Questioning B&O quality

28 replies

Jeff wrote:

Søren Hammer wrote:

The 8000-series (90's ones) are pretty average build quality, I think they were made by Hitachi like a lot of other Beocord VCR's. For an example, the VX4500/5500 are ver good machines but every small electrolytic capacitor needs replacing for trouble free operation. The pówer supply and capstan motor driver heats up a lot, you'd like to invest in at least 105°C electrolytics for the most part.

Broke my left arm in a traffic accident yesterday so my post takes a bit longer to write!

Oh no! I'm very sorry to hear about your accident and broken bone Soren. I hope it's a relatively simple break that will heal well and quickly. I shattered my right elbow decades ago and still have the TSA airport security scan tripping metal in there, I never get to walk thru without being wanded.

That doesn't sound very good either Jeff! How functional is your elbow now?

Mine isn't too bad; the doctor told me that the fracture is small and the majority of the pain is because of the shock my arm muscles received on impact. I was riding my motorcycle (a small model due to my licence restrictions) peacefully when a car driver didn't see me at an intersection - luckily I was wearing full riding gear and picked up the 210 kg bike myself in the adrenaline rush.

By the way, as a note to your dad's work; I was an apprentice at the national railway service main workshop where about 20% of the trains of one type kept returning with poor service intervals to boot. One particular train set visited the shop five times during the two months I were working there while we didn't see any abnormal issues in many other sets in spite of almost 100.000 km service intervals.

Sorry for your accident Soren. I too hope you recover well - and Jeff too!

From my own experience, the V8000 issue is down to one tiny cog on the end of a steel spindle. The plastic goes brittle, cracks, and the cog then just spins on the rod.  Way too much for one little component to take - and even if you glue it, it gives way shortly and the loading mechanism fails again.

I'm sure Martin could elaborate in a more informative manner though!!

If we ever get a 'scrap' Avant VCR at LifeStyle AV, we always rob this part from the VCR mech if it works and use it to repair any faulty V8000's. We've 'saved' so many of them by doing this and enabled so many people to watch their old wedding videos, christening videos - and cheesy 80's films it's untrue! 

Lee 

🙂

9 LEE wrote:

Sorry for your accident Soren. I too hope you recover well - and Jeff too!

From my own experience, the V8000 issue is down to one tiny cog on the end of a steel spindle. The plastic goes brittle, cracks, and the cog then just spins on the rod.  Way too much for one little component to take - and even if you glue it, it gives way shortly and the loading mechanism fails again.

Thank you Lee, I'll do my best!

Regarding the breaking cog, it reminds me of some certain Akai open-reel tape decks where the plastic cams that control the play/stop/wind modes tend to break because of brittleness or by being underdimensioned. 

Soren, I used to ride a motorcycle when I was young and single, and the one conclusion I came to was there are two kinds of car drivers, those that don't see you and those that do but don't care! Glad it's not a very bad break, but sorry it had to happen to you. Stay safe! If possible, and Don't Panic! 

I got almost full use back on my elbow, only remainders are weakness and not being able to quite fully extend it, but almost. While I was in the emergency room every doctor kept coming by and looking at my elbow saying I just saw your x rays, that's a really interesting break. Great, just what you don't want a doctor to tell you!

oh, and it acts as a better, more accurate weather predictor than the weatherman. Heh.

sue and I hope you get better Soren !

Soren, as a high milage cyclist you have my total sympathy. 😡

Get a few cans in , put on some vinyl and get well soon  🤒

My B&O Icons:

BeoCenter-9500.png BeoCenter-9500.png
Beoremote-Beo4.png Beoremote-Beo4.png
Beovision-10.png Beovision-10.png
Beotime.png Beotime.png
Beosound-9000.png Beosound-9000.png
Beomaster.png Beomaster.png
Beogram-400x.png Beogram-400x.png
Beocenter-2.png Beocenter-2.png

I can only speak for VX7000 as I got one of those and though it has been some years since I last used it it was working pretty good. Though after playback for an hour or so it would distort the picture. Cool of and it would be fine.

Then I have the VX7000 style in my '98 Beovision AV9000 which still works great. I had other trouble serviced to get everything going but the video always works in that television.

On the audio side you get what you pay for. After years of experience it comes down to 20 -25 odd years of use leaves most of B&O products to need service.

VCR Players have a lot of moving parts irrespective of brand.
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