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Old 05-14-2014, 04:19 PM
jlb2 jlb2 is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 14
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1ajs View Post
99% rubbing alchohal recomended for cleaning the tape?
Not cleaning actually. What these tapes need is baking: the problem <ith EIAJ tapes has been found a long time ago to be sticky shed syndrome. The urethane binder loses its bonds which are replaced by water molecules, softening it enough to shed and stick on the transport with a horrible squealing noise.

If your tapes do not squeal, don't bother. If they do, you can "bake" them to 55°C for the time it takes to remove the water (it can be a day or two for a 1/2" tape), after which it is playable for a few weeks, and then progressively reverts to its shedding condition, but not worse than it was before. A tape can be baked several times, so put the tape back into storage when you have made a copy, for future use. There are several ways to "bake" a tape, and a kitchen oven is most definitely not one of them, it cannot regulate at such a low temperature and is perfectly able to melt the plastic, tape and reel alike. You can use a food dehydrator, or a laboratory oven, or even a cardboard box, a hairdryer and an industrial thermostat - which is what I do and it works well.

BTW the meter doing strange things at power-up is very common for machines of this age, it doesn't imply that there is a problem. Sorry, I can't see the needle on your video.

Last edited by jlb2; 05-14-2014 at 04:28 PM.
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