Well, heck! As you might have been reading my posts about restoring a JVC PC-55, I'm not a happy person right now. I was in the final stages today of getting this thing up and running when the LCD decided to say very wonky. I attempted to return it to the full operational glory that it was only yesterday but to no avail. Now the right channel on the tape deck decides it wants to misbehave as well and play back at a low volume when connected to the amp. Thus, I'm about finished with this thing unless someone can help me with finding a repair shop - even if I have to mail it elsewhere. There was a great one here; but the original owner since the 1950s decided to retire and the new owners did shoddy work before going under about a year later. Will I have to mail the entire stereo (it would cost a lot) or just the cassette deck? Worst case scenario is I'll give up on this thing completely and sell it for parts. Thank you for your help!
Bummer!!! Send cassette deck my way (Malibu, CA). I have yet to find a thing I cannot rejuvenate ... Maybe it will be yours?... But... can you be more specific as to what is wrong with the thing?
Thanks for the reply, Jorge! First of all, the right channel will play but not equal to the left. Usually at a much lower volume and a little garbled. This only happens through the amplifier, but the tuner and line-in components are fine. The cassette deck plays fine on both channels by itself using headphones. The LCD is really screwy. I recently replaced the fuse bulbs with fuse LEDs and it was behaving fine until today. The VU meters are working fine, tape type selector is OK on normal but not on CrO2 and metal, Dolby selector behaves sporadically, alpha display (PLAY, FF, REW, etc) usually has more segments displayed than necessary, mode indicators (COUNTER, REMAINING TIME, et. al) do not show up anymore, tape length selector is intermittent, and the four-digit counter display has segments missing. Mind you, this LCD was in perfect working order, so nothing should be burnt out Any other problems haven't been noted; as I didn't go though everything. If this sounds interesting for you to fix, can you offer an estimate right now? Thanks again!
Got it! Let me go thru schematics to see if Deck is the culprit, having the whole piece helps. The estimate: shipping both ways on you, and the parts, as needed (usually just a few bucks off DigiKey) This is my hobby, not business..,
Sigh... The shipping is the biggest thing price-wise; but I guess I'll have to do ot. for this monster. You said you're in Malibu; correct? If so, that wouldn't be too bad, I guess. The other pain is boxing it up...
Would I have to mail the speakers as well? Those are the things that weigh the most. I was thinking just the tuner/amp and cassette deck would be fine to send Just let me know! Thanks! Loyd
no need to mail speakers! also, before wasting money on shipping, maybe try to go back and "undo" whatever was done to it. remove LEDs, maybe it will fix it, or maybe you will notice something misplaced? Hope LCD is not dying, that will be awkward if it dies when in my hands What you described is a classic switches/connections problem: all the blocks work nicely but one specific combination (cassette into L speaker) is problematic. Easily fixable. Fixing LCD display itself is waay out of my comfort zone (check my Philips-The-Elephant restoration) , but without it the whole unit is a junker. Hopefully what you say about LCD is just power supply problem... at least that is how it works in Discmans: problem with LCD - you have to check power supply
Have you blown electrical contact cleaner followed by canned air through the recording bar switch to get back your lost and or soft or muddies from one channel versus the other channel of your music? I am a broken record here,,, As I keep telling People here that have a radio with a cassette deck in it that if they never record with it that over time some of the music may go away due to the recording bar switch not ever moving - like it would in record mode. RECORDING BAR Switch Yes ALL what part of (( ALL )) do you not understand - giggles - Your music goes through in these machines and if it never gets exercised then it will become corroded and Your music will be lost in that now dirty switch due to non-usage. Yes all this typing over ONE leetle switch. Assuming that everything else has been cleaned but not this " Bar Switch " I will gaurentee that unpn cleaning it you may get your sound back. and well I do this service to very machine wether it wants it done or not.
I've checked and all seems to be connected properly. LCD is fine, probably a logic problem I cannot solve. What I can do is send a spare LCD display I have along with a service manual for this thing and maybe another set of eyes sees something I do not. I do have a trick to resurrect a problem LCD - though this one seems to have no burnouts - but as mentioned prior, it seems to be a logic problem. Power supply is nice and strong.
I'd like to offer you carte blanche on this to see what can an should be done. Though I'm asking what kind of time frame we are looking at?
If you are asking me - well now - it could be months before I get to it. I have a JVC PC-550 C I think black & fully working with the original box for sale but I am not here in this thread to do that.
It's a very common weak point of all 55/550 LCD flat cables, Jorge mate. My JDM Victor PC-55 one was also affected. Segments dying then getting back to life and again dying. Ageing, aging and ageing one more time.. I've seen only one case yet when it was fixed but AFAIK it was very meticulous and time consuming work - one guy in St. Petersburg - he coudn't fix the problematic flat cable itself but decided to bypass it with wires - a hell of job. I was impressed and decided to save one pic of his result - maybe it may help someone else wishing to take on this chance. Here it is. Otherwise, it's a beautiful machine - I love it. I've sold mine but thinking about getting another one sometime.
I've decided based on the facts here that it will go away; much to my annoyance and disappointment. It had some serious plans for hookups of accessories I have; but not any more.
Hi, there, Jorge. It's been a bit of time since I paid much attention to any topics here on Stere2Go. (I've spent a good deal more time lately on that other website, featuring Fatdog et al) To be sure: your words to the member Loyd Brown are encouraging: "Bummer!!! Send cassette deck my way (Malibu, CA). I have yet to find a thing I cannot rejuvenate." (Of course, that smiley face wink is a shade mischievous in hinting at a disclaimer.) Anyway, I ask you: would your tape-deck taming talent extend to a Sanyo MCD-550K? It's a single-cassette-deck CD player boombox from 1989. The owner informed me that the CD player seemed fine when he tested it at my request. (It certainly seemed fine in that YouTube clip, less than two minutes long, that he uploaded.) The four-band analog tuner picked up stations clearly. (That is, FM stations in or not too far from New York City, where the owner lives.) It's the auto-reverse cassette deck that's the problem. The owner told me it's got an occasional tape-eating problem. Let me ask: what is a nice estimate for you to fix that cassette deck, getting it to play and to record to cassettes correctly? I don't have a pile of money for this. (Do excuse me for that.) Can you let me know? Thanks. (Er, hope you and your loved ones have dodged disaster from those recent quakes.)
When I get back from MY road trip from Dallas to Georgia to Southern Florida to Virginia to New Jersey and then to PA and then to Detroit and then back to Dallas Look me up Starting on the Ninth of July 2019 I will be traveling & - I'll have a go at it if you like. Just a belt or 2 or 3 who really knows until it gets opened. When I get back home to Dallas I will be again going full tilt repairing boombox's. I am waiting on parts to arrive from Bulgaria, motor's for cassette decks mostly so they will be here when I get back as I have lots of Sanyo to repair and the most of them require a CW motor which is hard to find but I have a new source for them in Bulgaria.. text call James 713-502-9993 or 713-460-1717 but I can only talk on one at a time and I do not do call waiting so I have 2 phones https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001056918572 My link to me in fb as I will be up dating my travels via the 'check-in' feature it has so people can know where I am and or that I am on the way and well you get the idea.
Oops, I am responding here to a PM from @Easthelp Ha! you snooze-you loose... but I think I know the listing: that was the only thing Google found when I searched for your Sanyo model. No worries, IMHO for $150 there is ALWAYS something much more interesting floating at Buyee-Yahoo-Japan auctions. ((Its a pity I got kicked out of Buyee, except for the last f&*^-up they provided an excellent service )) I do not feel too bad about your miss, boombox itself is nothing special. When I first offered Free resto at boomboxery it was for Telefunken Studio. I was interested in seeing The Beast and checking if it plays as good as it looks, then buying one for myself as my main stereo (yes, my house and my hi-end stereo where CD player alone was more expensive than my car... is lost to Woolsey Fire!) Since then my Boss made me a present: after selling one of her paintings (she is at allois.com) she bought me Naim Uniti Star To make it short: if you look at a bbox that I fancy, I will fix it for you for free. You pay for shipping and parts only. Fun for me and this is my way of saying Thank You! to S2Go community which saved my life and my marriage. To be more specific: @Boodokhan saved me when I and my Boss were homeless and "slightly" delusional following the months after Nov.9, 2018...
I'm more confused now than before I started drinking my nightcap tonight. Loyd Brown, it was Jorge, not Cassette2go that intially said he would help with your box, I'd send it, sans speakers, ASAP to him, it's a beautiful box and you will never get an offer like his again. Please include some killer craft beer so he can contribute to the boomboxes and beer thread for payment. Cassette2go had a ton of really cool boxes and also maintains them, he has boxes for sales and on display on YouTube, one of the best collections in the country and he's very knowledgeable on repairs, but I don't think he does a lot of off-the-street repairs, mostly maintaining his collection but I might be wrong. Easthelp has a box that I'd walk by a million times and never give it a look, I might be wrong Easthelp but I'd section 19 it and get a brand new GPO Brooklyn. I love you and your contributions but fixing a Yugo won't get you paid. and finally Mystic...I love the edge soldering, a real work of art, check out My Mate Vince on YouTube he uses gel you put on the board before soldering, for some reason the solder goes to the metal and you don't have to worry about solder blobs. He does a ton of surface mount stuff and he just picked up the technique so you can learn with him. I haven't done it yet but hope to soon, it makes it much less intimidating.
Of course I was sobered by Mister X admonishing my being hung up about Sanyo MCD-550Ks that have gone the way of someone's "Ugly Christmas Sweater" collection. (That is, donated and hopefully forgotten -- by the ex-owner.) But, before that, I got a good, loud laugh from the first line of his July 15 posting in this topic. And, again, Jorge: though I never did own the Sanyo in question, thanks for being willing to try on my behalf.
I read, Mister X comments into this below video so I thought I should say so in here and show two pictures back of it that I took yesterday 04 August 2019 as the camera that I shot these with does not embed the date into the picture unless you read the meta-data and I don't know how many people do that. JVC PC-550C Listen to it 4 Sale $700.00 paypal total Ship in usa (8:23) minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IWyGUzxZdA copied from my you tube https://www.paypal.me/JamesCPierce/700.00usd also copied from my you-tube http://www.wikiboombox.com/tiki-index.php?page=JVC+PC-55+and+PC-550
