On 09/09/2013 02:35 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:


"dave" wrote in message
...

On 09/09/2013 11:10 AM, Gareth Magennis wrote:


Those are contacts, not the head gaps. Where is your "black sludge"
coming from?




You are not making a lot of sense.
Both VCR and DAT heads get dirty, black stuff comes off them when you
clean them, then they work properly again.


Seriously, the only "stuff" you should see is maybe some shedding from
cheap tape, usually more brown than icky black. Do you have a lot of
smokers around?



Look, if you had bothered to read this thread properly you would know I
used to repair DAT machines for a living.

I know what it is to clean a dirty head, and I know what the results of
doing so is. I have done this a lot.

Clearly you haven't, but instead have probably destroyed a couple of
heads by cleaning them with a Q-tip, and then come to the perverse
conclusion that cleaning DAT heads does not work.




Gareth.

Usually I used a chamois swab and a fluid especially made for head
cleaning. But, running a large fleet of helical scanning VCRs and DVRs
(BetaCam, U-matic, Panasonic M, DigiBeta, you name it); we found the #1
policy to keep the heads clean is to forbid the use of certain brands of
tape and to keep food out of the machine areas. Black grease indeed.