Hi to everyone here. Just joined and what a find this place is. 
A while back I found my old box of tapes from back in the day and decided to look for a classic Walkman to transfer them to the iPod, after trawling over eBay for vintage Walkmans/radio/cassettes etc I was amazed to find this huge interest in classic 80's boomboxes. Even more so when one of the first I saw was a Sharp VZ2500 - this was the only one I owned BITD and mine ended up in a skip to the best of my knowledge many years ago. I had no idea what they fetch now and can still remember going to Richer Sounds at London Bridge to collect it one Christmas. All I have left now is the original manual as a memory. Oh well...
Anyway, decided out of pure nostalgia to get an old Sharp and just arrived today is a lovely old GF8686, not has a chance to take pics yets but same as here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8676&p=108034&hilit=gf+8686#p108034
Really pleased with it, condition is fantastic, virtually scratch free and working great - first time I have played a tape in years and brings back all kinds of memories.
Only couple of issues are a couple of slightly sticky ALPD buttons and the VU/tuning LED's on the right hand side are not lighting up when tuning or playing a tape. However, if I plug the iPod into the mic they do register. And when FF or REW'ing a tape they flash for a sec when first pressing the button.
Can anyone guide me to what may be the likely issue please?
Lastly the tape mechanism etc seems to be working fine as do all the buttons(a little crackle on one of them) but should I pull it all apart for proper cleaning and is there a general topic or page anyone can direct me to for this sort of basic clean and check over - I have some basic electronic/soldering skills etc but more on the video game side rather than audio.
Thanks all.
A while back I found my old box of tapes from back in the day and decided to look for a classic Walkman to transfer them to the iPod, after trawling over eBay for vintage Walkmans/radio/cassettes etc I was amazed to find this huge interest in classic 80's boomboxes. Even more so when one of the first I saw was a Sharp VZ2500 - this was the only one I owned BITD and mine ended up in a skip to the best of my knowledge many years ago. I had no idea what they fetch now and can still remember going to Richer Sounds at London Bridge to collect it one Christmas. All I have left now is the original manual as a memory. Oh well...
Anyway, decided out of pure nostalgia to get an old Sharp and just arrived today is a lovely old GF8686, not has a chance to take pics yets but same as here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8676&p=108034&hilit=gf+8686#p108034
Really pleased with it, condition is fantastic, virtually scratch free and working great - first time I have played a tape in years and brings back all kinds of memories.
Only couple of issues are a couple of slightly sticky ALPD buttons and the VU/tuning LED's on the right hand side are not lighting up when tuning or playing a tape. However, if I plug the iPod into the mic they do register. And when FF or REW'ing a tape they flash for a sec when first pressing the button.
Can anyone guide me to what may be the likely issue please?
Lastly the tape mechanism etc seems to be working fine as do all the buttons(a little crackle on one of them) but should I pull it all apart for proper cleaning and is there a general topic or page anyone can direct me to for this sort of basic clean and check over - I have some basic electronic/soldering skills etc but more on the video game side rather than audio.
Thanks all.
You might want to start a separate thread for technical questions in the Tech Talk section. 
