Digitizing Audiovisual and Nonprint Materials by Scott Piepenburg

Author:Scott Piepenburg [Scott Piepenburg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440837814
Publisher: ABC-CLIO

Like a turntable, a cassette deck requires some basic maintenance. If the drive motors are in good shape, a simple cleaning may be all that is needed. Using isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab, clean the tape heads and pinch roller. The pinch roller is the small rubber “wheel” in the lower right-hand part of the tape well. You may need to have the deck on and press “play” to expose the heads and wheel to adequately clean them. Be careful to not allow cotton strands to wind around the pulley or the capstan. Use the same alcohol to clean the heads.

If the deck has not been used in some time, or after every 30 or 40 hours of use, a demagnetizer should be used on the heads. These devices are available at most electronic supply stores. When using them, make certain that all audio and video cassettes are at least 10 feet away as stray magnetic energy from the demagnetizer could cause distortion in the source material. When using the demagnetizer, follow the directions that come with it; each model works a bit differently. Under no circumstances should you use a commercial cassette cleaner unit. These devices which look like cassette tapes are designed to be put into the deck and “played” for 20 to 40 seconds. While convenient, they often contain abrasive tape that can damage the heads and the pinch roller; if you have one, throw it away now!; it isn’t worth the risk. Tape heads should be cleaned approximately every 20 to 30 hours of tape play time; more if you are playing poor-quality tapes. There are two schools of thought as to when to clean the heads. Some say directly before making a critical recording, others say immediately after playing a low-grade cassette; generally, it doesn’t matter so long as the alcohol on the heads is allowed to air dry before playing a tape.

Figure 5.15 Cleaning the tape-path parts of a cassette deck.

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