Sorry i dont see
I can't find a contact email either...could you reply with it?
Is that how the free health care is funded ?
Actually that is paid for by employer taxes.
The US would charge almost the same customs duty but still people are dying because many can't afford health care in one of the richest countries in the world...
@@12voltvids about 40% of the tax we pay go towards health care.