Head Cleaner - Which One?

[pmcarro]

I have an XL1S. I need to clean the heads. Which brand is best. Canon recommends a dry cleaner but doesn't give any brands.
Thanks

[overloaded_ide]

Not for everyone, but I take mine apart and clean manually with denatured alcohol every so often. My old player is about 10-11yrs old, never hurt it. Also used to do my beta, but it just plain wore out after all these years. Heads are great but the drives and clutches are shot!

If in a hurry like today, I put a few drops into a wet head cleaner and run about 3 times! My Old player was so dirty today it would not play video on some tapes at all and on others it could not track correctly or detect tape speed. 3 runs of the head cleaner tape with denatured alcohol and it was working great again!

I just did some really old uncared for home vhs camcorder tapes for a friend, and that just wipped out my heads in about 5 tapes plays! Why I needed to clean in a hurry today.

I don't use rubbing alcohol!! Has too much water in it. DENATURED is was I use. Also if you find some repair shops willing to give advice on this, they will tell you same thing. Water in rubbing alcohol can posibly rust the heads in some players.
Also most shops will tell you those dry headcleaners wear down your heads and scratches them, over time that can cause alot of problems!
Kinda like a few tiny scratches on a CD or DVD doesn't hurt, but as they add up over time you know what happens to your disks!

Canon must either figure the average person does not need to clean that often, but we're not average around here are we
OR figure by the time the head gets wore enough for problems it's out of waruanty??
Most the time heads have a shorter warauntee than the full player does! I wonder why?? I saw one brand recently 1yr limited warauntee nice big letters, then in the manual the little part about Heads waraunted for 90 days!
Yea sure no problem if those go bad right??? Most expensive parts!
But I think most or all of them do that.

[FOO]

I find that straight Scotch Whiskey works the best.
My head is completely empty for days after a good dose.

[SARK]

[barrybear]

From An Expert

Do not use a cleaning tape.

Obtain some chamie leather or LINT free cotton , Metholated alcohol
Look where the tape travels and gently clead all aereas where the tape passes espcialy wash lines on guides. Around the sound sync head pinch roller , Rap the cloth around your finger so that the cleaning surface is tight around your finger and turn the pinch roller on to the cloth .

The rotary head drum. this must be treated with care but rap the cloth around your finger and hold it next to the head . Gently turn the head in the direction the tape would pass over it ,could be up to 6 heads. you can go in both directions and the weight of a buterflies wing will sufice. also the area under the head where the tape is guided that does not move .
you can look closely with a spy glass to see it is clear. some times oxide can be burnt on to the surface of a head you can remove this but it means the head could be damaged. Do not take the head off to clean as you can upset thr switching timing

Barry

[pmcarro]

Okay thanks, I don't know if I want to get that deep into the camera. I might just send it in for cleaning.