VCR Heads, you have to do what???

[bhershey]

JVC SR-V101US -> TBC-1000 -> Canopus ADVC-55 -> WinDV

I have a number of these setup and they've been running every day for the last couple years. In the last week two of the VCR's stopped working with a message something like "clean heads". I used a dry and wet tape cleaner multiple times like we usually do every couple weeks and nothing worked, so I replaced the VCR's with a couple new ones I had in stock.

Today I had time to pop the tops and look inside... I prepared a soft cotton cloth slightly damp with a solution of iso/h2o/dawn that I use for film cleaning. I wrapped the damp cloth over my finger and went up and down across the head while rotating it slowly for two revolutions... it took 8 times doing this until the cloth was clean!

HOLY COW!!!

Lesson learned... pop the top and clean for regular maintenance!!

Brian

[johns0]

Don't wipe the heads going up and down,this can break the heads,just rotate the drum with the cloth,its better to use a foam q-tip,cotton can snag the heads and break them.

[bhershey]

Thanks for the tip! I finally looked up how a VCR works and didn't know the read/record heads were the two little slots in the rotating drum. I can see where thread might catch whatever components are inside that slot and yank something apart. I saw one article that describes using iso saturated paper held against the rotating drum to pull the dirt out... I like that idea too.