Telefunken VR3940C (Ferguson FV30?)

[ben]

The things we find to occupy us with lockdown
About 18 moths ago a neighbour gave me this VHS machine dating from circa 1989. Apparently "working", but dead /no results when plugged in so straight to the roundtuit pile it went. I had previously seen it at their place when I went to fix their Panasonic TV, looked as if it had been plugged in circa 1990 then left there from that day on!

Today I dug it out. I had assumed it was a JVC type but upon opening it, it had that dreaded Thomson look - and THAT SMPS!

Fearing the worst had happened, I checked the mains fuse (1AT), but that was okay. I studied the articles of July 1990 and Aug 1991 in TV mag with their cct diagrams of the PSU, and thought I would go for c14(47uF) and c38 (470uF). These caps are part of the oscillator circuits, without which the PSU would not start up. Both looked quite the worse for wear so I didn't bother testing them, out they came.

The unit powered up okay - no fireworks - and so I took out the idler tyre and checked the rubber, it was okay (no cracks, just a bit shiny) so it got a good going-over with the sandpaper, a drop of light oil on its shaft and that of the pivot/bracket and that solved the spooling.

I noticed the PSU secondary has lots of Frakos in it, I've had a few go short in the past (older ones anyway)... I wonder if it would be prudent to change them too? That said the ones in my Grundig cuc220 sets seem to last well. Bit of a quandry.

Furthermore, I had a couple of FV31Rs pass through my hands back in the 1990s but this TFK unit looks a bit sturdier, a nice touch is the backlit buttons - the tape transport symbols light up, even stop and eject! The remote is a huge rectangular thing, whereas the one for the FV31R was like a calculator with an inbuilt LCD.

I suspect this was rebadged Fergy FV30 rather than FV31, no idea what the Thomson model number would have been....any ideas?

Later I will hook it up to a TV and put it through its paces. But I'd be interested to hear what people think about those Frako caps.

[Welsh Anorak]

You were lucky! A customer gave me a "working" FV30. I plugged it in and a loud bang, fireworks and a plume of smoke greeted me. I admit I didn't even take the top off....
I tned to let Frakos lie until they fail. Mind you, if you've nothing else to do...

[jayceebee]

Yes, equivalent to the Ferguson FV30B, the B meaning basic. I can’t say I’ve ever come across the Thomson equivalents to the FV3x series so cant help. These machines were just awful and your heart sank if one landed on your bench with “Dead” on the job card. DC power supply essential for testing and fault finding, variac was also a help.

The mechanics on the FV31R were fragile to say the least. I had a typewritten parts list before the full manual was released and I’m sure it stated Moulinex as the deck manufacturer.

John.

[Red to black]

Originally Posted by jayceebee

These machines were just awful and your heart sank if one landed on your bench with “Dead” on the job card. DC power supply essential for testing and fault finding,
John.

Yes I think I still have a Thorn/Ferguson typed up guide to circuit description and fault-finding and testing these.
The PSU was a bit unorthodox to say the least!!, I often wondered what the design rationale was behind it ?? just French ******-mindedness ?
While Master/slave PSUs driven from the secondary side was nothing new, the strange way it was implemented on these was something else!

[jayceebee]

Thankfully they went back to linear power supplies for the FV4x and 5x series, back to switch mode for the FV6x onwards but although not straight forward, very much improved.

[jayceebee]

Originally Posted by Red to black

The PSU was a bit unorthodox to say the least!!, I often wondered what the design rationale was behind it ?? just French ******-mindedness ?

When you consider also at that time the up market models in that range were being produced by JVC with more features and yet their SMPS had only about a dozen components on the primary.

[Red to black]

To be fair, these must have been fairly reliable overall, as I still saw the odd machine right at the back of the 90's -early 2000's

The way I heard it was that there were some catastrophic psu failures on early production ones, hence the early typed up sheet by Thorn that I still have somewhere.
Most of these were or will have been picked up during the guarantee period I assume
Thomson modified the psu early on I believe which fixed the issue for the most part.
Mind you a Melf resistor of 2.622k (or whatever value it was?) included as part of the mod kit inspired confidence (not ), anything with that close tolerance required was a bit questionable imo.

A blown fuse on later production machines usually meant the main block was flashing over internally, which was a nice relief phew!!

I think I only ever had maybe a dozen or so machines that ever needed a full rebuild (psu repair/mod kit and then some!!! ), most psu faults, apart from the main block mentioned above, was mainly due to a regulator transistor on one of the secondary side rails, or due to a single component (resistor hi/OC or cap) that did not cause total psu failure of mass destruction!!!

Later as the machines aged I had more trouble with the syscon/micro system, such as the head switching point not being able to be set/stored type faults (shorting the micro pin to deck for 1 second), of which some needed new micros, rather than the psu itself, as this was quite a sophisticated and advanced feature of these machines for the time, and various other more 'normal' run of the mill type faults.

Agreed the plasticky 'Moulinex' deck of the FV31R/32L ? was not anywhere near as robust as the metal JVC deck of the FV30.
Happier times all the same

[Maarten]

Was it a Toshiba deck? I remember Thomson rolled a joint venture with them at some point in time.

[jayceebee]

I think the Toshiba input started with the R series of decks. I would hope that Toshiba didn't have anything to do with the cheap and nasty horror that was fitted to the FV31R.

[ben]

It's been so long, I can't remember the FV31R 'Moulinex' deck. However, I'd bet that it was a 'Rolex' compared to the Funai crap that came out post-2000 or so!

In any case, I have tried the Telefunken, gives a nice sharp playback picture. One peculiarity, when you first plug it in the head drum spins continuously for about half a minute. Not sure if that is 'normal' !

It's a shame this unit is just a 2 head mono, single-speed unit. I really like the control layout and solidity of build, even if it doesn't come close to the features of the Sony SLV-E830 Nicam job that is my main machine in the living room.

[Red to black]

The " R series" decks were definitely Toshiba influenced.
The R2000 series were not a bad deck at all and resembled both Toshiba and JVC influences.
The R3000 (Fergy FV67 etc.) was a bit different and interesting in its own right (I liked the front loading sliding worm gear and pinch roller action on these), fairly reliable too apart from its loading motor and SM driver chip (IT60 ?).
The later R4000 onwards machines used the Tosh/Thomson 'V3' mech (in Toshiba 'speak') and still quite a nice deck, and easy to repair too until we got to the crappy Funai machines of which the less said the better.

Edit: Both Toshiba and Sony briefly used a Samsung designed machine later which used to slip the option codes in their EEPROMS if there was ever a power outage, the setting screen looked like a Bingo card, and even worse was machine/model as well manufacturer specific.

[ben]

Yes, I too liked the R2000/3000 mechs. There was one of the two (I forget which) whose pinch roller arrangement was like the Philips charlie in that it was located next to the IR 'lighthouse' in stop/cass out mode. That was a very responsive deck with about four fast wind speeds and only one belt (capstan -> spool clutch).

I have a SABA- badged Nicam one of those, and apart form the belt and a door spring mod, I only ever had to replace the mains filter capacitor (posted about it on here a couple of years back). of course these mechs were from the golden age of the mid-late 90s: good features and build was still substantial enough to last.

I have a Toshiba with v3 mech gathering dust due to a split white plastic piece on the carriage, had this on others too. These were where they began to go downhill IMO.

[Red to black]

Hi Ben,
The R3000 mech was the one with sliding pinch roller.

RE: the V3 mech, most of the early problems I had was with the small cast Aluminium arm that the cam follower peg that used to snap off.

Had that small gear split too later in the life of those machines with that cassette housing mech. it was a common problem later.