Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Heads

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I know what you said about the tape cleaner but, I think if you use it every ten of use, you wouldn't have the build up. Use your tape as a part of your use and you will be fine. Don't open your camera cause you will void the warranty.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Saturday at our Wedding I almost had a heart attack when the red circle with the white x in the upper left corner came. After looking at the manual and reading this post I lost that sinking feeling in my gut and chest. I have color back in my face and thanked God for this website ;D
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

You were videotaping your own wedding? :o
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

[quote author=Barry_S link=board=Events;num=1091157196;start=60#62 date=11/09/04 at 08:03:04]You were videotaping your own wedding?   :o[/quote]

Not mine. I have been married for five years. ;D

The wedding we videotaped.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

What a mountain of information on a very important subject. I have had my DVX100a for just a fortnight (2 weeks) & am sucking up any & all info.
ERICCOSH, on reading your post I knew I wasn't the only 1938 model here, suspect LONE_LOBO could be similar vintage.
Regards from OZ.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I'm replying to Linc and the others who reporded the white circle with the red cross error. This happened to me very recently at probably the worst possible moment.

I was taping an event (the only camera in the room, so if I didn't get it, no one would) where a very prominant polititian was giving a speech for a Foundation. I was gathering pre-event B-roll and about 10 minutes before the speaker arrived, I got the error message. I switched to VCR mode to review the tape and was horrified to see a "venitian blind" effect in the video. I had a full case of tapes, so I quickly switched tape and after about 10 seconds, the same problem occurred. I went through every MQ tape and it kept happening.

It was now about 1 minute before the speaker was scheduled to arrive and I was litterally wet with sweat. I started madly running thourgh my menu screen and hitting buttons (I inadvertantly set the tape to LP mode) tryinig to see if something was wrong. When I got the message that the polititian was arriving I grabbed one of the previously tried tapes, slammed it in, and hit record. My prayers to any God listening must have worked because the error indicator ceased and I was able to get the speech and the rest of the event, albeit in LP mode.

I was completly frazzled and all of my careful light planning and settings were totally out of whack. As a result of turning the shutter off, the shot was much darker than I would have liked, but the footage was acceptable, thank God. I previewed as much as possible before handing it off to the client and it looked Okay. After getting back in touch with them a few days later, they seem very happy with the footage. Once again, thank God.

Now I have to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

I'm not comfortable with poking around the heads myself and after talking with a Panasonic rep, I bought a Panasonic head cleaner. It took a bit of searching to find a place with the Panasonic head cleaner in stock, apparently the AY-DVMCLA is on backorder. I just now used the tape, beforehand spraying compressed air in the chamber to clear off any lingering dust.

I'll reply back after I do a test.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Just recorded about 20 minutes of footage with a friend, after blowing out dust from the dock with compressed air and then running 10 seconds of the miniDV Panasonic Head Cleaner (AY-DVMCLA). Good news is that the error message has not reappeared. Played back the tape and checked it out with a s-video cable plugged into a Pro Sony monitor and it looks great.

While I was recording, I did a little bit of goofing off and messed around with the shutter speeds. I love that 1/250 shutter look on 24p. Has that cool "28 Days Later" feel. I didn't really see that much of a difference between 1/250, 1/500, and 1/1000 other than light variations.

Anyway, the head cleaner worked well for me.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

After weeks and weeks of putting it off I finally grew the confidence and used Barry's method for cleaning the recording heads. Thanks so much for posting this Barry!

A couple questions:

1) The Chamois swabs I found at a store in my town are pretty wide, possibly over a centimeter, making it really hard to move them horizontally when cleaning the back angle pins and kind of hard to move them around the recording cylinder. If I want to cut a Chamois swab in half should I just wash the scissors in soup first or would it be a good idea to also dip them in recording head cleaner before cutting the Chamois swab just to be safe?

2) Is it safe to also use compressed air when cleaning around the recording heads? If so, is it safe to actually point it down by the recording heads or just on the door above them to avoid blowing any debris or particles into the recording heads?

Any help from Barry or anyone else is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. :)
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I don't think washing the scissors in soup is a good idea. Particularly, cream-based soups may leave substantial residue. ;D Seriously, I wouldn't stress about the scissors--just wipe them down with a damp cloth. A big NO to using compressed air on the heads--you can potentially do more harm than good by blowing around particles at high velocities and some of those cans can also have particles mixed with the compressed gas.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Thanks Barry.

Haha...guess I need to check my spelling more. ;D
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Barry,
Used you guide after we got all the stuff in and cleaned all four cameras. I was really nervous doing the first one, but once we saw it worked and all was well, the indegestion went away.

Thanks for the pic inside, it was perfect.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Last night while recording a wedding on my 100 I saw a circle in red with a slash down the middle.. It kept coming up so I switched to my 80 as a backup. When I got home I looked it up in the manual and it said cylinder heads need to be cleaned.. I don't know if I should attempt this or bring it to my dealer for servicing..What would you guys do?? thanks, Barry
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

ERRATA : The Panasonic manual has a serious missprint.
On studying the original Japanese technical documents , it has become apparent that when filming a wedding or other unrepeatable event , with only one camera, and the white circle with the red x in appears , it does NOT mean "clean heads" - the actual translation would be more accurate as "admit defeat and slash wrists now". ;D
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Tonight I found the courage to use Barry's cleaning method, although without rubber cleaner.
I guess I must be a bit claustrophobic. The chamois swab could not reach nearly everything I needed to clean and by the time I got it carefully snaked over under and around, the alcohol was drying out. Tried several times but this swab seems Huge to me.
I started getting frustrated and so decided to take a close look at the door mechanism to see how hard it would be to provide easier access. Guess what - carefully remove four tiny screws and you get good exposure.
I took a few shots while doing this (see below)
Just be aware, these are very small phillips head screws and you will need about the smallest screwdriver out there.
I removed two screws at the door end of the arm that keeps the door from swinging out too far. I removed two screws that hold the little plastic cover on just over the head. I wrapped a fairly wide rubber band tightly around a pencil and used that to gently turn he head under the swab. I was extremely careful not drop the screws into the camera or to lose them.
Warning!! You do this at your own risk and, I'm guessing, probably void your warantee. I only tried this because I have the tools, and I'm crazy - and don't have a warantee.
After cleaning everything (except the rubber part) I didn't worry about the alcohol not having time to evaporate because it took me about 15 minutes with tweezers to get those screws back in! After I finished the cam worked fine as usual.
I think this must be the way a tech would get in for cleaning, probably takes'em 5 minutes.



360005818.jpg

360005919.jpg
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Here are a couple more images showing the exact screws I worked with.
360162222.jpg

360162335.jpg
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I just read all five pages of this thread very carefully. I was having serious problems with the black venetian blinds effect, blue screen, timecode issues, a residual still from an earlier clip playing venetian blind style over the present clip, etc. for more see my desperate post:
http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=Events;action=display;num=1104603132;start=0#2

My trip to two Radio Shack stores yielded only the cleaning solution - no chamois swabs or rubber cleaner. I'll persevere. In the mean time I got the Panasonic AY-DVMCLA Digital Video Head Cleaner from Circuit City, popped it in, hit play for 5 seconds, waited a bit then 5 more seconds (following the comment made earlier in this thread quoting a Canadian Panasonic tech rep) and viola! everything is back in working order! I'm stunned. I honestly was not expecting this to do a thing.

However, because of what I've read here, I'd like to avoid using a cleaning tape in the future, so I'll accumulate the materials needed and use Barry S.'s method in the future. Thanks Barry for the help.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I haven't recieved my camera yet, but I am in Iraq where dust is everywhere, the sand/dirt is very fine, so it creates a constant state of dust in the air during most times. I obviously don't have access to an Authorized dealer, so I pose the following question. Since I have no choice but to use tapes, as I don't feel comfortable being a novice and cleaning the heads manually, how often can I, or is it recommeded to, clean the 100a with a tape cleaner? Every day of filming? Every 2,3,4,5 hours of cleaning? Please advise... I don't want to ruin it! Thank you. I really appreciate the tips and the threads on the site. Plus, I just recieved BARRY GREEN's DVX GUIDE and I must say it is amazing! Very very helpful with many things including the anamorphic adapter which I ordered w/ the camera.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Sounds like your situation requires special care. I would think that how you store the camera is going to affect a cleaning schedule more than anything.
It has been a very long time since I was in the military, but we used to have easy access to empty ammo cans, you know the ones, that are hermetically sealed when latched. I'd look for something like that if they still use them. I have a couple from surplus I use to store 4lb. bags of silica gel. Works great.

BTW - If you are military, I want to personally thank you and all our other friends over there for what you are trying to accomplish. It's got to be about the toughest job in the world right now.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Hi Landon,

As Soliton mentions, you're going to need to take a bit of extra care. A good sealed case is a must. Be very careful about opening the tape compartment when you're outside. If you can duck inside a building/tent/vehicle, there's less of a chance for stuff to blow in. The cleaning tape should be used sparingly, so every day (or even every 5 hours) would be very tough on the heads. I don't know what your communication situation is, but I'd be happy to walk you through the cleaning process over the phone (any time of day/night would be cool with me). If there are any news crews handy, I'm sure a cameraman could also help you with the head cleaning process.
 
Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

Re: Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Head

I don't know if this repeating something already mentioned but I haven't read it anywhere.

I am using Sony tapes (wet lube) I would like to eventually switch to Panasonic tapes. Will cleaning the heads according to Barry's instructions in a way "Reset" the heads so I can then start to use the Panasonic tapes? Or should I still stick to the Sony tapes. I would like to get the most out of the camera by using the best Panasonic tapes I can, but at the moment other projects and past projects have me using Sony tapes.
 
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