Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

[eccerr0r]

Well as alluded to on another post, I have a junk borken Hi-8 camcorder. As far as I can tell it has two main problems:
1 - The tiny CRT eyepiece looks very blurry or completely washed out - white screen.
2 - it seems to not record anything on the tape. However can't really tell if it's due to not recording anything or can't playback...

I used an external monitor to verify the CCD is actually working, autofocus is working, and zoom works. And technically I can externally record by recording the NTSC output. However it would be nice for the 8mm tape drive worked just so I can use it to play 8mm video media (my 8mm Exabyte tape drives probably don't do anything for video...)

This probably isn't worth to fix but perhaps there's some easy fixes around...

[stj]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

the viewfinder is a tiny monitor, re-cap it.
they are worth keeping btw even if you junk the camera just for retro fun.
i have a few connected to fono inputs

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Well I just found out that it can record from the aux input... and playback too. The white-out eyepiece CRT looks just that, it's white out, but it seems to react to what's trying to be played back... still some life in this thing but it's extremely blurred out.

Now the weird thing is that the tape timer doesn't go past 5 minutes...

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

I found a 6.3V 220uF ELNA CERS 105C (datecode 8914) cap that had unmeasurable ESR. I put in a 10V 220uF cap. The little CRT works quite a bit better now! Alas there are other caps I was too lazy to replace, once again some of those tiny 4mm caps that have 3 ohms ESR...

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to record anything from the CCD to the tape, though it does display on the eyepiece... This coupled with the fact that it could record from the NTSC video in... weird.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

For viewing pleasure,
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1451870492

That's an AA battery to the upper left.

I do wonder if the video going to this thing is NTSC or not, or if video goes to this display and then back down to the record unit. Kinda dumb if it does but it would be nice... The ribbon cable has 5 wires on it, it seems... Other than the record light, still seems a bit more than needed?

This camcorder is still quite complicated, looking at the 8mm cassette deck, it's quite intimidating. Not sure how to open it to view the rest of the electronics now...

[kc8adu]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

lots more bad caps.
i know ccd-f were ate up by them.
does this unit stink like fish?

[stj]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

that's so cool.
they are usually composite-video input.
it wont be NeverTheSameColor though, because it's monocrome.

if you wanna see a cool use for them, look up an old tv series called "space-1999"
they used them to make (fake - no camera) handheld video-communicators.
gerry anderson was always ahead of reality - in this case he was 30years ahead of 3g video-calls!!!

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Ah... yeah I guess composite video would be the best term. Was thinking NTSC as, well, it is a color CCD that feeds the whole works.

And yes, a lot of bad caps. The light green one was the one I swapped as ESR was > 5 ohms (my homemade cheapo analog ESR meter doesn't go that high) and it restored most of the functionality of the little CRT. It also visibly leaked all over along the bottom seal of the cap and indeed stinks a bit. The other caps are not good either either, one or two were around 2 ohms ESR. I didn't swap them yet as I'm not quite sure I want to invest any more into this unit yet, mainly that I want to ensure it can record from the CCD (and not just video/svideo in) without major repairs...

I wonder if there are more bad caps in the base of the unit but have no clue how to open it yet. This camcorder is probably 25 years old or so now... and no free service manuals that I can find.

Not to mention I don't want to spend much on this thing. Even if this thing costed $1000 new then...

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

This is funny: On eBay, every CCD-V99 is either "For parts or doesn't work" or "Untested" ... think that indeed these things are plagued by bad caps just like many other devices of this era.

There seems to be service manuals on eBay as well... unfortunately I can't justify the cost of these as these camcorders are obsolete (not only they use obsolete tapes, this CCD-V99 is physically huge...)

I tried another test with the RCA surveillance camera (vidicon tube based instead of CCD! Yes! another vacuum tube!) and was able to record onto the tape. The picture isn't that great, suspecting bad caps in the base unfortunately.

[stj]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

i think it's the same service manual as the v900 if that helps.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Well finally decided to open this thing... holy heck there are a lot of tiny screws, I really wonder if I'll be able to put everything back together again. There are wires everywhere, all could get accidentally broken when taking it apart. Upon opening this I found two more ELNA CERS 220uF caps that blew their guts all over the place. Eiieeew, what a mess... Still hasn't completely dried up, just sticky goo...

The weird thing is that these two 220uF caps are sort of "out of the congested area" and actually have wires to connect to another section of the device...woah, talk about poor design. At least these caps are linked into the video system despite being on an auxiliary audio board. The video system is the problematic area and not audio, luckily the caps were not connected to the audio system.

Unfortunately there are tons of little surface mount caps that I simply can't go and replace. Just way too many of them everywhere.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

I partially put the camcorder back together so I could test it, alas, nope, the two 220uF's wasn't the problem. I still can't record from the CCD (though, as before, I can still see what's on the CCD on both the eyepiece and composite output, and recording from auxiliary composite input works.) I guess I may have to shelve this project for a little while until I find more information about the signal path...

Fortunately Sony used the same screw for most of the screws in the device, and they're mostly machine threaded (versus self tapping). +1 for Sony. Alas the choice of capacitors was not so great...

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Finally tore down the camcorder so I can actually see the boards in it...this thing has boards and wires everywhere...

Wow, are there ANY caps that are still good on this unit? A quick check with my ESR meter on the tons of small SMT electrolytics... they are ALL bad! Has anyone found this to be the case on these handycams of this era? I simply can't believe it! That'll be quite a bit of work to replace all of them (plus I don't have parts... jury rigging a through hole is going to be a PITA.)

A bunch of 6V 22uF
35V 4.7uF
6V 100uF

Here's one board:


I was spot checking the caps and found just one of the 4.7uF 35V have 4 ohms ESR! (I couldn't get a reading on any of the caps on this board.)

I hope it's just a problem of me piercing through the conformal coating but this is pretty depressing.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Oh gawd that fishy stench! Well I used my hot air rework and pulled off a few of the 100uF caps... The board when not heated didn't really smell like much but when heated, peee-yeew.

I measured two of the 100uF caps out of circuit:
C354 1nF, ESR > 5 ohms
C358 31uF, ESR > 5 ohms
C368 2uF, ESR > 5 ohms
C372 1uF, ESR > 5 ohms

It's no wonder things don't work...

Oh I used that two pronged wire thinggy, yes that definitely will help against tearing traces off the board, alas my technique is still poor: the caps went flying...

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

Okay...I found two 100uF SMTs I swiped from another device and stuck on two through holes...and you can see what the problem with the through hole capacitors exhibit:


I might have to go remove the two through hole 100's and swap them with SMT again when I find more ... they're in the way

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

I removed those two through hole caps and put in two 100uF tantalums taken from a dead HDD, and replaced a bunch of the 10uF caps swiped from an old CDROM drive... I got a bit tired of looking at this thing as I don't have schematics or parts to replace the massive number of bad caps that I saw so I decided to button it back up.

As from another post... had a bit of a heartache when the thing was completely dead when I hooked everything back up. Ouch. Screen was white out with a thin line down the side. No blinking "no tape" symbol. I seemed to have killed it, it's now worse than before!

Discouraged, I took everything back apart and carefully reconnected the rat's nest of wires. I've always hated those flex cables, but tried reseating them carefully. As I grew weary of this device I reassembled it and put all the screws back in too. Luckily no extra screws out of the boatload that came out of the device. At least that's a good omen, then again it could go both ways.

Well not much hope as I knew that back PCB was a bit fried from the hot air rework, I still had to know if it's really dead or not. I held my breath and powered it up again... Again it white out, but after a moment a bit of fuzziness in the CRT showed up... but this time everything came back up! Still not great, still have caps in there that need to be replaced alas no parts available. But the acid test: I tried recording something from the CCD as that was the problem I was seeing before...

Just as before it looked like it was recording...recording... After a few minutes I stopped it and switched back to VTR mode, rewind. And gingerly pressed the "play" button.

A bit of static showed up on the screen.. That wasn't too far off from last time I tested, but a moment after... A picture showed up! Wasn't perfect, was a bit of fuzziness but it showed up!

Well I can't say this was totally a 'victory' but at least this camcorder is no doubtedly working better than when I got it - it can record and I can see what's on the CRT. Alas this gets put back on the shelf for a bit. Or at least when I can get enough caps to swap the rest of them, including the ones buried deep on the boards.

---

And the reason for buttoning up other than for locating parts: Next project: A Sony CCD-TRV66, which I did locate the service manual and schematics for... now this may be a bit more fun, alas, it's got a possibly more fatal problem: CCD does not register anything...

[stj]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

in future, if you find any old poly's in these things - remove and meter them.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

What do you mean by poly? I don't think there are any polyester or polypropylene caps as these caps are not "space efficient" ? Looks only like mostly ceramic, tantalum, and aluminum?

Yes it's too bad I have to remove to test for capacitance. Most of the caps I have assume if ESR is high then they're bad.

[stj]

Re: Lost cause, useless Sony CCD-V99 CRT and Record?

poly as in solid electrolytic.
any purple or blue sleeved sanyo's and especially anything with a red sleeve and silver print.

i'v seen those oscon style polys go way out of spec when they are really old.