Hello. I’m a new owner of a Phillips DCC 900. I have purchased it from eBay aware of the issues with capacitors, but I purchased the deck with the seller description that it played analog tapes but not DCC ones. I’d figure I’d get this machine and later send it off for repairs, and in the listing photos of the machine with the deck with the tray open and closed were provided. I received the deck today and went to test with a tape to see how analog playback was. Unfortunately, the machine will not eject the drawer open and I get a CASS BLOCKED error when press the open button. I’m not sure if this is a belt issue or some funny business went on during the delivery. I don’t want to force anything because I know Jack diddly squat about these machines. I’m really hoping nothing got broke or bent out of shape in shipping? Any assistance would be appreciated! Thanks! 
A few photos… nothing looks abnormal maybe beyond the replacement of almost 30 year old belts? Or does something look out of line?
As far as I can tell, it looks very normal.
900’s are almost always repairable.
The cassette blocked problem is probably caused by the belt, and it certainly needs new caps.
=== Jac
That’s what my repairman said. it could be the belts. But just to be 100% sure I made a video of the problem. Pushing The Open and close button. I just hope it wasn’t banged up coming from the seller’s location…
It is a mechanical failure. Try and move the spindles that hold the belts on the right (at the end of you video manually). If you need to apply a lot of force, stop.
If it does not move, the lift/sliding door is jammed. This is most likely caused by a drop/transport.
The mechanism needs to be removed to repair this. It needs to be removed for a recap anyway.
The drawer and or metal top bar would have to be readjusted if possible. If anything did break, we have spare parts to fix this.
And this is what paying $70 for shipping gets me these days. I had a hunch this got manhandled on the way over here…
I did manage to get $80 from the seller when I told them about the issue because this problem wasn’t here when it left the sellers house!
So what’s the estimate to repair the caps and the EXTRA DAMAGE due to improper packing?
Hi,
You can contact [email protected] for info on repairs.
It all depends on what we find on the mechanical side.
Thank you. I finally found a reason to join Patreon lol.
Ok I managed to get a photo from under the tray. The read write board doesn’t look like it has any damage from caps but we will have to see what the other side looks like…I also noticed the metal bar for the tray it looks kinda crooked? I think I may found out what’s wrong with the tray not coming out.
You know something speaking of capacitors and ones that are infamous for going bad? On Betamax VCR decks circa 1982 there are these blue Sanyo caps that also go bad in those. (I have a SL-5100 that has this issue) causing no picture to display when you pop in a tape.
Ok I took even more pictures of what my camera could reach of the read/write board. The caps I can see don’t appear too bad, but the ones behind the metal piece has me a little concerned because around the screw there is some rust. 
I’m feeling a little concerned here about that…
Totally normal unfortunately.
The acid leaking from the caps are causing this.
I was aware of the capacitor issue involving this model before I bought it, but there was a video done by a YouTube tech reviewer that sent in the read write board for his machine and it was too damaged, so that kinda had me worried that I’m going to be in the same situation. But my Email exchange Made me feel I’ll have a nice 2022 collecting and enjoying DCC tapes.
Ok update. I’ve removed the PCB and the tape mechanism and thankfully nothing got broken or damaged in the process.
Both boards appear to have minimal damage, but both are gonna get all their caps replaced anyway to work properly.
Well everything has been fixed and re-capped but the USPS are being a bunch of knuckleheads and routed my package incorrectly. Preventing me from calling it a restoration.
Well guys, after a month of fussing and USPS playing pong with my package, it looks like I got a working unit! Both analog and the one pre-recorded DCC tapes play! Only issue now is that the Peter Nero tape has quite a bit of drop outs I wonder if it has to do with the age of the tape? I do not have any other pre-recorded titles to tell…I think I’ll get another eBay card and go on a buyin spree!
Side B of the tape played perfectly! With maybe only ONE dropout!
I’m think the drop outs on side A are of the tapes fault because I opened a new blank and recorded some audio from YouTube and there are no drop outs on my recording it sounded just fine! So yeah it’s probably how some tapes are. I’m having a pretty fun time!
ive been a dcc 900 user since day one and i have many personal tapes i record with my own music back in the 90s. those old tapes do have dropouts and clicks here and there. its not on my machine because i got a nos unit that was perfectly restored by ralf @dcc museum. most likely you are seeing similar issues with your old tapes.
Yes it is the tapes. Ralf did a awesome job on my machine! This machine is getting more love that it ever saw 25-30 years ago. It’s just you don’t know where tapes have been stored at the last 25-30 years.
Here’s how well it works now. The only reason the one channel didn’t record was due to the Y connector I was using was meant for video and not audio. I got a proper Y connector and it records beautifully.
