Tape snapped in two; caused by bad tape or player?

[jlietz]

I had an 8mm tape snap in two while rewinding. The tapes are less than 10 years old. I'm not sure of the storage conditions. Would you folks say that the player is at fault or is it a case of a bad tape? Now, what if I told you that it happened to another tape from the same source (2 of the 10 tapes from this source broke).
I certainly don't want to keep using the player if its going to be snapping tapes But I don't think its the player. It didn't "eat" the tape. No tape is even exposed after the fact. It's all residing within the tape housing, still wrapped around the reels. What do you guys think?

Thanks.

[pfh]

Could be your machine needs cleaned.

I've had vhs cases warp to the point of binding the reels so tight they don't move. I've also had tapes snap which is usually caused by dirty transport mechanism. Gunky capstan and rollers.

[jlietz]

I should note that the player is only a couple of months old. It has had maybe 30-40 tapes run through it.

[ozymango]

Did it snap where it attaches to a reel end, or did it break somewhere in the middle? I've snapped a couple of tapes (VHS and Beta) right at the reel ends while fast forwarding or rewinding, but just a couple and this is over the years, not months -- in those cases there were some internal "idler" wheels and "brakes" in the VCR that had come loose (pads fell off) so they were rewinding at the speed of light .

But if it's breaking in the middle of a tape ... hmmm ... can you see what the ends of the broken tape look like, have you dissassembled the cassette? Are they sheared cleanly, or does it look like they've been stretched to the breaking point? I'm suspecting it's your player at the moment -- I can't remember but does 8mm tape stay wrapped around the guides as it fast-forwards and rewinds (like Beta and U-matic) or does it get withdrawn back into the shell? If it's the former, I'll bet it's just rubbing on something and depending on how tight the clearances are, you may be able to shine a flashlight in there and see if there are deposits from a tape being scraped at some point, track down where the tape might be rubbing.

And you also mention the two tapes that broke are from the "same source" -- do the tapes play cleanly? Are there tracking errors up the wazoo (if there are, I would suspect some physical damage to the tape)?

[samijubal]

If it's breaking at the end it may be a bad sensor. I don't know what 8mm uses, but it has a way of sensing the end of the tape and stopping. VHS has an LED in the middle of the tape that shines out to the 2 sides where there are sensors that see the light when it gets to the clear leader at the end of the tape. Beta had magnetic sensors.

[johns0]

Could be that the part where the leader joins to the tape separated or the sensor is bad or the leader is too short or just a one time accident.

[jlietz]

Ok, good comments so far. The tape snapped in the middle both times, nowhere near the beginning or end. I'm not sure if the ends are stretched or if its a clean break because I'm waiting for the client's ok to have the tape fixed or to just send them back. I don't want to open the cassette until I hear from them.
And yes, there are all sorts of playback problems with a few of the other tapes from this same source (client). I've played them in 2 seperate players and the problems are present in both. I'm not sure about the broken tapes because I never got a chance to play them.
I don't see any deposits on anything within the playback mechanism. It all looks clean.

[handyguy]

U need
http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/

Has a huge vcr faq section with just about every possible answer there could be for it.