Guide To Cleaning The DVX100(a) Recording Heads

85 hours on my heads and I've finally got the swabs, 99.93421% isopropyl (which I had to research to find out that using this is ok, even though Barry says to use Isopropanol) and got the Rubber Renue. According to the guy at the electronic store that the Isopropyl is alright to use. I also went a previous posters method of removing the door screws and removing the protective covering for the record head in order to reach the head better.

Everything worked out great! Doing this was a snap. Sort of. You need to be a bit careful when removing the screws as they are very small and at a weird angle and you risk dropping them into the camera. Just guide it with your finger. It's trickier getting the screws back in then out. It is a bit hard to clean the capstans and guides in a horizontal motion as you can't really tell if they are spinning and there is no way to keep them from spinning while cleaning as they are tiny. So I cleaned in a diagonal motion, cleaning and spinning at the same time. The rubber renue is some potent stuff so don't huff that stuff too much. :thumbsup:

After working on the DVX i got excited to clean my other vcr's. I cleaned my JVC SVHS deck and that was super easy. ALthough the chamois swab seemed to start shedding and can't figure out if it was caused by the Rubber Renue or by the grippy-ness of the rubber pinch roller. I'm gonna try and clean my DSR-11 next. I'll need to find some instruction of that one though. Anyone clean their DSR-11? Was it pretty easy? Don't want to remove the wrong screw.

Thanks for the guide Barry, peace out.
 
Hey Ian--glad everything worked for you. I should probably mention that isopropyl alcohol=isopropanol just like ethanol is another name for ethyl alcohol. Methy alcohol is methanol. You get the idea. Not everyone suffered through organic chemistry like me, I guess. :)
 
"What about the old adage - If aint broke don't fix it?"

Ok, if your car runs fine, does that mean you should never change the oil?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, BUT, if you neglect regular cleaning, it will eventually be VERY broke, and you won't be able to fix it...

Just a thought...
 
Well, I tried it. First I did my P.O.S. GL1, just in case I messed something up... (Canon has had it more than I) Then I did a small consumer JVC, then the XL1s ( there is one that is a PEST to get into), then I did the DVX, even though it only has 9 hours on it. All went well, all recorded and played back just fine. I have been mixing tapes and wanted to give them all a good cleaning out. I have tossed all the Sony tapes, and will be using PQ's from here on out.... THANK YOU BARRY!!
 
Nevermind, I got everything I need. HOWEVER, does anyone know where I can get thin swabs? It's extremely difficult to work with thick ones. I've tried a bunch of places but I haven't found thin ones. Any help would be awesome.
Thanks.
Paul
 
I tried cutting down the ones I got... the plastic is too hard to cut! i'm going to try radio shack tonight. I hope their handles are easier to cut. By the way Barry, thanks for this tutorial. It was pretty simple... and I just got the red X of death recently (about 1 month after I found this website!) and I have 70+ hours on my cam.
Thanks!

PS.. it's a good thing u state everything on here cuz some guy tried to sell me those qtip swabs for cleaning!
 
I have a question.....I have noticed that the lens feels "loose" when I manipulate it, and am wondering if there is a way to tighten it up, or is this standard for all dvx's?
 
I've cleaned many heads, from 3/4" U-Matics to Digibeta, never have we used chamois, only disposable lint free tech cloth. When asked why, my boss stated chamois can snag and damage the heads. He does use the chamois swabs to clean capstains and rollers.
 
I am not confident in cleaning my camera heads. Which cleaning tape is recommended purchase for my dvx? And is the recommended time to play the cleaning time 5 seconds or 10?

The other alternative is to get it professionally cleaned, where can I have that done? And how does that work? Anyone had experience getting their dvx professionally cleaned?

Thanks.
 
I tried to clean the heads on my dvx but still got the red circle X. I definitely didn't force the issue as I was being very careful. I couldn't really reach all the head with the chamois sticks I have. Anyway after that I ran the cleaning tape for about 4 seconds and haven't seen the red circle since.
 
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions: I've shot 60 hours of tape and have no problems, I'm about to go out and shoot another 40 next week, I'm wondering about the "ain't broke, don't fix it" addage versus cleaning my heads. I looked at them, and they appear clean, if they NEED to be cleaned, would you be able to tell by looking at them?
 
The manual for the dvx100a says not to use 80 min. dv tapes. We discovered this lately and had already run 4 or 5, 83 min. tapes to cover long wedding ceremonies. Why can't you use these 80 min. tapes? What sort of damage will occur? We really run over the 60 min. line with some of the wedding ceremonies.
 
Back to the tape heads. We have run about 60 hours using mixed tapes sony then panasonic. Finally, all of a sudden, we got blue screen when trying to play back video. The tape seemed to be running, so we figured it was dirty heads. We took it to a panasonic factory servicer and they couldn't make the screen show in their test, however, they found that the tape heads and tension had gotten out of alignment. Cost $300 for use to get that fixed. We were also told that if you use sony tapes (wet) that you need to use the panasonic head cleaning tape to prepare your cam for panasonic tapes prior to switching.
A media company that is a panasonic dealer and a tape distributor said they had 6 customers who had problems as a result of using sony then panasonic. He said that sony want admit their tapes cause a problem, but obviously they do.
 
Wow. I just discovered this amazing forum, register, & stumble upon a great, informative post like this.

Thanks for the info Barry.

Hugo
 
It's not the Sony tapes that are the problem, it's the mixing of wet and dry lube tapes. If you use a wet lube tape like Sony, you should either stick with the same tape or make sure the complete tape transport path is cleaned before switching to dry lube tapes.

Safford Productions said:
...
A media company that is a panasonic dealer and a tape distributor said they had 6 customers who had problems as a result of using sony then panasonic. He said that sony want admit their tapes cause a problem, but obviously they do.
Click to expand...
 
I've always thought tape stock was like motor oil: stick with a brand you like. Does it really matter if you buy Sony or Panasonic or TDK as long as you're consistent with what you feed your camera?
 
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