Fedron to clean the inside of a VCR?

[Fryster]

Greetings,

I am cleaning up a couple older S-VHS decks (internally) to do some video capturing in the near-future........

Question: Would Fedron be a suitable cleaner for dirty VCR’s? Or would it be too caustic for video/audio heads, video drums, rubber belts, pinch rollers etc? I know that it can eat plastic and must be used with caution. Or should I just stick with the iso alcohol?

Fedron contains: Xylol, Ethyl acetate, Methanol, Ethanol, Hexone, Aliphatic Maphtha, water and compound oil #14919

The bottle does say that it can be used on “tape recorders” by the way...

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

[redwudz]

I don't think I would use it on rubber rollers. 99% isopropyl would be safer. The ethyl acetate and the naphtha, at least, sound a bit harsh. If you find crud on the metal parts that the isopropyl can't remove, then you could try the Fedron.

[themaster1]

I just bought a new vhs tape cleaner last week, tape won't even play(clean) although the previous one would.I haven't figured out why just yet.

I would stick to the old grand pa' recipe: q-tip, swab and iso alcohol.
I did it quite a few times and my vcr liked it.
I would also buy a mini (but robust enough) vacuum cleaner to remove dust and debris of all sorts.

[aedipuss]

don't clean any rotating heads with a q-tip or any other cloth based item. you will leave lint in the heads mucking things up. a cassette player was the last tape deck you could clean that way.

[redwudz]

I would agree about the cotton Q-tips and VHS heads. Even worse, those ferrite heads are very brittle and easy to damage. Don't go up and down on them. I use a foam type Q-tip. No fibers to lose.

[videobruce]

I never heard of that. I looked it up and here is a link for the product;
http://www.teeveesupply.com/product_pages/chemicals/fedron.htm

A rubber restorer

That about says it all. Why would you use a "rubber restorer" to clean video heads??

Isopropyl alcohol and chami type cleaning sticks. Period.
I use to use foam covered cotton swabs, but stopped when I found the foam was breaking apart. They were almost as bad as cotton swabs.

[Cornucopia]

No.

De-Natured Alcohol. PERIOD. That is what EVERY engineer tech person (the one's with the EE degree) have told me.

Scott

[johns0]

The only reason to use fedron is to resurface a rubber device such as a pinch roller or belt if they get slick,as to cleaning heads use a chamois tipped stick with 99% isopropyl cleaning the heads sideways.

I've been using q-tips to clean vcrs for the last 25 years doing it in repair shops,it will leave strands and pull out ferrite heads if you dont know what you are doing but it's the best method for cleaning heads.

I've talked to engineer techs who dont know how to repair anything and every repair tech i know uses 99% isopropyl.

[videobruce]

The IA I was referring to was not the watered down version from a drug store, but 99% pure IA from a electronics supply house. From Wikipedia:

Isopropyl alcohol Uses;

Thus it is used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid, especially for dissolving lipophilic contaminants such as oil. Examples of this use include cleaning electronic devices such as contact pins (like those on ROM cartridges), magnetic tape and disk heads (such as those in audio and video tape recorders and floppy disk drives), the lenses of lasers in optical disc drives (e.g. CD, DVD) and removing thermal paste from IC packages (such as CPUs.)

Denatured alcohol Uses;

As a fuel for marine and ultra-light camping (backpacking) stoves. It is inexpensive, may be extinguished with water, and can be transported without special containers. However, safety concerns do arise from the near-colourless flame with which alcohol burns.
As a sanding aid, as the alcohol helps to more easily remove excess dust because it does not open the wood grain the way that water does.[4]
As a mealybug exterminator.[5]
As a cleaning aid in removing ink stains from upholstery or clothes
As a solvent in shellac and shellac-based products.

Doesn't sound as I would use this over my choice.

[T-Fish]

The only reason to use fedron is to resurface a rubber device such as a pinch roller or belt if they get slick

id use acetone in that case.